|
|
|
| MATR Newsletter - Tue Aug 14, 2007 |
|
This MATR newsletter sponsored by: Add an event... Upcoming Events
New Events
MATR supporter: MATR Web services provided by:  To subscribe or unsubscribe from the free weekly MATR newsletter, please visit our list info page |
"The most important gift anyone can give a girl is a belief in her own power as an individual, her value without reference to gender, her respect as a person with potential." Emilie Buchwald
One of the greatest challenges states and communities are going to face in the future is a lack of talent with the skills to propel their economies forward. The solution lies in the children who will be the leaders of tomorrow. If you have a daughter, we'd like to suggest that you get a copy of this book and encourage her to read it. - "Math doesn't suck" - Interview with math whiz, author, and "Wonder Years" and "West Wing" actress Danica McKellar"- http://www.matr.net/ar ... .html
Boomtown Institute
Come Home Montana
- The Agurban from Boomtown Institute - "You're Hired! From Book Smarts to Street Smarts"
The skills introduced in the "You're Hired!" workshop are skills that employers nationwide see as crucial to success in entry level positions within their company.
MAPS™ : Media Arts in the Public Schools
- The Code of the New West - Sen. Jon Tester
The Code of the New West outlines the realities of living in the rural West. It reminds newcomers that Montanans are respectful of property, and that the great outdoors belong to everyone. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this issue. Feel free to give my office a call, toll-free in Montana, at 866-554-4403.
- Missoula, Montana a top mountain town
This university town nestled in the northern Rockies is one of the best mountain towns in the nation, says National Geographic Adventure magazine.
Developing a more Entrepreneurial Montana
- A Hollywood expat trains would-be Scorseses in Montana high schools - MAPS™ : Media Arts in the Public Schools
"I learned how to edit film, but I also became a better person," says MAPS graduate Luke McLean, 19. "I learned how to organize myself, establish a budget, and work with a team."
Developing Tech Jobs in Rural Communities
- University Network for Social Entrepreneurship
It is designed to be a resource clearinghouse and an action-oriented discussion forum, which enables the expansion of social entrepreneurship education and participation around the world.
Funding and Building your Business
- How to Recruit Talent in a Hot Market: Everything You're Doing Is Wrong
"A hotter job market combined with a limited IT talent pipeline means you have to be more proactive—and more sophisticated—in your recruiting methods."
- Life on the Great Plains is anything but plain and simple but the Internet and Information Technology are making a difference.
"We have to be creative and help local people understand eco-tourism, pheasant hunting and how to make these activities business for themselves," says Hamilton, whose family foundation funds education efforts. "We are settling back to a more reasonable balance between population and the environment."
- Getting Unstuck: Telecommuting instead of commuting
With the rise of the Internet as a tool for accomplishing almost any task, Eger says, telecommuting, instead of actually commuting, could be the answer to our problems if we embrace it fully.
- Off to Resorts, and Carrying Their Careers
As technology enables people to live and work wherever they want, increasingly they are clustering in resort playgrounds like Steamboat Springs (pop. 9,315) that have natural amenities, good weather — and, now, lots of people like themselves.
Education
- What Your CPA Wishes You Knew
To accomplish these goals, your accountant can function most efficiently when you:
- Penny-pinching entrepreneurs changing world of venture capital
Today, the operative phrase is "bootstrapping.
- How Will Millennials Manage?
Nothing seems to set off managers I talk with more than the topic of managing Gen Yers, otherwise known as "millennials," those born beginning in the late 1970s. Here's what they tell me:
- 15 Ways to Create Innovation with IT
Behind every successful innovator are effective leadership and management practices.
University TechTransfer
- "Math doesn't suck" - Interview with math whiz, author, and "Wonder Years" and "West Wing" actress Danica McKellar
Every parent of a daughter should buy them this book. Every elementary and middle school should have several copies and encourage every young girl to read the book. Maybe it should be required reading for 5th and 6th grade math classes. Boys could learn from this too. Outstanding!
- U.S. needs more students going to college
By 2025, the United States faces a deficit of 16 million college-educated workers. These jobs, instead of coming to the U.S., will go to other nations.
- Measuring community college performance
Increased accountability for educational outcomes has become a focus of policy ranging from K–12 to higher education.
