The State with the Best Education Wins!
	MATR Newsletter - Fri Sep 15, 2006

MATR Web hosting provided by: Add an event... Upcoming Events “Journey Toward An Undivided Life”, 9/15-17, Lakeside, MT Three-day NASA Robotics Workshop, 9/15-17, Dillon, MT City Club Missoula To Discuss City Local Study Commission, 9/15. Missoula Grassroots & Groundwork 2006 "What Communities Are Doing To Get Out And Stay Ouf Of Poverty, 9/16-19, Saint Paul, Minn. Northwest Water Policy and Law Symposium, 09/18, Bozeman Montana Digital Government Summit, 9/19, Helena, MT MNA Hosts Nonprofit Congress Town Hall Meetings In Kalispell 9/19, Bozeman 9/20, And Helena, 9/26 TechRanch Presents "Innovation That Matters" With IBM, 9/20, Bozeman Energy Venture NW At Banff Venture Forum, 9/21-22, Banff, Alberta Local Living Economies Lecture, 09/21, Missoula Cut Bank Chamber Of Commerce Hosts Lunch With Governor's Chief Business Dev. Officer, Evan Barrett, 9/21, Cut Bank Lewis & Clark Pioneer In Industry Awards Honor Tom Siebel And William Allen, 9/21, University Of Montana, Missoula Local Living Economies How-To Workshop, 09/22, Missoula, MT "The Climate Challenge: Strategies For Montana's Future", 9/22-24, Helena "Spotlight On Leadership And Poverty" Workshops In Central And Eastern Montana MATR Roundtable "Innovation That Matters" With Experts From IBM, 9/22, Missoula MSU College Of Business Hosts Annual Family Business Day Sept. 22, Bozeman, MT 2006 Montana Faith Community Impact Summit, 9/22, Billings, MT New Events TechRanch Presents "Innovation That Matters" With IBM, 9/20, Bozeman Cut Bank Chamber Of Commerce Hosts Lunch With Governor's Chief Business Dev. Officer, Evan Barrett, 9/21, Cut Bank Energy Venture NW At Banff Venture Forum, 9/21-22, Banff, Alberta "The Climate Challenge: Strategies For Montana's Future", 9/22-24, Helena MATR Roundtable "Innovation That Matters" With Experts From IBM, 9/22, Missoula "Spotlight On Leadership And Poverty" Workshops In Central And Eastern Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer “State Round-Up” 9/25, Missoula Great Northern Development Corporation And SBDC Present A Marketing Workshop, 9/27 ,Wolf Point Investing In Clean Energy In The Pacific Northwest, 10/4, Seattle, WA Montana Technology And Security Symposium (MTSS), 10/9-12, Helena Meet Idaho National Laboratory!, 10/23-24, Idaho Falls, ID Third Annual Northwest Energy Technology Showcase 2006, 11/15, Bellevue, WA To subscribe or unsubscribe from the free weekly MATR newsletter, please visit our list info page

"Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Signup under way for program designed to help small Montana towns thrive http://www.matr.net/ar ... .html -- There are also a number of excellent events occurring during the next few weeks. Take a moment and look at the events list on the right side of this newsletter and participate and network. Hope to see you there. Russ

2006 Montana Elections

• YouTube.com becomes new battleground for Montana Senate race
  YouTube, where people can post videos for free, is one of the most popular Web sites in the United States

Come Home Montana

• Economic Development Leadership Opportunity in Southeastern Montana
  SouthEastern Montana Development Corporation (SEMDC) is seeking a highly motivated individual for the position of Director of the Small Business Development Center.


• Montana Job Opportunity - Web Editor- The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
  Responsibilities include sustaining the overall vision of RMEF's official website and continuously writing and editing material to keep the site current and engaging.

Developing a more Entrepreneurial Montana

• Rocker Huey Lewis shares industry knowledge with UM business students
  The class is part of the School of Business Administration's entertainment industry program, which prepares students for careers in the industry by bringing in renowned managers, executives and experts in the field.


• L'Entrepreneuriat, le territoire et les conditions de leurs dynamiques cumultives
  Une présentation systémique des arguments du choix occupationnel et de la croissance conduit à mettre en évidence le fait que les effets de l’action entrepreneuriale sur la croissance peuvent difficilement être considérés indépendamment des effets en retour sur les paramètres de choix individuels, a fortiori en référence à un ensemble de ressources et d’activités économiques localisées en interrelation ou en interaction.

Developing Tech Jobs in Rural Communities

• Virginia Gov. Kaine Creates Office of Telework Promotion and Broadband Assistance
  "Telework cuts air pollution, reduces vehicle miles and makes employees happy. State government should lead the way."

