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| MATR Newsletter - Tue May 27, 2008 |
Thought for the day: There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer's research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely NO recollection of what to do with them.
Boomtown Institute
Montana Community Finance Corporation
- The Agurban from Boomtown Institute - Try Ignorance?
"If you think education is expensive, just look at what ignorance gets you"
Come Home Idaho
- Montana Community Finance Corporation Spring 2008 Newsletter
HELPING BUSINESS TAKE THE NEXT STEP
Come Home Montana
- Idaho Career Opportunity - Director of Alumni & Parent Relations - College of Idaho
The college was recently ranked the 20th best college in the U.S. for "More Things to Do on Campus" by the Princeton Review and is regularly ranked in various publications as a top college in the Pacific Northwest and nationally.
Highway 12 Ventures
- Montana Career Opportunity - Database Administrator: American Prairie Foundation
The American Prairie Foundation is working to create a wildlife reserve on the Northern Great Plains of Northeastern Montana. This reserve is being designed for visitors around the world to experience spectacular wildlife and to protect one of the worlds most important and imperiled ecosystems.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Director of Development - Montana Meth Project
We are seeking an outgoing, goal-oriented, motivated individual who enjoys working in a creative, fast-paced, team environment to lead our statewide fundraising activities.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Director of Institutional Research - Montana Tech
This position serves as the University's official source of institutional data and coordinates the collection, reporting, and analysis of data for a variety of purposes.
- Citizens of Billings, Montana - Shout it from the rooftops: We're No. 3!
Billings, already known as the Magic City, Star of the Big Sky Country and the Town in Search of a Slick Slogan, has another distinction that will separate it from the mere Missoulas, Bozemans and Great Fallses of the world.
- Glacier National Park's glory precious as gold
Each year, nearly 10 million out-of-state tourists make a pilgrimage to play in Montana.
Montana Business
- IdaVation aims to help entrepreneurs on 5/29 in Boise, Idaho
"IdaVation will empower entrepreneurs to be more successful by providing insight into critical factors of business success," said Raino Zoller, vice president of Kickstand.
Montana Economic Development
- Another airline fee hike: Frontier to charge $100 for antlers
"During hunting season, people do bring antlers back in cargo" said a spokeswoman for Frontier. "If you look at some of the other airlines, they also have an actual antlers fee, so it does happen."
- Microsoft selects Missoula, Montana IT company, Pyron Technologies, to participate in product testing program
Pyron Technologies, Inc., based in Missoula, Montana, provides network solutions, medical technologies and website development to companies in Montana and throughout the U.S.
- Economy No. 1 for Montana voters
A slumping economy and skittish job market weighs heaviest on Montana voters’ minds as they ponder the presidential election, a new Lee Newspapers poll shows.
- Indianapolis man's Montana concrete log cabin cuts its fire risk in woodlands thanks to Cultured Log Systems of Missoula
Hansen said Cultured Log Systems sells to people concerned not only about fire risk and maintenance, but about wood logs’ shrinkage over time as well as superior energy efficiency.
- Helio Uses RightNow On Demand CRM to Capture the Voice of the Customer
Helio is supporting its mobile-savvy customer base by using RightNow on demand CRM, from relying on RightNow to gather and act on customers' opinions to giving Helio contact center agents a way to provide timely and relevant information to customers.
Regional Economic Development
- Montana Senator Max Baucus, Plum Creek announce 300,000 acre land agreement
Plum Creek Timber Co. says it is prepared to sell about 300,000 acres in Montana for perpetual public uses such as hunting and hiking.
- Montana Dam Is Breached, Slowly, to Restore a Superfund Site
“There’s 150,000 abandoned mine sites and tens of thousands of miles of logging road in Montana,” said former Representative Pat Williams, who works at the Center for the Rocky Mountain West, a research organization. “This project can be the epitome of a new restoration economy in this state.”
