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| MATR Newsletter - Tue Jan 6, 2009 |
We could certainly slow the aging process if it had to work it's way through Congress: Will Rogers
Three Cups of Tea - The Central Asia Institute
2009 Montana Legislature
- Bozeman's Greg Mortenson appears on ‘Sunday Morning’ today - "Creating Schools, And Bridges, To Children"
“Three Cups of Tea” is mandatory reading at the Pentagon for officers going into counter-intelligence training, Mortenson said..
Come Home Montana
- Republican legislators will blog from Helena
Republican legislators have launched a blog to stay in touch with Montanans during the 2009 session.
- Reader Poll: What Should the Montana State Government do With Any Potential Budget Surplus?
The Legislative Fiscal Division, headed by Clayton Schenck, recently completed its analysis of the governor's budget proposal, and, as it does every two years, raised a number of questions.
- Anyone can have say at Montana Legislature
Testifying before legislative committees isn’t just for professional lobbyists. Anyone can have a say at the Legislature.
- Survey: Wages, Jobs and Taxes Biggest Issues Facing Montana
The Associated Press asked lawmakers about the biggest issues facing the state as they get set to convene Monday. About half of the 2009 Legislature's 150 members returned the anonymous survey.
Developing a more Entrepreneurial Montana
- Montana Job Opportunity - Network Engineer
Community Medical Center is seeking a multi-talented Network Engineer to become part of our evolving IT Operations team.
- Transplanted Red Lodge, Montana couple turn brothel into boulangerie - Babcock & Miles
Karen Porth said she stopped worrying about drawing enough customers when she asked to join the town's book club and was asked, "What flavor? We have 10 clubs."
- “Now Hiring” signs appearing in Montana at Summit Aeronautics Group
Summit Aeronautics Group is hiring machinists, programmers and other workers as it gears up to meet current and anticipated orders for military and commercial aviation components.
Montana Business
- Today's Students - Dreamers and Doers
“Any school can teach entrepreneurship,” he says, “but at Babson, we live entrepreneurship.”
- 23 Student Innovations
On campuses across the country, they have been building practical inventions, starting novel businesses and generally alpha-testing their ideas. Here are a few.
- Open for Business - ‘Pub Night’ aims to help tech startups in Helena, Montana
John O’Donnell, TechRanch’s executive director, said the organization holds similar events quarterly in Bozeman, with several start-ups and other business relationships as the result. This year, they plan to try entrepreneur socials in several cities around the state.
Montana Economic Development
- Lack of extradition pact creates lawless haven - Business owner victim on Blackfeet Indian Reservation frustrated by inaction of authorities - Reservation burglary suspects escape scrutiny
"Without some level of accountability and competence, you can't have economic development here."
- The long wait: Laid-off Smurfit-Stone employees sit anxiously by the phone, hoping for good news
“It's the best job in town,” said the stepmother to five children. “Everyone here is thankful for their job, and nobody wants to let it go.”
- Colstrip, Montana comes together to form clothing store - Got Socks!
Colstrip worked with the Montana Cooperative Development Center to create a cooperative. Got Socks! opened in June 2005.
- Carbon-Offset Cowboys Let Their Grass Grow - Ranchers at Sun Ranch in Montana are being paid by polluters to keep their grass unmowed with help from Beartooth Capital
A firm called Beartooth Capital http://www.beartoothcap.com/ brokered the Sun Ranch http://www.papoosecreek.com/ carbon credits as a pilot project, but a nonprofit organization called the National Carbon Offset Coalition http://www.ncoc.us/ now manages the ranch’s contract with the Chicago Climate Exchange.
- It's boom and bust again in mining town of Livingston, Montana
Indeed, Livingston now boasts multiple art galleries and coffee shops where the new class of mobile knowledge workers pitch their laptops.
- New Web Site and Logo from Partners Creative
You’ll be pleased to discover this e-mail is not from a man in Nigeria whose rich father passed away and with your help can retrieve his family fortune from the national bank. Nor is it an e-mail appearing to be from Microsoft that actually links to a Canadian drug outlet looking to cure you of a medical condition you don’t have.
Regional Economic Development
- Gateway To Opportunity -- seminars and sessions for Entrepreneurs and anyone in or thinking of starting a business. Dickinson, North Dakota - January 29, 2009
The event is a great cross-border partnership between many people and organizations in Montana and North Dakota.
- Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer looking forward to new term
The governor repeatedly referred to the policies he championed during the first four years of his administration as a tree. “They will now bear fruit,” he said Friday. “You put those pieces together, then you step back and let the trees grow.”
- Finding strength in numbers to develop an art gallery in Havre, Montana with help from the Montana Cooperative Development Center - Artitudes Art Gallery
The Montana Cooperative Development Center was created by the state Legislature in 1999 to foster the formation of cooperatives to produce and market Montana products.
- Montana Association of Community Development Extension Professionals January 2009 Newsletter
Happy 2009! We have a lot to look forward to including the 2009 Rural Community Conference, the 2009 NACDEP Conference, and continuing our work with Horizons.
- Plum Creek abandons road deal
Plum Creek Timber Co. is abandoning a controversial deal brokered with Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, citing strong public opposition.
Funding and Building your Business
- USFS has $100 million in projects ready to go
That backlog could be turned into 1,337 full- and part-time jobs, according to an analysis by the Wilderness Society
Montana Education Excellence
- Google sets up new Web site where users can submit their brilliant concepts for new mobile applications.
If you're full of great ideas for mobile products, but perhaps lack the coding chops to create them yourself, here is a golden opportunity.
