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| MATR Newsletter - Fri Jan 15, 2016 |
"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men (and women)." Frederick Douglass
Montana Superintendent Juneau Announces Record Breaking Graduation Rate http://www.matr.net/ar ... .html
Big Sky Economic Development
Early Edge Montana
- BillingsWorks launches Employer Survey
This survey is intended for employers in Yellowstone County, Montana, to be completed by an individual in an HR, management, executive or ownership position.
Montana Data Focused Business Cluster
- Anaconda, Montana preschool in the groove, thanks to $500K federal grant
"We implement the grant fully this year," said Barney, in her third year at the helm. "Full implementation means it's a full-day program with a full staff."
Great Falls Development Authority
- Forbes Insights: Betting on Big Data
By analyzing everything from consumer transactions to location data, organizations are realizing key business advantages and achieving a measurable impact on revenue.
Montana Office of Tourism & Economic Development
- Forbes named Great Falls as one of the 25 best places to retire
The list takes into account factors such as cost of living, taxes, and crime rate.
- 2016 Call for 'Fire Within' Women Business Owner Nominees!
We need your nominations! Who should be recognized?
Energy and Climate Change
- The Montana Small Business Development Center Network is now accepting applications for the 2016 Shark Tank Style Live Business Plan Competition!
Live Pitch Business Plan Competition
Come Home Montana
- San Francisco Becomes First City To Ban The Sale Of Plastic Bottles
The move is building a global movement to reduce the huge amount of waste from the billion-dollar plastic bottle industry which is taking a toll on the environment.
- Let solar reach its full Montana potential
The future of the solar power sector depends on the leadership of Montana policymakers.
- Panel: Renewable energy tech could eliminate utilities
Evolving renewable energy technologies such as solar and wind could some day mean consumers no longer need utilities to provide them with electricity, allowing consumers to drop them.
- To Cut Emissions Faster, U.S. Should Ditch Tax Credit-Based Subsidies for Renewable Energy
A growing body of research suggests that the ability of the tax credits to slow climate change would have been still greater had the value of the subsidies been instead linked to the amount of GHG emissions displaced by installing renewable energy.
Developing a more Entrepreneurial Montana
- Montana Career Opportunity - Accounts Payable Clerk - S&K Technologies, Inc.
Visit our subsidiary websites http://www.sktcorp.com/careers-at-sk/ for a listing of job opportunities at each individual company.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Integrated Marketing Manager - Adventure Life
Do you love marketing, branding and the wide technology avenues available today? What about world travel and adventure? Want to combine the two passions? Then, Adventure Life could have your next career opportunity.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Billings Employment & Training Specialist - REO
We work together with more than 300 rural families as they struggle to support themselves and their families.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Director - The Sustainable Business Council
The Director's primary responsibilities are fundraising, implementing the Board-approved strategic plan, program development, and oversight of daily operations.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Development Director - Montana Conservation Voters
The Development Director is responsible for leading the fundraising efforts of MCV's 501(c)4 and Political Action Committee, including membership building, major donor cultivation, business support, and event planning.
- MERCURYcsc Hires Jason Pollock as New Executive Creative Director
Some people just prefer 25 and snowy to 72 and sunny.
- Finances out of control? Move to Montana.
A new study ranking all 50 states on their residents' money management skills finds that Montana comes out on top, thanks largely to the state's low cost of living and unemployment rate.
- The best part of living in Billings?
Here's why I live in Billings and not L.A.
- Montana Career Opportunities - Engineer Interns (Construction & Operations), Business Management Interns, Engineer Computer Science Intern and many more... - Northwestern Energy
We encourage employees to find opportunities to use their leadership skills to contribute to and strengthen the organization.
Montana Business
- CodeGirl Movie & 2016 Technovation Challenge Free Admission!, 1/31, Missoula, Montana
Every year, Technovation challenges girls all over the world to build a mobile app that will address a community problem. This year, we want to field more teams from Montana!
Careers
- Missoula-founded and based Glo European Windows Awarded Best of Houzz 2016
Glo European Windows was chosen by the more than 35 million monthly unique users that comprise the Houzz community from among more than one million active home building, remodeling and design industry professionals.
- Mesa Labs expects growth, expanding near Four Corners
The 60-employee Bozeman facility will manufacture test kits for ensuring the efficacy of equipment sterilizers used by hospitals, dentist offices and tattoo parlors. The new building will also include space for research and development, as well as a warehouse for storage.
