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| MATR Newsletter - Fri Oct 7, 2005 |
"Politeness and consideration for others is like investing pennies and getting dollars back." -- Thomas Sowell
Come Home Montana
Developing a more Entrepreneurial Montana
- Featured "Come Home Montana" Community~BIG SANDY
Big Sandy is the gateway to the Lewis and Clark Encampment at the mouth of the Eagle Creek and the beginning of the Wild and Scenic section of the Missouri River and the White Rocks.
- Montana-Jobs.net Featured Career ~ Architectural Drafter |
Architectural Drafting, prepare detailed drawings, Project Management, etc.
- Montana-Jobs.net Featured Talent - Desired Field: Marketing Manager / Graphic Design
Montana Economic Development
- "Energizing Entrepreneurs: Charting a Course for Rural Communities" puts a guide map in the hands of rural community development professionals and volunteer community leaders who are helping to transform their communities into hotbeds of entrepreneurship.
Packed with insightful tips and advice from experts with years of experience in the field, Energizing Entrepreneurs is a “must have” for anyone working to create supportive environments for entrepreneurs, new sources of wealth and sustaining economic betterment.
Developing Funding Opportunities in Montana
- The Other Black Gold - America has a substance abuse problem, and Montana may have a cure. By Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer
Montana, among other states, is trying to help America get clean by promoting a range of modern domestic energy strategies. Yet our biggest idea is actually a very old recipe: gasoline made from coal instead of oil.
- From buggies to business - Renovated Third Street home becomes haven for Montana entrepreneurs in Hamilton
"We've lowered the barrier for starting a business,"
- Helena - Agriculture Development Council selects Growth Through Agriculture projects
"The program assists Montana's farmers, ranchers and agricultural entrepreneurs in developing new products and ideas to grow our state's agricultural industry."
- Aerospace industry focus of Butte meeting
"The idea is to spur business for Montana companies and find opportunities where they can work with large companies," said Jeff Garrard, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont.
- Special Events Grant Program Funds Available for Montana Communities, Organizations and Tribal Governments Sponsoring or Planning New Annual Events
The grants are designed to be matching funds for non-profit organizations involved in developing new annual events.
- Montana World Trade Center Receives Grant for Creative Enterprise Project
According to Geoff Sutton, “Creative Enterprise elements can be found in all of Montana’s 56 counties. We will be focusing on rural economic development with this program. Montana’s artists and artisans are a great source of wealth and talent which can be used to create jobs and provide supplemental income for rural Montanans.”
- First Judith Gap, Montana wind turbines to go online in a few weeks - Governor Schweitzer to speak at Wind farm dedication today (10/7)
To date, nearly 40 of the 90 wind turbines at Judith Gap are set to go. A few might have even been online today for the official dedication - except for a slight glitch.
- Choteau, Montana opens doors to movie crew
Another attraction was the movie-making incentive package that the Montana Legislature approved during the 2005 session. Called the Big Sky on the Big Screen Act, the program provides state-sponsored incentives and rebates for film companies that work in the state. "It encouraged our coming to film here," Parks said. "We would have done it anyway, but it greased the wheels."
Funding and Building your Business
- Growing Wings: Building a Northwest Montana Angel Group
In Whitefish, Montana West Economic Development* (MWED) has "kicked it up a notch" by helping local angels form an organized group and begin setting up an investment fund. Nothing attracts capital and entrepreneurs like an active local angel group.
- Angel Groups and Networks - (audio presentation)
- State Sponsored Venture Funds
- How Corporate Venture Capital Investing Increases Innovation
Venture capital is an essential tool available to a corporation to increase its innovativeness
Legislative Newsletters
- The Idea Economy: Battle Over Right to Sell Knowledge
Some companies can make more money selling access to their ideas than from building anything themselves.
- Angel Investors - Where do you find an angel?
If an angel doesn't fall in your lap, try these resources for finding and working with angel investors.
- Inside Entrepreneurship: Tips for assessing the value of a business
Investors back management teams that look at the numbers just as much as they do.
Regional Economic Development
- Montana Legislative Interim Newsletter October 2005 including an opinion from Dorsey & Whitney Attorney Joseph Gonnella regarding the constitutionality of SB 133 (Equity Capital Investment Bill)
The Interim contains articles related to interim committee work, general Legislative Branch news, and other articles of legislative interest.
- Senator Max Baucus October 2005 Newsletter
Utah Economic Development
- Clusters and Competitive Advantage
Promoting cluster formation, especially those based upon technological innovation, is increasingly viewed as the new basis for competitive advantage and economic development in a global economy.
- "Gauging a Region's Entrepreneurial Potential"
Entrepreneurship is emerging as a particularly promising new engine for regional growth. The relation between long-term regional employment growth and entrepreneurship is strong. Not only do entrepreneurs create new local jobs, but they also generate new wealth and new growth.
Idaho Business
- Giving technology a boost - Various ideas target life sciences industry in Utah
A possible life science angel network would bring together potential investors and life sciences companies, network supporter Andrew Laver told the commission. Both angel investors and companies exist, "but there's no formal infrastructure on how they can meet," he said.
