The State with the Best Education Wins!
	MATR Newsletter - Fri Sep 30, 2005

MATR Web hosting provided by: Add an event... Upcoming Events Leadership Training Workshop, 9/30-10/2, University Of Montana, Missoula, Montana Montana Nonprofit Association's 4th Annual Conference, 10/03, Missoula Montana Technology And Security Symposium “Hands To Head Learning", 10/03, Helena Computer Security Meeting, 10/03, Helena Eli Lilly Exec, Paul A. Stewart, To Deliver David Orser Lecture At The MSU College Of Business, 10/4, Bozeman HatcHfest 2005: Native American Showcase, 10/4-9, Bozeman, Montana Licensing Your Innovation: Developing The Knowledge And Skills To Net The Best Deal , 10/4, Missoula Evaluating A Business Idea Class, 10/04, Missoula Business Education Network Summit - Bringing Business And Education Leaders Together, 10/5-7, Washington, D.C. Are You Looking For Funds In All The Right Places--STTR Grant Funding, 10/5-6, Missoula Security + / CISSP Boot Camp, 10/05, Helena Montana Aerospace Economic Development Summit, 10/7-8, Butte Wheeler Conference - "The New Realities Of Development In Montana", 10/7, Whitefish, MT Pacific Northwest Biomedical And Life Sciences Summit, 10/7, Spokane, WA New Events HatcHfest 2005: Native American Showcase, 10/4-9, Bozeman, Montana Missoula Nonprofit Network Workshop, 10/18, Missoula Residual Wood Conference, 10/19-21, Vancouver, BC The Montana Constitution: Progressive Spirit Of The Rocky Mountain West Seminar II: Indian Education, 10/21, Helena, MT Montana Natural History Center Gala And Adventure Auction, 10/29, Missoula Missoula Nonprofit Network Workshop--Board Basics, 11/15, Missoula Exporting To Canada: What Your Company Should Know 11/18, Spokane, WA Defense Security Grants Conference, 12/8, Seattle, WA MissoulMissoula Nonprofit Network Workshop--Financial Reports, 01/17, Missoula Wayne Brown Institute Announces 22nd Annual Investors Choice Venture Capital Conference, Feb. 8-9,2006 – Salt Lake, Utah Missoula Nonprofit Network Workshop--Budgeting, 02/21, Missoula Missoula Nonprofit Network Workshop-Major Donors, 03/21, Missoula Missoula Nonprofit Network Workshop-Membership, 04/18, Missoula Missoula Nonprofit Network Workshop-PR and Media, 05/16, Missoula Missoula Nonprofit Network Workshop-HR for small shops, 06/20, Missoula To subscribe or unsubscribe from the free weekly MATR newsletter, please visit our list info page

“The world is changing much faster than our education system. We need to take it up a notch.” Governor Janet Napolitiano, State of Arizona; Statement made with the release of “Getting Smarter, Becoming Fairer: A Progressive Education Agenda for a Strong Nation.”

Exploring E-Learning Reforms for Michigan - Public education must adapt to a changing world by liberating educators and students from the traditional, industrial model. http://www.matr.net/article-16217.html

Come Home Montana

• Featured "Come Home Montana" Community~LIVINGSTON
  Park County has a wealth of untapped economic development potential.


• Montana-Jobs.net Featured Career ~ Business Development Manager...in Livingston!!!
  The business development manager is responsible for closing deals valued between $100,000 and $5 million per year.


• Montana-Jobs.net Featured Talent - Desired Field: Supervisor / Manager
  Senior-level weapons and communications systems supervisor/manager with extensive experience in the management of system maintenance, fault isolation, and instructional curriculum.

Developing a more Entrepreneurial Montana

• "Knowledge Clusters and Entrepreneurship as Keys to Regional Economic Development."
  The report provides economic developers with an understanding of the latest research on the issues surrounding entrepreneurship and knowledge clusters as economic development strategies, along with practical new ideas and tactics.