Montana Education Excellence

• MSU students win second in national NASA design competition
  "It's unusual for students to win a significant competition like this without having a lot of faculty involvement,"


• Giving kids a flying start - Laurel Aviation and Technology Week - Would you like to help put this on?
  Organizers keep in mind the motto "knowledge is what you use to get ahead in life," Bayne said, and strive to give kids hands-on lessons to help them make life decisions. The events are open to students in kindergarten through high school.

Education

• Tour promotes higher education in Montana
  The Silver Cloud Tour, named after the Montana Rail Link train, is aimed at recruiting students and promoting Montana Partnering for Affordable College Tuition (MPACT) — a pilot program to help Montana high school graduates from median- to low-income families pay for college.


• Film rolls for new University of Montana commercials..."Got Griz?"
  University of Montana administrators are promising a new kind of advertising for the University of Montana, and are enlisting UM students to help them do it.


• WWAMI offers Montana med students a chance to stay in state
  A major purpose of the program is to allow students to do class work and part of their clerkships – job shadows of medical professionals – in their home states.


• The School of the Future
  "It's a big change and it's about transforming education by making it more engaging and empowering to students by having technology at their fingertips,"


• Victor Schools venture toward progress. ‘No problems' with shortened school week
  “It seems to be working quite well,”


• Montana Sen. Baucus unveils education proposals to improve Montana's education opportunities. "The State with the Best Education Wins!"
  The Montana Democrat said Thursday his bill would send thousands more Americans to college to obtain science, math, and teaching degrees, and help prepare millions more American children to learn early in life. “I want to do all I can to ensure that jobs stay in Montana where they belong,” said Baucus. “This bill will restore education as the foundation of a strong Montana and U.S. economy.”

Montana Economic Development

• Great Northern Development Corporation And SBDC Present A Marketing Workshop, 9/27 ,Wolf Point
  By giving small businesses tools to run their business more effectively and finding alternate ways to market their products the small businesses can broaden the market of customers they service.


• Cut Bank Chamber Of Commerce Hosts Lunch With Governor's Chief Business Dev. Officer, Evan Barrett, 9/21, Cut Bank
  “Evan coming to Cut Bank gives us a first hand report on those projects. As organizations and as individuals we need to be active in both business retention and new business development,” said Beley. “Towns that are proactive in business development have the best chance of prospering in the years to come.”


• Sen. Max Baucus - Taking the Pulse of Charitable Care and Community Benefits at Nonprofit Hospitals
  I look forward to hearing where hospitals succeed — and where they fail — to serve the community. And I look forward to learning how we all might better “bind up the injured” and “strengthen the weak.” Sen. Max Baucus


• Signup under way for program designed to help small Montana towns thrive
  Montana State University Extension is seeking involvement from small towns in central and eastern Montana to participate in a program designed to build community capacity to address critical local issues.


• Montana DEQ testing electronics recycling program. Helena holds recycling event this weekend.
  This weekend, consumers will have a new option, thanks to an experimental effort by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. The state agency is testing the waters for a Montana-wide electronics recycling program and, so far, the interest has been high.


• New development authority leader impressed with Great Falls, MT
  "I will also be asking you what you can do to help the authority, beyond providing financial support," he said. "I'm a big believer in networking so I'm going to be asking you what we need to do to take Great Falls to the next level."

Developing Funding Opportunities in Montana

• "Crafting Colorado's State Venture Fund"
  Colorado Fund1 makes seed- and early-stage investments ranging from $250,000 to $3.3 million in qualified businesses.


• Funding by venture capitalists rising in America's Middle
  Venture-capital funding, though lagging the West and East coasts, has been rising sharply in the Midwest and could be poised for bigger growth in the coming years.

GIS Technology

• Geo what?
  The geospatial industry might be one of the fastest-growing industries you've never heard of. Most people don't even know what "geospatial" means, let alone what it takes to land a job in the industry.

Funding and Building your Business

• Marketing a Moral Idea Takes Some Finesse
  More consumers are voicing concern about companies that don't pay their workers a fair wage, or engage in unethical practices. That sentiment seems to be spilling somewhat into their buying habits.


• Using the HR Intranet to Transform Job Evaluation
  Many perceived job evaluation drawbacks arise from the process, rather than from job evaluation itself. Intranet technology can transform the process to eliminate the disadvantages while retaining the benefits.


• These rules will help companies offer quality customer service
  Negative buying experiences are almost always linked to shoddy service. But customer service hasn't gone the way of the dodo. Providing it isn't that difficult if you and your employees enact these 10 basic rules:


• The Valuation of New Ventures
  Traditional tools fail to capture the value of new ventures, such as R&D projects and start-up companies, because of their dependence on future events that are uncertain at the time of the initial decision.


• Search engine optimization: What's the word?
  


