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| MATR Newsletter - Tue Sep 19, 2006 |
You may notice that the MATR home page http://www.matr.net looks a little different. MATR has provided a valuable free marketing opportunity to Montana and Regional companies and organizations for over 5 years through its Company listings that have rotated through the MATR pages. Many have enjoyed a significant increase in public awareness and sales due to the free company listings on the MATR pages. Due to its extensive archives, MATR and its articles and posting are usually very high on the search engine rankings. While MATR will continue to provide an index of Companies and Resources http://www.matr.net/co ... phtml which is available to search engines, it is now going to provide a more focused opportunity for those entities that wish to raise their visibility further. ----- MATR is offering up to 20 entities the ability to have their listings highlighted on MATR and rotate through the home page and story pages for either a a monthly subscription of $100 or a yearly subscription of $1000. MATR will also highlight stories about those who subscribe to this premium listing service. ---- Companies and organizations that wish to further increase their visibility can become a sponsor http://www.matr.net/su ... phtml of MATR. Up to 5 supporters will be able to have their listing rotate through the home page sponsor window on MATR for $250 a month or $2500 for an annual sponsorship. --- If you are interested in participating or learning more about this opportunity, please contact Russ at [email protected] or call 406-531-8119.
Come Home Montana
Developing a more Entrepreneurial Montana
- Montana Career Opportunity - Part-time InBusiness Reporter at the Missoulian
- Montana-Jobs.net Featured Career ~ Marketing Assistant
This is an opportunity to use your knowledge, communication, creativity and interpersonal skills. This position reports to the Marketing Director and will be responsible for providing marketing, advertising and administrative support.
- Montana-Jobs.net Featured Career ~ Technology Specialist
This position would provide system support and guidance, including any and all software and hardware relevant to Independence Bank.
Developing Tech Jobs in Rural Communities
- Ladies Who Launch aids new careers
Women-owned businesses are literally a big deal.
Montana Education Excellence
- City Indicators For Success. Hint: Don't copy other cities....
You've read the headlines: Anycity, U.S.A. is the [fill in the blank: fattest, fittest, most livable, poorest, richest, best for kids, worst for dogs, and on and on and on].
Education
- Dennis R. Washington Endows $2MM Fellowship at UM
"The Dennis R. Washington Horatio Alger Graduate Fellowship will rank as one of the top scholarships available to graduate students in the United States," said George Dennison, president of the University of Montana.
- An introduction to MAPS: Media Arts in the Public Schools.
"MAPS is a terrific teaching tool for our high school students." Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer
Montana Business
- Urban gardens feed appetite for education, self-reliance. Does your school have a garden?
Alice Waters, the guru of sustainable and organic agriculture, started The Edible Schoolyard a decade ago in collaboration with Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley. Since then, similar "farm to school" programs have sprung up across the country, from Montana to Florida.
- Idaho's Meridian High tries to create a small-school experience. Goal is to give its 2,100 students a sense of belonging so they'll do better academically
The goal: If kids feel a closer attachment to their schools and believe teachers care about them, they'll do better in their lessons.
- Portland, Oregon schools could spark green building boom
Metro school districts want to build 19 buildings in coming years. If they get the money, most of the districts are considering erecting buildings that meet national environmental and energy efficiency standards.
Montana Meth Project
- Big Sky Commerce (Missoula) and MobileVision Team Up To Enable Mobile Transactions Any Time, Any Place
With the addition of Big Sky Commerce Merchant Services, MobileVision customers will have an easier and faster way to accept credit card transactions in mobile environments.
- Liberty may gain DirecTV
DirecTV is an important asset in the News Corp. empire, said Bob Scherman, editor of Satellite Business News, a trade publication. News Corp. also owns Internet social-networking site MySpace and 20th Century Fox.
- Forestry experts warn Montana against following path of Southwest
“Our forests in New Mexico are in pretty sad shape,” Blazer said. “The exclusion of fire over the last century has left us with forests that are overstocked. We now have a lot of catch-up to do.”
- Migrants filling a void in Montana
“In the United States today, you can’t find many people who want to do agriculture work. When I was a kid, most high-schoolers worked on ranches. You go into a high school today and almost none of them do. “The Mexicans are a necessity in the United States.”
- Montana Manufacturing Center Summer 2006 Newsletter - "Forward Focus"
Successful Montana companies to Share Challenges and Triumphs at Conference October 4 and 5
- Lumber limbo. Rocky Mountain Log Homes of Hamilton says it has bent over backward to remain competitive
In 2002, Rocky Mountain Log Homes moved the house-log milling portion of its operation to British Columbia, after years of struggling to find enough available standing dead trees around the region. The company was enticed to move upward of 40 jobs across the border with promises of a plentiful supply of lodgepole pine killed by an explosion of bark beetles.