- Centers of Excellence seeks funds in Utah
The Centers program began in 1986 to help mature research technology into products. The $49 million in overall funding since then has been for more than 100 centers. More than 175 companies have been spun out, and 61 remain in Utah, she said.
Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR)
- Capital One to close Boise call center - Some 290 jobs will be lost in collection facility
Local experts speculated that the number of jobs lost eventually could approach 600, based on a multiplier formula that says a lost information services job typically results in another job lost in the service sector of the economy.
- Entrepreneurs tout Boise environment - Panelists like worker quality, cost of living
"Boise has sold itself within 24 hours of them getting off the plane," Wiskirchen said. Most job candidates are impressed with the access to recreational sports and low housing prices, he said.
University TechTransfer
- NASA Selects Montana Firms, ADVR, Inc. and Anasphere, Inc. for Innovative Small Business Projects
The goals of the program are to stimulate technological innovation; increase the use of small business, including women-owned and disadvantaged firms, in meeting federal research and development needs; and increase private sector commercialization of innovations derived from federally funded research.
Montana Education/Business Partnerships
- Carnegie Mellon University tech transfer office spawns 50 start-ups - Innovation U.: New University Roles in a Knowledge Economy
The technology transfer office spins out an average of five firms per year, Dr. Lowe added, with CMU licensing technology to seven firms in fiscal year 2005. The university expects to create seven to 10 start-ups by the end of June, he said.
Business Plan Forums
- University extension offices can be a remarkably valuable network to transform a rural economy.
The Purdue Extension, which has provided agricultural, leadership and family-sciences programs to generations of Indiana farm families, is retooling one of its missions to focus on economic development.
The Creative and Cultural Economy
- 2006 John Pappajohn Iowa Business Plan Competition will provide $50,000 to three entrepreneurs who develop exciting business plans.
The competition is open to all Iowa entrepreneurs who have been in business for three years or less.
Careers
- Walking the dinosaur just part of the job
"The Stern article is expected out towards the end of the year. It is a full-length feature," Murphy said. "Basically they came because the dinosaurs we are collecting here are so well known, that they felt a lot of their German readers would enjoy learning more about our dinosaurs."
- MCC - Some news and upcoming events for the week of October 5, 2005
- Hatch Fest, a film and arts festival, pairs journalists with mentors
Mentorship is the central theme of Hatch Fest, a film and arts festival in Bozeman through Sunday. The festival pairs student filmmakers and artists with professionals in their fields.
Non-Profit News
- Rich, Successful -- and Miserable: Research Probes Mid-Life Angst
"In middle age, when you are at the peak of your career and you're having kids, time is your scarce resource," says David Schkade, professor of management at the University of California at San Diego. "You're too busy to improve how you feel."
- MSU Testing Service offers new professional exams
Today, mechanics, firefighters, financial planners, computer specialists, medical assistants and even those in clerical positions often require special certification before employers will hire them, says Carla McLaughlin, testing service manager at Montana State University. To give professionals access to these exams, MSU recently contracted with two new testing companies to offer nearly any professional or academic exam in the nation.
Energy
- Chesrown family to help nonprofits
"The Chesrown Family Foundation will help others realize their vision and financially assist organizations in making a positive difference in their communities. We chose Foundation Northwest to administer the Chesrown Family Foundation because of their stability and professional staff who will perform all the necessary research about the organizations that apply for funding. It makes giving so much easier."
- Five years of philanthropy - The Whitefish Community Foundation
The foundation's vision was to build a permanent resource for the needs of the future. According to the numbers, it seems to be on its way.
Connectivity & Communications
- Biodiesel plant planned in N. Dakota
ADM said the plant will produce 50 million gallons of the vegetable-based fuel each year.
- Minnesota works to boost use of biomass - Plant to create energy from turkey "litter"
The energy plant will burn tons of litter from the turkey farms that dot western Minnesota, enough to power this town of 3,300 people, the farms around it, and then some. After years of delays, the plant — the first of its kind in the country — is expected to begin energy production in 2007.
- Montana Green Power E-news -- October 2005
"I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?" - Robert Redford
Community
- Internet Carried On Power Lines - "a major national milestone"
the technology "will be deployed within two years to scores of communities across the U.S."
Cool Stuff That's Coming
- Montana towns afraid of 'Aspen-ization'
But, Wes Spiker adds, it "won't ever happen, because people come to Montana for what Montana is. They don't want to change it." Maybe not, but their money will.
- 'Virtual credit card' offers online security
"Is it necessary? It's akin to any other security thing you're willing to do. You put on your seat belt; you install an alarm system in your home. It's one extra layer to protect yourself."
- Contest offers big prizes for ideas to preserve the U.S. economy
"In Washington, D.C., we are still living in the last century in an industrial revolution," Stern said. "India and China are in overdrive and America is in neutral."
- 'Web 2.0' Has Arrived
With almost half a million Wikipedians contributing and editing articles, 90 million people running the open-source Mozilla Firefox browser, and 18.9 million people now publishing blogs (according to blog search engine Technorati), the case goes, it's hard to dispute that users' attention is gradually shifting away from the products of traditional publishers, media companies, and software makers.
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