• Startup Smarts. The recipe for success: Keep it simple.
  Startup is the best time to form good habits that can simplify the way you operate as your business grows. Here are 10 tips to help you start simplifying your business right now:


• Business angels - Giving ideas wings
  Entrepreneurs can struggle to raise the first million or so, even with a good idea. But a business angel might smile on them


• Inside Entrepreneurship: Try testing business idea at your work
  I can't remember where I heard the following saying, but I liked it immediately. It goes something like this: When you face difficult challenges, unfairness or heartache, you have one a choice -- you can become bitter or you can become better from it.

Regional Economic Development

• Western Rural Development Center’s fall newsletter, Rural Connections
  In this issue we look at land use in the West including the impact new growth in high-amenity areas is having on rural communities, and how communities value and preserve agricultural lands.


• City plan seeks business fairness. Women, minority owners could gain better access to funds
  The Construction Empowerment Initiative, which Hickenlooper hopes the City Council will pass this fall, is heralded as a model program for other cities.

Utah Economic Development

• Immigrants turn Utah into mini-melting pot
  These influences have helped give the state a reputation of being warm and welcoming to immigrants.

Government Technology

• Montana gets national online recognition. 6th Best in the Nation
  The state agency was recognized for special achievement in Geographic Information Systems, otherwise known as GIS.


• Governor Tim Kaine Opens America's First IPv6 Training Center. Does your state know what this is?
  "Virginia is the national epicenter of the next generation Internet,"

Idaho Business

• Idaho Tech council OKs legislative wish list to boost Idaho high-tech industry
  Group will seek $38.8 million to boost Idaho high-tech industry and $50 million investment tax credit

Wyoming Business

• Wyoming lawmakers back coal-to-liquid project. Delegation seeks approval for $350M in tax credits to Houston company
  "Wyoming has abundant natural resources that can further increase the independence of sourcing petroleum products in the United States, and this program is important to developing those resources for the benefit of both the state and the country as a whole," the trio wrote.

Government

• Some new cities outsource city hall
  Newly formed cities are giving the keys to city hall to private companies that say they can run a government better than bureaucrats.

Other Economies

• Ohio's new slogan aims for CEOs. "Build Your Business. Love Your Life."
  The campaign follows similar efforts by other states, and it complements recent recruiting trips by Ohio Gov. Bob Taft in search of companies wanting to expand.


• Urban business to get a boost. Wisconsin Gov. Doyle offers seed money, advice for minority ventures
  Gov. Jim Doyle on Wednesday announced a six-point package of state resources to help seed minority entrepreneurialism and homegrown jobs in some of Wisconsin's hardest-hit communities.


• Governor lays out economic development plans for Tennessee
  His plan includes an emphasis on community colleges; he would like to guarantee free tuition at community college for qualified high school students.

Incubators and R&D

• Yellow Bay, Montana Bio-station eyes role as ecological data hub
  If successful, McKee imagines the Flathead Lake facility operating as a regional hub for NEON, a host site where data can be compiled and stored, and from which scientists can base their operations.


• Inland Northwest Research Alliance - September 2006 Newsletter
  We hope this publication will assist us in keeping you and faculty at your respective universities informed about INRA's activities and opportunities for collaborative research and professional development.

Careers

• 2006 Best Careers: The Results Are In
  What are the best careers? CareerJournal.com found out by asking people what makes them satisfied in their careers and then finding careers with those qualities.

Energy

• Pa. Treasurer Launches New $90 Million Keystone Green Investment Strategy with Focus on Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources
  Casey said his new Keystone Green Investment Strategy is one of the nation's most comprehensive among institutional investors and the result of a yearlong series of meetings with private sector investors, financial experts, non-profit state energy funds and others.


• Honda sees possible new process that produces a "significant increase in production of bio-ethanol,"
  The improvements deal more effectively with "fermentation inhibitors" that get in the way of the microorganisms.

Connectivity & Communications

• Access-fee bill roils Net phone industry. Telecoms defend premium charge; others fear it will stifle innovation
  As Congress debates disputed Internet neutrality laws, supporters and defenders of the concept of equal pricing for all on the Web faced off yesterday at the VON (Voice Over the Net) trade show in Boston.


• The Online Supernova: 15 Years Of The World Wide Web. Happy Birthday Web
  In late summer of 1991, an information technology consultant named Tim Berners-Lee posted an unassuming message to the alt.hypertext newsgroup, making public a project he had been working on for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). He began, "The WorldWideWeb (WWW) project aims to allow links to be made to any information anywhere."

Transportation

• Hill County Commissioner (Montana) flies to Washington D.C. to defend Big Sky Airline
  It will mark his first time testifying before the Senate. Big Sky, the only airline to fly out of the airport, needs subsidies to keep afloat.


• BMW to lease hydrogen cars in April
  Eager to put its stamp on cars with green credentials, BMW announced Tuesday that it will roll out the world’s first hydrogen-burning car in serial production early next year.

Leadership Montana

• An Undiscovered Path to Personal Growth
  This ability to lead horizontally across organizational boundaries, without formal authority over others, is a key capability for a 21st-century leader.

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