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| MATR Newsletter - Tue Sep 5, 2006 |
"If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if an hour, I am ready now." Woodrow Wilson
Come Home Montana
Developing a more Entrepreneurial Montana
- Big Sky Conference Launches Big Sky TV to video stream league football, volleyball and men's and women's basketball games on the Internet to benefit fans and alumni around the world.
"This is just the beginning of what we hope will be great media endeavors that will benefit our fans and alumni around the world.''
Developing Tech Jobs in Rural Communities
- Lewis & Clark Pioneer In Industry Awards Honor Tom Siebel And William Allen, 9/21, University Of Montana, Missoula
The award recognizes exemplary entrepreneurs whose professional achievements represent a revolutionary, pioneering impact in their field of endeavor. Past recipients include: Liz Claiborne and Art Ortenberg (Founders of Liz Claiborne, Inc.) and Dennis Washington (Founder of Washington Group International).
- Web site helps teen entrepreneurs
The SBA and Junior Achievement Worldwide have teamed up to develop three new Mind Your Own Business resources: a student activities guide, a volunteer guide and an assessment tool that serves as a companion tool to the student activities and volunteer guides.
Montana Education Excellence
- New Online Tool for Community Revitalization Efforts
The tool, known as storymapping, guides practitioners through the evaluation process, including capacity assessment, performance measurement and evaluation.
Education
- After a year, mentoring proves to be making a difference for areas students
The Excel Mentor Program has been active at CMR and Great Falls High School for one year, and data show that when students work with a mentor, they do better in classes.
Montana Business
- 'Stupid In America' -How Lack Of Choice Cheats Our Kids Out Of A Good Education
"Stupid in America" is a nasty title for a program about public education, but some nasty things are going on in America's public schools and it's about time we face up to it.
- Saying No to School Laptops Programs to Give All Students Computers Come Under Fire Over Costs, Inappropriate Use by Kids
And some parents, while concerned about safety, are still enthusiastic laptop proponents. Anne Carson, a 49-year-old parent in Glen Allen, Va., says the laptop has helped her twelve-year-old son master critical professional skills like how to compile a PowerPoint presentation. "He's really picking up on a lot of opportunities I don't think he would have gotten without the laptop," she says.
Montana Economic Development
- The latest issue of MMEC's quarterly newsletter Forward Focus
- Montana's hospitals play huge role in economy
"I hope people find that as we're growing and bringing state-of-the-art medical care to the state, that there is a lot of value in the size that we have."
- "Hands of Harvest" helps folks find NorthCentrel Montana region's hidden craft, cultural attractions
"Hands of Harvest," maps way to working artists, craftspeople, bed-and-breakfasts, local restaurants, farms and ranches and guide services and other attractions in the Golden Triangle of Montana.
- TEDPrize winner and Bozeman resident Cameron Sinclair's wish: to create a community that actively embraces open-source design to generate innovative and sustainable living standards for all.
In this presentation, he demonstrates the need for a design response to humanitarian crises, and unveils his TEDPrize wish: to create a community that actively embraces open-source design to generate innovative and sustainable living standards for all.
Funding and Building your Business
- Program helps bring financial independence to remote reservation
It's a relatively small step, but one of the growing efforts nationally to bring financial literacy and independence to economically depressed Indian reservations.
- September MEDA Online News...but first....
Congratulations Liz, Joe and Cheryl.
- Old School Station on its way. Kalispell facility plans a full-scale production studio, a performing arts center and a variety of as-yet-undetermined technology companies from around the country
The Flathead Valley’s quality of life will attract up-and-coming workers who, as a whole, prefer to find a job after deciding where to live. However, the valley has to be prepared with jobs that will use those workers’ skills and talents, Miller said.
Regional Business
- My Customer, My Co-Innovator
In industry after industry, a shared model for innovation adoption is emerging.
- Favorite books on business creativity
The list includes: "Think Naked" so take a peek...
- An interview with VC Paul Graham of YCombinator
There’s definitely a trend toward smaller investments, because it costs so much less to start a startup now. And if you take less money initially, you keep more options open. Once you’ve taken a VC-scale investment of two or three million dollars, you give up the option of an early acquisition.
- On the Job: The workforce needs to adapt as Generation Y comes of age
With 10 million GenYers expected to hit the workplace in the next five years, Lanzalotto says both employees and employers should expect a generation that is diverse - and insistent on work-life balance.
- Amateur reviews changing approach of small businesses. Online ratings: It started with restaurants, and now all manner of enterprises find themselves subject to customer opinions
Because people dine out more often than they choose dentists, restaurants so far make up the bulk of online reviews. But as review sites become more established, they will gradually accumulate entries about all kinds of businesses.
- Workers, employers share their secrets of workplace happiness
“There’s no better compliment than people who want to work for you,”
- How to Get to the Top Of Search-Engine Results
Businesses can take some simple steps to improve the relevance of a Web site for search engines -- and traffic and hopefully business -- without spending lots of money on search-engine optimization.
- Business Insight: While trust is hard to build, it is key to being competitive
How do you define trust?
- Nottonson: What is the 'exit strategy' all about?
Exit strategies are discussed as much among small business people as it is with the corporate giants.
Regional Economic Development
- High-tech treatment makes city tours hip
"We're trying to reach the young demographic via iPods," Pyles said. "To give them a way to connect with a city that really has never existed before."
