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| MATR Newsletter - Fri Oct 27, 2006 |
"It's time to move beyond chasing individual companies," Brett Doney, New president of the Great Falls Development Authority http://www.matr.net/ar ... .html
If you hadn't heard, Brett Doney is from Maine. MATR has long recommended Maine as a strong comparison state to Montana because of our similarities- Rural character, No major city center, part time legislature, traditional resource based economy, great distance to major cities. Montana can learn a great deal from the economic success that Maine is proactively developing : "Charting Maine's Future: An Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity and Quality Places" http://www.matr.net/ar ... .html
Boomtown Institute
Developing a more Entrepreneurial Montana
- The Agurban E-Zine Issue 98 Oct 24, 2006
What to do with a Big Box?
Montana Education Excellence
- Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
The Lyles Center helps entrepreneurs develop successful companies through integral professional consulting services and programs.
- To drive IT, State needs entrepreneurial makeover. Education is the key.
That speaks to the type of creativity and problem-solving that innovation experts believe is absent in K-12 education. Thieme, author of Islands in the Clickstream, has written about technology's impact on the social and cultural events that affect business, particularly collaboration and work teams, and how executives are oblivious to it. He said the same neglect affects public education, which has been slow to recognize the benefits of creative collaboration fostered by electronic games. "Kids are supposedly `wasting time' on online multi-player gaming, but when half a million people are online at the same time, participating in new social structures, it's not wasting time," Thieme explained. "It's learning new skills and new collaborative abilities. And to give kids the opportunities to explore that rather than just drill down and do exercises about it, is absolutely essential."
- Students score high in the art of free enterprise. A global program that fosters business skills recognizes teens for their success in entrepreneurial and community service ventures.
A professor at Cal State Chico founded the nonprofit program that encourages high school students around the world to succeed in business and be good citizens.
Education
- Hard-earned bucks. Students earn money by reading, doing math on their own time
“We want to teach them about responsibility with money,”
2007 Montana Legislature
- UM, Missoula hosting math, science educators
For people who might be interested in taking a look at the conference without registering Cobbs said the keynote addresses each evening might be their best bet.
- 'I love teaching at this school' Lake City's Mike Clabby is Idaho's Teacher of the Year
"This is a phenomenal high school," Clabby said. "Great teachers, great cooks, great custodians -- it really is -- and above all, you guys are phenomenal kids! I love teaching at this sch
- Hathaway standards could grow for Wyoming scholarship program. Many now have to take remedial classes in college
"We're having an embarrassing problem right now with lots of kids getting to the university or the community colleges and having to take remedial courses,"
- Closing the Gap, Child by Child. Fairfax Sees Gains From 2-Year-Old Effort That Uses Mini-Tests to Steer Extra Help
"We're closing the gap because people are being much more focused and intentioned," said Fairfax Superintendent Jack D. Dale, who took his post in July 2004. "We are looking child by child, and when you do that, you start to see gains. We still have areas to work on. It doesn't happen overnight."
Montana Business
- The fear factor. Helena reacts to “The Walter Ego”
If anything is evident from Adams’ story, the blog comments, and the e-mails flying around the capital that the public will never see, it is the need for, at a minimum, full disclosure and clarification of Walter’s role. Without that, the climate of fear that permeates the issue will continue—and Montanans deserve better than to be afraid of their own government.
Montana Economic Development
- Review unearths more problems at UM space program- The Inland Northwest Space Alliance - Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenberg says it may be too late to file charges against three former University of Montana employees
“It would appear that the matters that the legislative auditor identified are misdemeanor violations, and the statute of limitations had come up before the matter was even referred to me,” Van Valkenberg.
- State chamber tour hears about worker shortages, lack of affordable housing in Montana
"The shortage seems to be everywhere," Brown said. "There's a lack of workers in Eastern Montana because of all the oil and gas activity, but we also heard the same thing from businesses in Lewistown and Hamilton."
- Darby, Montana company, High Mountain Truss, uses state of the art equipment to cut, design tricky trusses
“We've got the latest and greatest designs,” Dembisky said. “We have the least amount of labor and human lifting.”
Funding and Building your Business
- Vonage Launches Service in Montana
High-speed Internet subscribers working and residing in the Cowboy Capitol can now take advantage of the Vonage(R) broadband phone service, featuring unlimited local and long distance calling and popular features like call waiting, call forwarding and voicemail for one low, flat monthly rate.
- Dawson Community College receives grant for economic development
The Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education will receive $1.2 million over two years to administer the grants to recipients all over the state. DCC will receive approximately $300,000 per year for three years. Other area schools selected to receive WIRED funding include Montana State University-Northern in Havre and Miles Community College in Miles City.
- New authority president Doney touts bright future for Great Falls
"It's time to move beyond chasing individual companies," he said. "We need to evolve industries. Energy isn't even in our target industry strategy, but there's a lot of potential with wind, coal and even grain."
- Montana World Trade Center - October 20006 Newsletter - Wanna do more business in Canada?
