MATR Newsletter - Fri Jun 6, 2008 |
"Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity." -- Socrates
See you Monday at City Club Missoula: "City Club Missoula Forum - Recycling Wealth - Investing In Missoula, 6/9, Missoula" http://matr.net/articl ... .html --- and if your company is looking to expand globally, here's your chance to influence the location of the next MWTC trade mission "What foreign market would your company like to target for success? The Montana World Trade Center would like your input." http://www.matr.net/ar ... .html
Idaho National Laboratory
Montana World Trade Center
- Idaho National Laboratory a step closer to serving new isotope customers at Advanced Test Reactor
DOE’s Isotope Program, which produces key isotopes for cancer research and treatment, will offer the services to customers.”
- TechLaunch Idaho business competition winners announced. Caring Technologies wins top prize from INL.
Caring Technologies received the $10,000 grand prize sponsored by Idaho National Laboratories
- Agreement struck to keep Navy nuclear fuel research at the Idaho National Laboratory
Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter said in a release the deal re-commits Idaho to its almost 60-year-long support of the Navy’s nuclear fleet “while protecting Idaho from becoming a spent fuel repository by default.”
PrintingForLess
- What foreign market would your company like to target for success? The Montana World Trade Center would like your input.
We hope you are all busy “Taking Montana to the World”! If we can be of assistance, please let us know!
Come Home Montana
- Printing Matters June 2008 Newsletter from PrintingForLess.com
This month we're providing insight into how you can use your culture to become a more dynamic, more productive and more profitable organization.
Highway 12 Ventures
- Former city folk love life in rural Eastern Montana
One of their biggest challenges was getting used to Montana slang. Terms such as “jockey box” or “high centered,” left them puzzled. A “visit” to the doctor sounded really strange to them. When Terri took her vehicle into the garage, the mechanic made a comment about some problem with her “outfit” and she quickly looked at what she was wearing, trying to figure out what was wrong with it, she said.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Director of Loan Services - Bear Paw Development Corporation of Northern Montana
Undergraduate degree in finance, accounting or business administration is required, with course work in business finance and analysis preferred.
Developing a more Entrepreneurial Montana
- Startiing up: How much time do you waste reading and writing e-mails?
Let's face it: Most of us have become slaves to e-mail.
Leadership Montana
- Creating a Vibrant, Entrepreneruial Appalachian Region
Findings and Lessons From an Evaluation of The Appalachian Regional Commission's Entrepreneurship Initiative 1997-2005
Montana Business
- 10 Ways to be a More Strategic Leader
#1. Practice “what’s possible” thinking.
Montana Economic Development
- Montana State Auditor John Morrison: 22 defrauded in plasma screen investment scheme
"This alleged scheme has taken more than $2 million out of the pockets of Montanans while failing to provide the promised investment returns," Morrison said.
Regional Economic Development
- Nominate Montana’s Best Places for New National Geographic MapGuide
The National Geographic Society, with help from partners around the Greater Yellowstone region, is producing a new National Geographic MapGuide that will celebrate and help sustain the world-class natural and cultural heritage of the Greater Yellowstone region.
- Nine (9) new Community-Friendly Grant Opportunities
"Facilitating Community Renewal & Transformation: from Striving to Thriving"
- Malta, Montana dino museum set for its debut
Festivities begin tonight with a special program to honor the folks who made the new museum possible, including the state legislators who persuaded the state to come up with a $500,000 grant and the state Department of Commerce, which built it.
- Montana Folk Festival funding a smart move in Butte, Montana - July 11-13
With just 35 days and counting until the National Folk Festival’s opening act, Butte-Silver Bow commissioners were right to approve funding for critical public infrastructure improvements. This is Butte’s debut on the national stage, and we need to be looking sharp for the occasion.
Business Plan Forums
- Washington asks Silicon Valley Leadership for ideas on how to reverse global warming, improve education and health care and rebuild U.S. infrastructure.
"We have a responsibility to build infrastructure in America ... and to do it in a green way and think in an entrepreneurial way. Our competitors are way ahead of us on this." Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
- House defeats timber payments bill
The House Thursday defeated a bill that would have continued payments to rural counties hurt by federal cutbacks in logging.
Funding and Building your Business
- Venture Capital In The Rockies, 9/9-11, Sun Valley, Idaho
If you're a startup that's raising funds, here's an excellent opportunity to tell your story to hundreds of potential funders.
Incubators and R&D
- When a Business Partnership Goes Wrong
If the business is failing and your working relationship sours, there are steps you can take to either mend fences with your partners or dissolve the partnership
- Failure to delegate can sink growth plans
Relinquishing control is easier when your employees share your vision for your business's future.
- The Best Blogs for Smaller Businesses
To help you wade through the bounty of the blogosphere, we've compiled some of our favorite blogs for smaller businesses.