- Missoula-based 'The Nooky Box' Raises Over $6,000 in 24 Hours
The Nooky Box, the first curated sex subscription box focused on changing the conversation on sex, launched last week to bring couples and individuals, no matter their sex or sexual orientation, a shame-free sexual experience.
- Ex-Vann's CEO George Manlove pleads "not guilty" to criminal charges of fraud, conspiracy
In the more than 40 page document, A grand jury accuses former Vann's Manlove of more than 120 counts of wire fraud, more than 80 counts of money laundering along with conspiracy, bank fraud, bankruptcy fraud and making false statements.
- Go Figure-Missoula "Nothing Tastes As Good As Skinny Feels!"
What do we do at Go Figure? Here is an easy overview of some of the Go Figure weight loss management plan.
- The future of seafood is being developed with the help of freshwater fish, 600 miles from the nearest ocean in Bozeman, Montana.
"We prefer foodwebs to feedlots."
- Longest cattle rally since 1960s burger boom ends
Ground-beef prices are down from a record high 11 months ago, and buyers like Darden Restaurants Inc., owner of the LongHorn Steakhouse chain, expect to see costs for the meat decline for at least a couple years.
- Big Spring Water gets bigger in Great Falls, Montana
New bottling equipment will let Big Spring take over production of all aspects of the bottling, even the labels.
- Tech company commonFont picked Bozeman over Silicon Valley
Located in the downtown Bozeman area, commonFont's founders were once based in California's Silicon Valley. They say they picked Bozeman as the place to start the company because they believed in the community here.
Next Generation Broadband in Montana
- Want to Be an Outstanding Leader? Keep a Journal.
Research has documented that outstanding leaders take time to reflect. Their success depends on the ability to access their unique perspective and bring it to their decisions and sense-making every day.
- Quit Your Business Now Unless You Can Answer 'Yes' to These 3 Questions
Are you actually accomplishing your life's goal? If not, run for the hills.
- 12 Kinds of Kindness Is a 12-Step Program for Beating Your Selfishness
If reality programming has proven anything, it is that audiences possess a goodly appetite for voyeuristic, self-effacing, and redemptive entertainment.
Business Plan Forums
- Huntington Beach, Calif., Considers Offering Broadband as a Utility
"It's an untapped resource that the city could do something with."
- Wi-Fi Hot Spots for Rent: How Public Libraries Are Changing with the Times
Libraries around the country are embracing technology, meeting a very real demand and once again making themselves a leading resource for information.
Government
- 3 Idaho companies advance to national finals of contest for startups
"In California, some people you pitch to who won't shake your hand. They don't want to know your name," Thompson said. "These were pretty friendly confines."
Incubators and R&D
- A big win for Montana businesses, taxpayers
According to information from the state fund, the organization is financially strong. The total "dividend" returned to customers has grown annually from $2 million in 2010 to $35 million in 2015.
- City of Missoula considers purchasing Eko Compost
Superintendent Starr Sullivan, of the city's wastewater treatment plant, told the council the city is paying Eko too much money.
Oregon Business
- Human trials will test freeze-dried poop pills as a weight-loss treatment
It's really happening.
Washington State Business
- Portland picks management team for investment fund to foster startup diversity
The new startup fund is modeled on the Portland Seed Fund, established in 2010 to use a combination of public money and private investment to make funding available to entrepreneurs at their earliest stages.
- Behind the Harney County standoff, decades of economic decline
No place earned more money per resident in 1973 than Harney County.
- Oregon venture capital surged again in 2015
Oregon's technology ecosystem is thriving and employment is soaring.
Education
- High-Capacity Data Centers Blindsided by Increase in Utilities Charges
The electricity rate would more than double in Chelan County, Wash., which would have dire consequences for data centers in the area.
Montana Education Excellence
- Eight Questions to Answer Before Picking a College
College is one of the biggest investments any parent--or student--will make. But how much do they really know about the high finance of higher education? Here are eight questions that should give them a good head start.
- Bozeman weighs making Bridger the state's first charter school
Creating a charter school would allow greater flexibility from state rules
- Startup creates social network for college seekers
Admitsee co-founders on creating a social network for college admissions.