Education

• MSU students put their best fork forward .... now which spoon should I use?
  One hundred and eighty seven students and 36 table captains attended a three-course dinner complete with exotic wines paired with each course as part of Career Week. Carina Beck, director of MSU Career Services, and her team put on the dinner, hoping that the experience would help prepare students for future social and business events.


• Exploring E-Learning Reforms for Michigan - Public education must adapt to a changing world by liberating educators and students from the traditional, industrial model.
  “The next big killer application for the Internet is going to be education. Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make e-mail usage look like a rounding error.” John Chambers, President and CEO, Cisco Systems


• Russell Elementary students find inspiration in running competition, virtual travel - "Run Russell, Run!"
  Know how to get a bunch of fifth-graders to run 21 miles from Maryhill to Roosevelt, Wash., in a morning?

Montana Business

• Malting plant begins production in Great Falls, MT
  The malt production is the culmination of several years of intense construction and plant development work at the site east of Highway 87 a few miles north of Great Falls.


• Montana Community Finance Corporation of Helena, Montana Launches New Website
  Montana Community Finance Corporation’s role is to package, process, close and service Small Business Administration 504 loans in the state of Montana, specializing in real estate, owner occupied financing.


• RightNow to Hold Annual User Conference October 3-6 at Montana's Renowned Big Sky Resort
  


• Whose bright idea was this, anyway? Montana cities have created a private, nonprofit corporation to buy and run NorthWestern Energy
  Actually, this particular plan to buy the utility didn't originate in Montana. It started in Seattle, in the branch offices of the national management and engineering consulting firm called R.W. Beck.

Montana Economic Development

• The Cost of Katrina and How it May Impact Montana - What's the Future of the Economic Gravy Train?
  The likelihood of the gravy train rolling on forever, however, is nonexistent. The country can’t afford it. The national debt is spiraling out of sight.

Developing Funding Opportunities in Montana

• RAIN® funds: A Network of Angel Funds for the Mid-Market
  Steve Mercil and his Minnesota Investment Network are helping build local capacity to make equity investments a reality by organizing RAIN® funds in communities in the northern Midwest and plains states.


• Venture Funding Program Bearing Fruit for Local Startups in New Mexico
  Robinson is among a group of entrepreneurs who have seen the fruits of a more than 10-year-old piece of legislation designed to stimulate the local technology economy. The legislation, passed in 1994 allowed a portion of the state's investment funds to be used as a matching base for venture capital firms with an "office in New Mexico."

GIS Technology

• Beyond the Web - MapQuest launches $699 navigation device that uses GPS for in-car directions
  The device is the latest move by the Time Warner Inc. subsidiary to extend its brand beyond the Internet in the face of new competition from Yahoo! Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

Funding and Building your Business

• Building a Better Workforce - What technology can (and can't) do to help companies optimize their most valuable asset.
  There remains only a tenuous connection between pay and performance, companies routinely lay off valuable workers and then spend large sums to recruit less-capable employees, and the incessant labeling of the workforce as a company's most-valuable asset seems wholly at odds with the scant efforts most companies make to optimize it.


• The Impact of Regulations on Email Archiving Requirements
  Email is now just as admissible in court, and just as critical for an enterprise to maintain, as are its paper-based records.


• What Investors Look For in a Plan
  From venture capitalists to angel investors, here’s what your business plan needs to include to catch the eye of startup investors.


• New state health insurance plan designed to help small businesses in Montana
  The program will not go into effect until January, but applications are being accepted now, and the demand may prove greater than the number of openings.


• The Adviser - Pull together a basic press kit providing snapshot of company
  Whether the kit is put together internally or handled by an outside firm, the important thing isn't a glamorous look or a weighty package -- it's telling your story clearly, concisely, and at the right time.