- Develop an Effective Pitch
TechCrunch has an on-line site for elevator pitches. Visitors can vote "up" or "down" on the product ideas and offer their comments.
- Keeping the best talent possible
Executives of Pepsi Bottling Group rarely leave the company.
- Inside Entrepreneurship: Even new firms need employee policies
"Entrepreneurs make the mistake of not putting in place good employment documents until disputes arise or prospective investors identify problems in proving technology ownership."
- The roll of company advisors (Part II)
The key is to work with Advisors that have skill sets that help solve your company's current and near-term problems. Here is a fractional categorization of the various types of Advisors Startups usually encounter in the Venture community.
Regional Business
- U.S. science: Not enough funding or risk-taking research
Too much science funding goes to established researchers making only incremental advances, rather than high-risk, high-reward experiments by young investigators.
University TechTransfer
- May Naming Names, 2008 - Monthly BBB Hit Parade - BBB Eastern Washington, North Idaho & Montana -
Naming Names is a monthly release of the complaint handling activities of the BBB's non-accredited businesses for the previous month.
Idaho Business
- State Auditor General Assesses Tech Transfer Programs at Arizona’s Public Universities
Is your university system maximizing its tech transfer potential?
- University of Montana spinoff, Sunburst Sensors, Lands Grant To Commercialize Water Sensor
“This is an exciting opportunity to commercialize a sensor while also providing a technology that can help researchers understand how CO2 is impacting the environment,” DeGrandpre said.
- Montana State University offers two new technologies or licensing to entrepreneurs - a seed coating that can increase plants' abilities to withstand salt and a new tool for fighting cancer.
The second technology involves tumor necrosis factor therapies, potential cancer treatments that could enhance a patient's innate immunity.
Education
- High-tech manufacturer, Premier Technology of Blackfoot, Idaho, to double in size
The company will double the size of its Pocatello plant and add 100 workers.
- Buck Knives cuts 23 jobs in Post Falls, Idaho
Buck cites the slowing economy and a “softer than anticipated sales forecast” as reasons for the May 28 reduction.
- Boise entrepreneur Pat Large sees opportunity when economic times are tough
Where others see economic hard times, Pat Large sees opportunities.
- International Isotopes to expand Idaho Falls, Idaho facilities, add jobs
President and CEO Steve T. Laflin said the company plans to search for a location in the coming weeks and months. He said the facility could employ about 100 construction workers and eventually have 30 to 50 full-time employees.
Other Economies
- Education isn't always the solution in poor countries, new research says
As the frustration plays out, the researchers say, it could destabilize India. "What happens," Jeffrey asked, "when the second most populous country in the world can't absorb a huge number of educated men?"
Connectivity & Communications
- Vermont Passes Smart Growth, Affordable Housing Bill
The Vermont legislature passed a bill that encourages residential construction in village and town centers by offering tax credits and reducing permitting requirements. 20% of the homes and rental units must be affordable.
- State set to launch Web site to help startups hook up with partners
The state’s Web portal will be called INBiz-Café and will be open to all kinds of companies, investors and people—not just those in the life sciences. Yet Kidd said that companies creating innovations often have the toughest time finding the companies that can serve their needs.
- Mill Comes Back From the Dead, Town Follows
It is a familiar story: industry leaves, jobs disappear, hardscrabble town is left adrift. Not Newton Falls. As if in a fairy tale, the shuttered mill has come back to life, thanks to a healthy dose of luck, a longtime paper executive’s willingness to take a chance, and the unbending commitment of two men to the place where they had labored for two decades.
Energy
- Grandfather builds Web browser for autistic grandson
So he had one built, named it the Zac Browser For Autistic Children in honor of his grandson, and is making it available to anyone for free.
- The End of Email
You've seen it happening in your inbox for months now. The junk is growing, and the ability to sort signal from noise is impossible.
- Most Comcast Web service to top 100 Mbps by 2010
The nation's second-largest Internet service provider — and biggest cable TV operator — will offer speeds over 100 megabits per second in 20% of its markets by the end of 2008.
Miscellaneous Ramblings
- Boulder, Colorado to house Siemens' wind turbine research center
Lured by scientific labs and a cluster of intellectual capital, Siemens Energy on Tuesday selected Boulder as the home for the company's first wind turbine research and development center in the United States.
- Vestas Wind Systems to add 200 workers in Portland. Danish company, however, passes up Oregon for $25 million research center
Oregon lost out to Houston on the research center, in part for lack of universities graduating engineers.
- $45 trillion needed to combat global warming
That would be an investment more than three times the current size of the entire U.S. economy.
Cool Stuff That's Coming
- How to Geotag Your Photos
Metadata makes the difference between a shoebox full of unsorted photos and a nicely-organized album that lets you browse photos of your Paris vacation.
- The Future Is Now? Pretty Soon, at Least
Are you depressed by the prospect of dying? Well, if you can hang on another 15 years, your life expectancy will keep rising every year faster than you’re aging.
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