- Plum Creek seeks residential zoning on more than 6,000 acres in Ravalli County
The company’s two major land holdings in Ravalli County are located in the northern part of the valley. One 6,720-acre chunk of land is located in the Sapphire Mountains, east of the Florence area, accessed via Eight Mile Road.
Funding and Building your Business
- States strive to stop the student exodus after graduation
How can we do a better job of connecting students to our region's innovation economy and persuade them to stick around after graduation?
- Growthology.org - Entrepreneurship and all that it implies for faster economic growth
The more research the Kauffman Foundation has funded and engaged in ourselves, the more convinced we have become that, at least until recently, the linkage between entrepreneurship and growth has been unjustifiably overlooked in mainstream economics
Idaho Business
- Building ethical business environment is essential for successful investment
Ethical conduct flourishes in an environment of openness and leadership-by-example.
- Small-business owners need to plan for disasters
Disaster planning tends to get pushed lower and lower on owners' to-do lists as they handle the more pressing day-to-day demands of running a company.
- Workplace Coach: Retain top employees by being a better boss
People are hungry for feedback, particularly positive recognition and appreciation. Unfortunately, few receive enough (if any) of it.
- The Customer is the Company
Threadless churns out dozens of new--with no advertising, no professional designers, no sales force and no retial distribution. And it's never produced a flop.
- Prices for sale of small businesses drop
The problem, though, for owners seeking to sell their businesses is that prices appear to be softening — a reflection of a variety of causes, among them tighter credit markets, rising costs and fewer customers.
- Books let entrepreneurs learn from experience of others
“The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.”
- Depending on Pending as a reason for getting funded
I believe there is little-to-no value in depending on pending patents for a "barrier" to entry.
- Perfecting the Art of the Elevator Sales Pitch
An elevator pitch is a short presentation that you could deliver to someone in an elevator as it travels from top to bottom, or vice versa.
Washington State Business
- J.R. Simplot 1909-2008: 'He did more to build Idaho than any other one person'
As a philanthropist, he gave so much money to so many Idaho causes that no one was able to keep track of it all.
Education
- Cultivating server farms in Eastern Washington
Google is said to operate a global network of about three dozen data centres with, according to some estimates, more than 1m servers. To catch up, Microsoft is investing billions of dollars and adding up to 20,000 servers a month.
- Pelago raises $15 million - Social-network startup wants to expand Whrrl
Pelago has scored $15 million in venture financing, money that the Seattle startup will use to expand its mobile social networking application, Whrrl, in Europe and Asia.
Connectivity & Communications
- Microsoft gives students a peek at the future
Also on hand were 500 or so venture capitalists, university professors and employees from other tech companies - including some Microsoft competitors - who crowded six to eight people deep around the once-secret exhibits, straining to hear what the world's largest software company is doing about online privacy, security, translation and programming for kids.
Energy
- Cloud Computing: So You Don’t Have to Stand Still
It’s a mushy term that is being applied loosely to many things on the Web.
- Where Spam Is Born
Where does all that malicious Internet content come from?
Miscellaneous Ramblings
- Avista using logging slash to power homes
The woody debris will be chipped and hauled to Avista Corp’s biomass facility in Kettle Falls, where it will produce enough electricity to meet 37,500 homes’ needs for about eight hours.
Cool Stuff That's Coming
- San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and actress Jennifer Siebel plan Bitterroot Valley, Montana wedding in July
The 250 wedding guests are being encouraged to book the weekend early, as there are limited options for flights and accommodations in the valley southwest of Missoula. (Although, as the invite notes, the nearby Hamilton airport can handle private or charter flights.)
- How to buy the right laptop PC for your needs
Computer buying used to be relatively easy.
- Teen Decomposes Plastic Bag in Three Months
Burd says this should be easy on an industrial scale: all that's needed is a fermenter, a growth medium and plastic, and the bacteria themselves provide most of the energy by producing heat as they eat. The only waste is water and a bit of carbon dioxide.
- Vint Cerf: The Internet in 2035
From cloud computing to interplanetary communications, Internet pioneer Vint Cerf talks about life in 2035.
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