- Technology helps med students in Boise learn skills — from afar
X-Box simulations could be one step toward better care in rural West, around the world
- School Board chairman blasts Montana Governor Schweitzer over funding
"Frankly, the most depressing thing, in a year when we have an incredible surplus, is we're not talking ... about innovation," Taylor said. "The parsimony about education budgets in this state is going to come back to haunt us."
Connectivity & Communications
- Retooled Office Helps Translate Discoveries into Applications
Research universities generate a lot of ideas that can impact society, but an idea's path from ivy to impact is not always clear.
- Share the fruits of state-funded research with taxpayers
The premise of a sensible state IP policy is simple: The public should share equitably in the fruits of the research for which it paid.
Cool Stuff That's Coming
- Montana Telecommunications Association Monthly Commentary - Telcos help fight Montana Fires
Whether they’re connecting COWs in remote locations, or deploying fiber optics to serve regular fire camps, Montana’s telecom providers are willing and able to respond to any situation.
- How safe is your wireless?
In my experience, at least half of the home and business Wi-Fi networks in Missoula (and I learned this rough statistic this by driving around town with my MacBook and watching the networks come and go) are not as secure as they can be.
- ConnectKentucky Success Spurs Formation of a National Organization. "Connected Nation"
Since the launch of Kentucky's Prescription for Innovation in late 2004, ConnectKentucky has facilitated efforts garnering unprecedented success in broadband deployment and technology advancement.
- Microsoft said prototype Internet device was broken when FCC tested and failed it
Microsoft is part of a coalition of companies that wants to beam high-speed Internet service through unoccupied TV channels, also known as ''white spaces.''
- Wisconsin Announces Cell Phone and Internet Access for 350,000 Wisconsin Citizens
"To grow our entire state economy, we must work from region to region, and develop efforts tailored to local communities," Doyle said. "For businesses, entrepreneurs and families to be successful, they need access to cell phone and high speed Internet access."
Incubators and R&D
- Rolling out a new kind of battery
The battery uses paper infused with an electrolyte and carbon nanotubes that are embedded in the paper. The carbon nanotubes form the electrodes, the paper is the separator and the electrolyte allows the current to flow.
Developing Funding Opportunities in Montana
- E. Idaho scientist searches for anti-alcohol drug
The Idaho State University researcher says some of the mice are teetotalers, some he calls wine with dinner mice, and some are raging alcoholics.
- Free polymers and plastics manufacturing information session in Bozeman on August 27
Dennis Hayford, director of the Polymers Center of Excellence in Charlotte, N.C., will present a short overview of the center's plastics and polymer capabilities, latest technologies, workforce training opportunities and project successes.
Montana Business
- KTEC boosts venture capital in Kansas
The Kansas City area does not have any venture capital firms actively pumping money into the life sciences.
Economic Gardening
- Montana business, Ladies in White, challenges federal rules limiting scattering of remains
"They're our public lands," she said in a phone interview from her Missoula home. "We all own them."
- "Cultured Log Homes" Reinventing the fire resistant and energy efficient log home.
"Cultured Logs solve the typical problems you have with a wood log home. It's a worry-free home. You're going to have the same home at year fifty as you did at year one."
Montana Economic Development
- Global Economic Gardening: An Alliance for Business and International Education in Rural Nebraska.
“Nebraska must grow regional business leaders with an international focus to become a competitive global player,” said Deborah Murray, project director. “This program is designed to change the current paradigm among our younger population and current business people to think about growing global entrepreneurial capacity by seeking global partnerships, acquiring global business knowledge and engaging in global economic growth.”
Regional Economic Development
- Montana Department of Commerce Awards $216,000 in Funding to Lake County for Ashley Martin, LLC
"Ashley Martin currently has 20 employees in the Arlee area," said Governor Brian Schweitzer. "Additional jobs from this expansion will help strengthen Arlee's economy and create significant employment opportunities for several families. I am committed to improving local economies in every corner of this state."
- Going nowhere: What’s happened to ethanol-production hopes in Montana?
More than two years after Gov. Brian Schweitzer touted his plans to jump-start ethanol production in Montana, the state has the same number of ethanol plants it started with: Zero.
Utah Economic Development
- The Positive Economic Impacts of Early-childhood Intervention and Education
"Early childhood interventions have demonstrated consistent positive effects on children's health and well-being."