• To Patent or Not to Patent?
  Everything you need to know about protecting your invention

Washington State Business

• Startups -- the micro approach
  A Seattle incubator is thinking small, very small, about the next consumer Internet applications


• Harnessing Technology for Community Development is the Focus of Statewide Meeting Hosted by Washington State University
  “Community technology means directly and purposefully using advanced technologies to achieve development goals for individuals and communities,”


• Trade mission to China a success, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire says
  "We are taking on a bigger charter, taking the lead in bringing mature technology from the state of Washington to China,"

Incubators and R&D

• UM neuroscience research garners $9.5 million grant - McLaughlin Research Institute in Great Falls gets $1 million grant - Clinical researchers see role for Montana
  The award is the largest NIH grant given in Montana, Bridges said. UM got the grant because its research center is unique. "We integrate faculty from a wide spectrum of basic science disciplines such as chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics, molecular biology and genetics to collaboratively investigate diseases of the nervous system," Bridges said.

University TechTransfer

• Kauffman spotlights university-entrepreneur link
  "Universities want to more swiftly commercialize discoveries from their labs. Business and industry want to capitalize on the products and services that result from breakthrough research. Venture capitalists want to pluck the most promising investment opportunities. And we at the Kauffman Foundation want to see that entrepreneurship is cultivated to the greatest extent possible."

Small Diameter Timber Utilization

• Kellogg,Idaho schools may use wood heat to save money
  Voters in the Idaho Panhandle will decide Nov. 1 whether Kellogg becomes the latest Idaho school district to switch to using wood fuel to heat classrooms and avoid escalating natural gas prices.

Non-Profit News

• Montana Nonprofit Association October eNews
  MNA 4th Annual Conference - October 3-5 - We have had tremendous response to this year's conference offerings. More than 200 of your peers will convene at the Holiday Inn Parkside in Missoula.

Energy

• Fill 'er up with ... coal scraps? Plant gets funding to transform waste coal into cheap diesel fuel
  Using an updated version of technology first developed by German scientists in the 1920s, the plant will transform waste coal, or "culm," into cleaner-burning diesel fuel and home-heating oil.

Connectivity & Communications

• If Parks Offer Free Internet, Why Can't Costly Hotels?
  Oddly enough, the pricier the hotel, the more likely you are to pay an extra fee to check your e-mail from your room.


• The Meaning of Free Speech
  The acquisition by eBay of Skype is a helpful reminder to the world's trillion-dollar telecoms industry that all phone calls will eventually be free.


• WiFi phone taps into home wireless broadband nets - Cordless phones, your days are numbered.
  An emerging class of WiFi phones lets you tap into your wireless home network to make calls over the Internet, without the snap, crackle or pop of a cordless. Indeed, it might one day make cellular phones (can you hear me now?) obsolete, as well.


• Wireless Internet Institiute Announces Twelve Wireless Communities Best Practices Awards Finalists
  How does your community rank?

Transportation

• Big Sky Airlines cancels planned routes from Kalispell, Spokane to Calgary
  “It’s a credibility issue.”

Community

• The Need For Improved Democracy In Planning
  "For democracy to flourish citizens must become more engaged, empowered, and assertive, and institutions of governance must become more inclusive, transparent, and responsive." (Rockefeller Brothers Fund website)

Cool Stuff That's Coming

• Mighty Mice Regrow Organs
  The researchers also made a remarkable second discovery: When cells from the regenerative mice were injected into normal mice, the normal mice adopted the ability to regenerate.


• $100 laptops for world's children
  Within a year, Negroponte expects his non-profit One Laptop Per Child to get 5 million to 15 million of the machines in production, when children in Brazil, China, Egypt, Thailand and South Africa are due to begin getting them.


• Clothing gives sportsmen a kick up the pants and power to your cell phone
  As if being bawled at by the coach during training were not bad enough, sports stars may also end up being pushed around by their own clothing.


• Eye-Popping Streaming Film Debuts
  "What color film did to audiences used to viewing black and white, what stereo sound did to audiences used to hearing mono, high-definition digital cinema will do to us."


• Chip helps electric outlet go broadband
  In the future home envisioned by Matsushita, people will be able to download and watch high-definition movies in any room of the house that has an outlet.

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