- Concerns over film experience voiced in Livingston - "A Plumm Summer"
He urged the Montana Film Office and the city to educate and prepare the community for the next movie that films in Livingston.
- Aerospace firm brings jobs to Belgrade, Montana - Northwest Aerospace Technology
"It will give some real opportunities to MSU graduates, but it will also bring some Montana people home," Erickson said. "And these are real jobs. NAT is paying industry wages, not Montana wages, so these people can have the kind of lifestyle they want."
- San Francisco, meet Grupthink. Grupthink, meet San Francisco or "What happens when you mix a Brit, two Aussies and a Montana techie in a brewery next to Apple HQ on a 100 degree day???"
Cocktails by Google and Breakfast by Yahoo!
Montana Economic Development
- Alaska expects to use Montana anti-meth ads
“We want to scare the hell out of these young people before they try it even once,” said Republican state legislator Jay Ramras of Fairbanks, a proponent of the Alaska campaign called Meth Watch.
Montana Biotech
- Is Montana in eco-collapse?
The state of Montana? In collapse? Why? Diamond claims key problems, including raging forest fires, unsustainable farming, and impending climate change.
- Glacier National Park — Mountains as far as the eye can see
"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves." John Muir
Funding and Building your Business
- Biotech sees successful formula. San Francisco group creates incubator for industry startups
On Friday, in San Francisco, the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research (QB3) introduced its own space where it hopes biotech innovation will spring from what it informally calls the "QB3 Garage." A picture of the Hewlett-Packard garage was hung up at the space to illustrate the inspiration for the name.
Government Technology
- Important Questions Startup Co-Founders Should Ask Each Other
How will decisions get made?
- Managing risk in start-up firm
It is a commonly held belief that entrepreneurs are good at taking risk — that as a group they live life on the edge and are willing to risk everything to win in the marketplace. But research shows that those who start businesses are not always willing to take big risks.
- Being a director harder than it used to be. Tougher laws, longer hours taking a toll on those who serve on corporate boards
"The depositions, the discovery, when you go through this, even as an independent director, you feel violated by all this," he said. "They go through your e-mails. It's a very difficult process, not something you want to volunteer for."
- Tools Help Companies Find, Share Information
Now some companies, including International Business Machines Corp., are tackling the issue with new products based on a technology called social bookmarking that has been gaining adherents among the tech cognoscenti.
- Generation Y wants comfort at work
Businesses are now providing ''personal'' rooms, more open areas and break lounges with full kitchen amenities.
- Chief executives find worldwide audience through blogging
"The blog has become for me the single most effective vehicle to communicate to all of our constituencies -- developers, media, analysts and shareholders," Jonathan Schwartz, CEO, Sun Microsystems
- Govt May Make It Compulsory For Entrepreneurs To Have Own Website
For entrepreneurs to penetrate international market, he said they should be IT savvy.
- "Creating Venture-Backable University Start-Ups"
they discuss the importance of entrepreneurial university start-up companies, and the major issues, challenges and investment payoffs of helping them become “venture-backable”.
- Ideas on the Right Way For Firms to Be Creative
Companies lose sight of the fact that innovation isn't free, that innovation actually is quite expensive and quite risky.
- Failure To Launch: Why Every Startup Should Have A Blog
Though it’s important for many types of small businesses to have a blog, I think it’s even more important for a startup to have a blog.
Idaho Business
- A Case for City and State IT Collaboration
Let's take a simple utility application to explore the possibilities. Imagine the 10,000 U.S. cities and counties, and consider that each has an e-mail system. Taxpayers in each community are paying for software licenses, computing hardware, networking hardware and an IT professional to administer each system.
- Montana Department of Transportation First State Agency to Provide Online Job Application Process
"We wanted to provide people the opportunity and flexibility to apply for positions at MDT in as simple a fashion as possible,"
Washington State Business
- 10,000 new phone lines for Micron. Company mum, but its PUC request said lines are for 'expansion, growth'
Micron isn't talking, but the phone numbers could signal that Idaho's No. 1 private employer is expanding in Boise.
- Idaho High-tech firms invited to take part in survey
Companies will be ranked based on where they fit in different revenue ranges.
Government
- Dirt cheap. Inexpensive land, energy and miles of fiber-optic cable make Grant County, Wash., attractive to big business
"We're both on I-90, and we both benefit from through tourists," said Jonathan Coe, president of the Coeur d'Alene Chamber of Commerce. "People coming from the west heading to national parks, or coming from the east going to Seattle might stop here."