- Grants for Vulnerable Populations in Rocky Mountain Region
LibertyGives, the grantmaking arm of the Liberty Media Corporation, will award $250,000 in grants to charitable organizations in the Rocky Mountain region that prevent, detect, and treat medical problems among vulnerable populations, including the homeless, indigent, and uninsured.
- Year Up gives young adults 18-24 a leg up on their careers
Year Up is a one-year, intensive training program that provides urban young adults 18-24, with a unique combination of technical and professional skills, college credits, an educational stipend and corporate apprenticeship.
- Rural Minn. brainstorms ways to lift economy
No community can pin its long-term economic future on one industry. That includes renewable energy, which sometimes is viewed as a potential savior.
Idaho Business
- Davis Business Alliance’s Incubator Program Hatches Fledgling Companies in Northern Utah
The alliance works with the Service Corps of Retired Executives, the Small Business Development Center and Grow Utah Ventures, a local venture capital firm, among others, to provide training, development and counseling opportunities to new companies.
Washington State Business
- 70% of Idaho schools don't meet statewide academic goals
Seven out of 10 schools didn't meet statewide academic goals in 2007 under the federal No Child Left Behind law, practically a reversal of last year's results.
- Managing growth in Post Falls, Idaho
New community development director offers fresh look at issues
- Whitewater park proposed for Garden Valley
The combination of a world-class course and some of the best natural whitewater make a fantastic combination."
Montana Education/Business Partnerships
- New Report Shows the SBDC is a Good Investment
The study, released by the SBDC, is composed of survey responses from clients who received at least five hours of assistance and revealed that those clients surveyed saw greater sales, employment and revenue growth than the average business in the state. Total tax revenues, both state and federal, were positively impacted as well.
Careers
- University students test the research field as interns at the McLaughlin Research Institute in Great Falls, Montana
"It's been a fabulous opportunity," said Daniel Zimmerman, who is studying biology at the University of Notre Dame. "It's given me a lot of insight into what could potentially be a career."
Non-Profit News
- Why It's Time to Broaden Your Job Search Beyond the Big Boards
"I learned that you are a lot more apt to find companies that are serious about hiring and know exactly what they want at the niche sites,"
- Tips for Guiding Teenagers Toward Wise Career Choices
My column last week on guiding teenagers' career choices stirred strong opinions -- and emotions.
Energy
- Wanted: nonprofit leaders
Charities seek to deliver results – and fill top jobs.
Transportation
- Analysts See ‘Simply Incredible’ Shrinking of Floating Ice in the Arctic
“The melting rate during June and July this year was simply incredible,” Mr. Chapman said. “And then you’ve got this exposed black ocean soaking up sunlight and you wonder what, if anything, could cause it to reverse course.”
Montana Education Excellence
- Congressman Ridicules Bikes as '19th Century' Technology
During debate over the House of Representatives' energy conservation bill, North Carolina Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry ridiculed bicycling as a "19th century solution."
Community
- MSU Credit $marts program for teachers, parents is available free on the Web
Teachers and parents looking for a way to teach how credit card charges work have a free resource on the Montana State University Extension Web-site.
- MSU branding itself as University of the Yellowstone
Montana State University is calling itself by a cool new name, the University of the Yellowstone. MSU is so intent on getting exclusive use of that moniker, it has applied to the federal government for a trademark.
- Montana Tech in Butte will soon be offering a degree in Web Development and Administration.
The Montana Board of Regents recently approved the degree which is unique in that its major focus is on the organization and management aspects of web sites.
- 'Complete streets' program gives more room for pedestrians, cyclists
The idea of creating "complete streets" for cyclists, pedestrians, mass transit, and cars is gaining popularity across the country.
- "The Bridge" Supporting People with Disabilities to Enforce their Civil Rights "THE MONTANA ADVOCACY PROGRAM"
The room was electric and the world was lifted in those moments, not only for the dancers but for every person who was there. Was it a miracle? Maybe.
- A new Medicare "tip sheet"
The four-page document answers common questions for beneficiaries and health care providers, such as what drugs are covered under each part of the Medicare program, and points to additional information available online or by telephone.
To subscribe or unsubscribe from the free weekly MATR newsletter, please visit our list info page