- Firms find it difficult to reach qualified workers
Although it's hard to say what impact this shortage of skilled workers has on overall economic performance, surveys and the comments of business leaders make it clear it's a key area of concern.
- Venture firms find turning investments tougher
Only six VC-funded companies went public last year
Montana Education/Business Partnerships
- Montana education officials say funding still solid
Incoming Superintendent of Schools Denise Juneau said OPI has several ideas in the works for the upcoming session, but they are all pretty much in line with the increases and cuts Schweitzer made. "Our office is under no illusion of what kind of economic crisis is out there," she said. "The one way to get out of this crisis is through a quality public education system."
- Canines encourage Montana kids to read - "PAWS for Reading"
Before this fall, Patricia Spencer says her 7-year-old son, Joseph ,wasn't all that excited about reading. But one visit to the Lewis and Clark Library to read to a therapy dog last October changed all that.
Regional Business
- Montana Student Assistance Foundation offers college scholarships
Since the start of the program four years ago, SAF, a non-profit education lending organization, and its donors have provided $175,000 in Circle of Succe$$ grants to help students continue their higher education.
Oregon Economic Development
- Debt trouble at Lee Enterprises Inc. triggers auditor's warning
The company also disclosed that its outside auditor is questioning Lee's ability to remain a "going concern" if the company is unable to refinance some loans.
Wyoming Business
- Superfast WiMAX comes to Portland
We're second in the nation to get a taste of an ambitious, unproven, new technology called WiMAX. It beams super-fast Web access from cell phone towers all over the metro area to you, wherever you are.
- Oregon exceptionally generous with green-energy subsidies
When the Legislature convenes next week, Gov. Ted Kulongoski will call on lawmakers to raise taxes and fees as the state plunges deeper into recession.
Education
- Casper, Wyoming 'Business incubator' project gains another $1.5 million
"Our primary goal is job creation."
- The University of Wyoming seeks coal research proposals
The University of Wyoming will formally seek proposals today on where to build a clean-coal research facility.
Other Economies
- Wanted: More Science and Math Teachers in the U.S.
The United States is not only facing a dearth of future homegrown scientists and engineers, she and others say, but increasingly, everyday citizens need science literacy.
- The Rush for '21st-Century Skills' in Education - Advanced skills are best learned together
The notion that basic and advanced skills are best learned together is one of the major findings of a recent report on mathematics education, funded and released by the U.S. Department of Education. The best learning happens, the report asserts, when students learn basic content and processes, such as the rules and procedures of arithmetic, at the same time that they learn how to think and solve problems.
Community
- The Irish Economy’s Rise Was Steep, and the Fall Was Fast
The roots of Ireland’s fall date to more than 20 years ago, when a clutch of economists, politicians and civil servants put their heads together in this very pub and planted the philosophical seeds for the Irish economic miracle.
Connectivity & Communications
- 'Consumption Amenities' Key to City Success
Cities that have fun things to do -- so-called "consumption amenities" -- are more successful at attracting people and growing jobs.
Energy
- Opt out of Yahoo tracking everything you do on the net
Yahoo "Web Beacons" are similar to cookies, but allows Yahoo to record every website and every group you visit, even when you're not connected to Yahoo.
- Why Government Investment in Broadband Is Justified Now
The private sector has failed us. We've slipped from being the world's leader in Internet access to number fifteen and the slippage is still going on.
- For the Blind, Technology Does What a Guide Dog Can’t
Mr. Raman, 43, is now working to modify the latest technological gadget that he says could make life easier for blind people: a touch-screen phone.
- If you don't have "On-Star" or a GPS system, fear not! Here's something that we can all afford....y'know...FREE!
This is an awesome service from Google, and it's free -- great when you are on the road. Don't waste your money on information calls and don't waste your time manually dialing the number.
- 2009 - 5 Trends That Will Change Media
This year - the changes are so clear and the drivers so much in place that I'm going to go out on a limb and say what WILL happen in 2009: trends you can bet on.
- A New Web of Trust
A protocol that could make the Internet more secure is finally being implemented.
Cool Stuff That's Coming
- The Top 10 Green-Tech Breakthroughs of 2008
Green technology and its attendant infrastructure are probably the best bet to drag the American economy out of the doldrums.
- Wind is wave of the future
I could not believe the incredible energy that the wind of that storm produced.
Government Technology
- Swanky Tech for the Filthy Rich
Planning on hitting the jackpot soon? From a gargantuan HDTV to your own flying car, here are nine new tech toys you'll want to decorate your life.
Non-Profit News
- How to make a city act like a startup
The bidding process for city contracts is posted on YouTube, for example, and his employees use versions of Wikipedia and Twitter in the office. He wants to let drivers pay parking tickets and renew driver's licenses on Facebook.
The Creative and Cultural Economy
- Yellowstone Park Foundation donates $11M to park
Instituted in 1996 in Bozeman, the Yellowstone Park Foundation typically donates between $3 and $4 million each year, but in 2008 the foundation gave the park $8.8 million of a $15 million capital campaign for a new Old Faithful Visitor Education Center.
- Treasure Valley Idaho cities want art to define them
Boise, Idaho and other cities in the region have adopted "percent for the arts" initiatives, and are looking to public art to reflect the region's 'maturity.'
- Big Sky Documentary Film Festival Announces 2009 Official Selections
This year's films cover the gamut of possibilities within the non-fiction form, with topics ranging from the ivory-billed woodpecker to art cars; from rock docs to opera; from Antarctica to Swaziland!
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