- University of Washington reaches out to the business community
"The university has had a historic problem dealing with business and being collaborative,"
Other Economies
- Affiliated Computer of Dallas, TX Gets $29 million, 58-month contract from the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services Agency
The company currently processes more than seven million claims annually for Montana's Medicaid and mental health services plan. Affiliated Computer also processes eyeglass and dental claims for the state's children's health insurance plan.
Miscellaneous Ramblings
- Raising the Bar on IT and Economic Development
It is a 10-year master plan "to grow the info com sector" and build a well-connected society and turn the whole country into a KIZ or knowledge innovation zone.
Business Plan Forums
- Boston Sidewalks May Go Rubber
"Supporters say tree roots would get a break, snow removal would be easier, runners would be less prone to injuries, and those confined to wheelchairs would have smoother rides. Even repairs would mean benefits because noisy jackhammers wouldn't be needed."
- How to Hack an Election in One Minute
Princeton U. researchers have released a study and video that demonstrate the ease of altering votes on an electronic voting machine.
- The 25 Worst Web Sites You won't believe who's #1 ...
From unforgettable flame-outs to some of the most popular destinations around, no one is safe from our look at the world's dumbest dot-coms and silliest sites.
The Creative and Cultural Economy
- Kent, WA company gets $100,000 investment at the first Zino Zillionaire Investment Forum.
The idea behind the Zino Society is to create camaraderie among people who love talking business and wine.
Careers
- Fly-fishing and a craft that endures. The history of the bamboo fly rod appeals to a wide audience, not just armchair anglers.
However (and here's the happy ending), interest in the bamboo rod has been revived by concerned stewards of the sport, along with the twin engines of the Internet and the 1992 film "A River Runs Through It" starring Brad Pitt.
- Strategies for Creative Spaces and Cities Project Case Studies
Strategies for a Creative City was to produce a plan that addresses the current needs of Toronto's creative economy, that promotes its future growth and that leverages these creative assets to enhance economic and social opportunity.
Non-Profit News
- What to Say When Asked To List Salary Requirements
I said I would prefer to wait until interest in my candidacy was established. The human-resources person sent me an email saying my submission could not be processed without it. What should I do?
Energy
- Google Founders Start For-Profit Philanthropy with a mandate to fight poverty, disease and global warming.
This part of Google.org will be fully taxable, with the ability to invest in a full spectrum of programs and companies.
Connectivity & Communications
- Calif. Tries to Curb Greenhouse Gases - May impact the need for power plant development in Western States
A new California law requires solar panels to be a standard option for buyers of new homes by 2012.
- Missoula Mayor John Engen and 31 other city leaders attend Alaska global warming conference
John Engen, mayor of Missoula, Mont., said his community has had more 90 degree days than anyone can remember. Warming's effect, he said, has had a huge financial impact.
- Converting Ocean Motion To Energy. Off Oregon's coast, researchers hope to pump electricity from from the ocean.
The goal is to wrest kilowatts from the Pacific Ocean waves by using small floating generators that ride the rolling swells and convert the up-and-down motion into usable volts.
- How to Get Funding For an Energy Startup
Right now, the clean-technology sector includes the development of new fuels for cars and trucks, as well as wind, solar and other alternative methods for generating electricity.
- Tides around Golden Gate are potential energy source
The idea may sound like science fiction, but it is a real proposal backed by city leaders who hope it will decrease the city's dependence on oil and make San Francisco a hub for tidal power experimentation.
- People blown away by wind energy
More than 96 percent of Californians believe wind power should be a part of the state's future mix of renewable energy resources
Community
- U.S. Senate Approves Wireless Emergency Alert System
WARN is a national system for the transmission of public safety alerts across a broad variety of communications technologies including wireless technologies.
- Wi-Fi Mesh Deployment in Cleveland Builds Digital Bridge for Local Neighborhoods
"The many uses of a Wi-Fi mesh network go far beyond just improved Internet access. Soon, residents will be able to experience a variety of new services, such as remote healthcare management, which stands to have an immediate and positive impact on this community."
- Broadband Powerline Networking Poised to Win Worldwide Residential Networking Race, Says Group
Powerline networking has advantages over coax and twisted-pair cabling for in-home deployment.
City Club Missoula
- Albuquerque’s New Urbanist Central Avenue: Citizen-Driven Design
"The process created a public consensus that crossed political and interest group lines," says Dickson. "We proved that high density development is good for the environment and good for business."
Cool Stuff That's Coming
- Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer to give "Montana State Roundup" address at City Club Missoula 2nd anniversary event 9/25
Schweitzer will present “Montana State Round-Up” followed by table discussions and questions.
- PayPal founder, Peter A. Thiel backs research on anti-aging. Scientist says humans could live indefinitely
In short, de Grey's thesis is that there are seven main causes of aging, and that if those can be licked, then people could live indefinitely.
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