The Montana World Trade Center, a program of the University of Montana, helps businesses establish and strengthen their international commercial capabilities.
- Rally-racing reality TV program takes off from downtown Whitefish, Montana
"We wanted to start somewhere all-American," Rodgers said. "We love Whitefish."
Utah Business
- 'Googley' Corporate Culture Tries to Breed Innovation
While Google places a premium on success, it appears to shrug off failure. "If you're not failing enough, you're not trying hard enough,"
- How to Change the World: Defensibility
“We’re the only guys who can do this.” ----- This is a signal to investors that you’re clueless and don’t even know how to use Google.
- Giving your business what it needs to fly; three entrepreneurs share their secrets
Thousands of other small businesses, the economy's lifeblood, are felled by a host of factors every year: Poor market research. Insufficient capital. Infighting between founders and investors. Bad timing. Sometimes, entrepreneurs just run out of steam.
- Venture capitalists digesting proposed patent act
Through its "first to file" provision, big corporations will be able to use their teams of lawyers to quickly and firmly file patents, slamming the door on cash-strapped entrepreneurs who may have come up with the idea first — and presumably also on the venture capitalists who could back those entrepreneurs.
- It’s Not the People You Know. It’s Where You Are.
If a start-up company seeking venture capital is not within a 20-minute drive of the venture firm’s offices, it will not be funded.
- Business Guide to the Impact of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Organizations are adopting SOA for business and IT reasons that transcend industry, size or geography—and they are generating real and significant results.
- Inside Entrepreneurship: Hockey sticks belong on rink, not in biz pitch
Investors are not looking for specific revenue numbers or profit margin benchmarks. What they are looking for is a business strategy that makes good, practical sense.
- Springboard launches female entrepreneurs into their calling
Women are majority owners of about 30% of U.S. businesses, says the Center for Women's Business Research. But they head just 3.75% of venture-capital-backed firms, down from 7.7% in 2002, says a Dow Jones VentureOne survey.
Government Technology
- Utah company sponsors programming contest
The winner of the Utah company's free-to-enter "Deathmatch" competition will get a check for $10,000, says Berkeley Data spokesman Devin Knighton.
Idaho Business
- Real World Government Open Source
"When you advertise 'we do open source'" he said, "you attract innovative people. And staff morale is better. They feel like they are a part of something big and they are the owners of what we do."
Washington State Business
- Cholesterol monitor company, Lifestream Technologies of Post Falls, Idaho shutting down
Lifestream Technologies is looking for strategic alternatives for all or portions of its business.
Other Economies
- More backers line up behind open-souce startup - Seattle-based SourceLabs
"Open source, in terms of trends out there right now in the tech world, is one of the biggest."
- Sur La Table to beef up Web site, expand
"It has been hard for us to find the right locations, but we are constantly looking,"
- Venture Capital: Seattle loses Intel Capital office
"The thinking at the time, which has been validated, is that Seattle is an important venture region,"
Miscellaneous Ramblings
- Charting Maine's Future: An Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity and Quality Places
Central to the plan is an argument that the state must invest in what matters—the state's outstanding quality of place and most promising industrial clusters—and do that by streamlining government in order to free up the necessary resources.
Incubators and R&D
- Masi Oka: Coder, Actor, Hero - "Save the Cheerleader- Save the World"
Millions of viewers of NBC's Heroes know actor Masi Oka as Hiro Nakamura, the bored young Japanese office worker who discovers he has the power to alter time and teleport but he still works at Industrial Light and Magic.
University TechTransfer
- University of Wyoming sets research funding record
"Maintaining a string of 20 consecutive years of increase, through good and bad years in the Wyoming economy, is a notable achievement," said Bill Gern, UW vice president for research and economic development. "It is hard to think of anything that has shown a year-to-year increase for 20 years."
Making the Most of the American Prairie
- "University Pre-Seed and Venture Funds"
Discussion on the growing number of universities with pre-seed and venture funds, essential resources needed to help create entrepreneurial start-up companies and commercialize university technologies.
Connectivity & Communications
- Inventor helps grasslands go native
"We're going to change the economics of the native grass seed industry," Arbuckle said. "The Seedster isn't a combine or a stripper, but a new-fangled plucker. This harvester isn't a better mousetrap; it's the first one."
Leadership Montana
- Product helps disabled people use computers
Today, Chappell's Mesa-based company, EyeTech Digital Systems Inc., makes a system that combines a camera that tracks a person's eye movement with speech automation software that orally communicates words a person spells out on a screen.
Cool Stuff That's Coming
- Montana's Leaders of tomorrow - "Job’s for Montana’s Graduates"
JMG is a national award-winning drop-out prevention program for Montana’s at-risk youth. This year the program will serve nearly 800 students statewide and is funded by the Montana State Legislature.
- In Limbo, bidders asked, 'How low can you go?'
Items purchased include iPods (one went for $4.30) to a Mini Cooper ($50.43).
- `Thinking' computers get creative
The machines are contemplative and deliberative, he said. In other words, they think.
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