- Code School Udacity Promises Refunds if You Don't Get a Job
Starting today, the Silicon Valley-based startup is attaching this money-back guarantee to four of its online courses, courses designed to train machine learning engineers and software developers that build apps for Google Android devices, Apple iOS devices, and the web.
Community
- Montana Superintendent Juneau Announces Record Breaking Graduation Rate
Montana's 2015 Graduation and Dropout Report finds the state's graduation rate has increased to 86 percent, breaking the previous record of 85.4 percent. Montana's dropout rate has been cut by more than a third since 2009.
- University of Montana, Missoula County Public Schools Collaborate to Create a 21st Century Learning Environment
"We never foresaw the greatest outcome of all: The powerful partnership that emerged between the university and the schools."
- The Minamalists Come to the University of Montana School of Business Administration
Who knows what could result from this type of integrated education. Perhaps a philosophy shop is not that far- fetched after all.
- Montana State University research taken down a notch in Carnegie ranking
MSU has moved from the top "very high research" category to the second of three levels, which labels it as having "higher research activity."
- Montana Tech Lands on U.S. News List of Best Online Graduate Engineering Programs
U.S. News ranked schools using five categories: student engagement, faculty credentials and training, student services and technology, peer reputation, and admissions selectivity.
Funding and Building your Business
- Can Airbnb Unite The World?
"Share your homes, but also share your world."
- Is Bozeman becoming a model Montana city?
Bozeman has achieved a balance that is the envy of the state.
Government Technology
- Sen. Tester's Small Business Workshop - Financing Your Business In The 21st Century, 2/16, Billings
Senator Jon Tester's 16th Small Business Opportunity Workshop will help Montana small businesses maximize their potential by connecting entreprenuers with the capital they need to start and grow their businesses in the 21st century.
- The Single Best Tip From Six Successful Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs tend to reinvent the wheel, but sometimes there's no reason to--especially if that wheel was created from the lessons learned by successful entrepreneurs.
- Why the social media 'buy button' is still there, even though most never use it
Why haven't buy buttons -- or other features, for that matter -- turned social-media sites into e-commerce heavyweights? And could that change down the road?
Miscellaneous Ramblings
- Civic Labs: Improving Public Services From the Bottom Up
Their freedom from bureaucratic constraints on creativity is likely to be a central source of innovation.
Cool Stuff That's Coming
- Peach Is So Hot Right Now. Here's Why the Internet's Obsessed With It
Check out the video for a deeper dive into Peach so you can decide if it's worth at least a temporary install.
- Paper says governments need to prepare for catastrophes like Yellowstone eruption
"It's one of the only reports I've ever seen that takes a geologic perspective in thinking about hazards," said Jake Lowenstern, a research geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey and scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.
Transportation
- Man maneuvers robotic arm with his thoughts
"It's all natural now."
- Software makes 3D maps of buildings in real time
It takes just 10 minutes to digitize the structure.
- This safe battery won't burst into flames
"We've designed the first battery that can be shut down and revived over repeated heating and cooling cycles without compromising performance."
- Amazon Prime is only $73 this weekend
Amazon offered similar promotions last year, after it won Golden Globes for its series "Transparent."
- Self-driving cars may be here faster than you think... 24 to 36 months
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk said that he thinks the technology for full self-driving cars will be ready in 24 to 36 months.
- Elon Musk Predicts Tesla Cars Will Self-Drive Across The United States By 2018
"Ultimately you'll be able to summon your car anywhere ... your car can get to you."
- The Strongest Case Yet That Excessive Parking Causes More Driving
When it's cheap and easy to find a spot near a destination, taking a car becomes a very attractive option; when parking is expensive (say, via congestion or market pricing) and scarce (say, by removing developer parking minimums), alternative modes start to appear more time- and cost-efficient.
- Obama Administration To Announce Self-Driving Car Initiative
Move will speed development of driverless cars.
- Obama administration unveils $4 billion proposal to fund self-driving cars
The agency also noted in this year's goals that it "will consider seeking new authorities when they are necessary to ensure that fully autonomous vehicles, including those designed without a human driver in mind, are deployable in large numbers when they are demonstrated to provide an equivalent or higher level of safety than is now available."
- American Airlines enters Montana market, offers seasonal service to Bozeman
Airport manager Brian Sprenger said Thursday's announcement is the culmination of two decades worth of effort by officials from Gallatin County.
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