Government Technology
- New SBA chief hears cheers, jeers at forum
"We've got to run a tight ship. We have to be prudent with taxpayer dollars. We have to be transparent,"
- Ireland's Role in the Changing Nature of Manufacturing
Key policy areas that are being addressed include: cost competitiveness and productivity; innovation and technology; skills and training; management skills; market and customer intelligence; and a more targeted approach to supporting small companies with the ambition to pursue significant growth.
Idaho Business
- Michigan.gov Named Best in Nation
"This is a testament to the innovative technology professionals we have in state government that worked so hard to make our site the model for the country," said Governor Jennifer M. Granholm. "We set a goal to make state government more accessible for citizens and friendlier for businesses and this award shows the great progress we have made."
Washington State Business
- Idaho manure-to-methane plant to power 5,000 homes
"We think this could be a very viable addition to natural-gas availability in America," company president, Jacob Dustin, told The Times-News in Twin Falls. "Each dairy in Idaho could become a source for alternative energy."
Wyoming Business
- Pulp mill may find salvation in ethanol
According to a feasibility report funded by the Governor's Office, the process to create ethanol at the mill is not only possible, but the technology is available to make it probable.
Other Economies
- Fledgling winemakers try to sink roots in Wyoming. Producers rely on trial and error, cooperative spirit
The Wyoming association was born two years ago and is dedicated to spreading information to beginning growers and to networking with wineries and grape growers in neighboring states such as Nebraska, where the industry is thriving.
- ProDril founder defends company. Headed to jail, Curlett says he's confident returns will come
During his discussion of the events surrounding the collapse of ProDril, Curlett acknowledged making "a mistake," but said many investors did not fully consider the risks. He said he believes they will still be made whole, and possibly will see a sizable return on their investments.
Careers
- Denver overtakes Silicon Valley. Metro area No. 3 tech hub behind Raleigh-Durham, Seattle
According to a survey by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the nation's top-ranked tech hub is North Carolina's Raleigh-Durham area, which enjoys relatively affordable housing and a thriving job market.
Non-Profit News
- Opposite ends of the labor market face opposite problems
The forces of globalization and technology, however, have made it harder for many workers with less education to find good jobs.
- Web-Hosting Vendor Pays Students to Train at Boot Camp
It's a little difficult to find technology staff in San Antonio for the web-services niche that Rackspace is in, says Marshall. "We'd like to do these boot camps a couple times a year," she says.
Energy
- MNA Hosts Nonprofit Congress Town Hall Meetings In Kalispell 9/19, Bozeman 9/20, And Helena, 9/26
The Nonprofit Congress is a national movement to build a common agenda for the sector through grassroots visioning - already over 100 meetings have taken place across the country with thousands of participants. We need your help to add Montana's voice to this important initiative to shape the future of the sector.
Connectivity & Communications
- Al Gore to Keynote Frank Church Conference on Global Warming in Boise in Janurary
Several other sources have received positive word from Wenske that Gore is indeed coming, and they have confirmed it to New West.
- Ethanol start-up gets $160 million in VC funding
The alternative energy field has attracted such investors as Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Virgin Airways chief Richard Branson, as well as interest from public pension funds such as CalPERS, the California Public Employees Retirement System.
- California no longer No. 1 in wind power. Would you believe that Texas now has the most hot air...
The Lone Star State, better known for its oil derricks and natural gas, now has a capacity of 2,370 wind-generated megawatts, enough to power 600,000 average-sized homes a year, according to a report released by the American Wind Energy Association.
- Catching the Wind. Towering turbines on rural ridge lines could signal the future of energy in Idaho
Compared with the mass of a hydroelectric dam or the stacks of a coal-fired plant, the Wolverine Creek Wind Farm looks benign, almost low-tech. Few would guess that the pale gray turbine blades spinning almost silently in the green hills around Bone provide enough electricity to power 12,000 homes.
Commuter Rail Development
- Spam + Blogs = Trouble Splogs are the latest thing in online scams – and they could smother the Internet.
But whereas email spammers try to induce recipients to buy products, sploggers and other Web spammers make most of their money by getting viewers to click on ads that run adjacent to their nonsensical text.
- Tech firm gaining altitude. Space Data Corp. lands Air Force contract for balloon-borne network
We're a high-tech industry with a new technology the Air Force has recognized called 'near space.' We're in the lead in that right now. It's a technology conceived and founded and developed in Chandler."
City Club Missoula
- Boise Light Rail: Fantasy or Reality?
Our mayors have been saying for years that the time is right for rail transit in Boise. But is the historic "Boise cutoff" any closer to getting sticked back on?
- Which Way for the Next Light-Rail Line in L.A. County?
"There is no question that traffic is getting worse everywhere, Now the question is, if you have a limited amount of money, where do you spend it?"
Cool Stuff That's Coming
- City Club Missoula To Discuss City Local Study Commission, 9/15. Missoula
Sue Malek, chair of the commission, will make a brief presentation and distribute materials about four ballot measures the Commission is recommending to voters in the November election. Included are proposals to change boundaries of wards and the number of council persons representing each ward.
- Startup peddles interactive web ads
"Why scroll around a chewing gum web site and watch people chew gum?"
- Rethinking Google's system. Human-powered search premieres
The value of a service like ChaCha lies in its ability to connect users immediately to a knowledgeable guide, who has experience or background a particular field. Think of it as calling 411 directory assistance on the Web.
- New Web Sites Seeking Profit in Wiki Model
In January 2005 he started wikiHow, a how-to guide built on the same open-source software as Wikipedia, which lets anyone write and edit entries in a collaborative system.
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