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| MATR Newsletter - Tue Oct 6, 2009 |
"Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The extra mile." -Gary Ryan Blair
Interesting program. Does your community or state have a similar program? : "Economic Competitiveness Teams in Louisiana" http://www.matr.net/ar ... .html
Ignite Missoula
Highway 12 Ventures
- Q&A with Author of "The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs"
What makes Steve Jobs such a special presenter, and what can CIO.com readers borrow from Jobs' vast skills? Communications coach and author Carmine Gallo shares his insights and favorite Jobs YouTube clips.
- Can a Poor Presenter be a Great Leader?
Consider it a requirement for the job.
Boomtown Institute
- 5 Minutes With Aaron Turner of RFinity, one of Idaho’s best kept secrets.
What’s been the biggest surprise to you in building out the company?
Montana Ambassadors
- Boomtown Institute - Sexy Small Town? No, Small Town Sexy.
Small Town Sexy is an excellent book for anyone interested in preserving the small town way of life.
Come Home Montana
- Montana Ambassadors Fall Newsletter
It was the best yet….5th ANNUAL MONTANA AMBASSADOR BUSINESS OPEN
Leadership Montana
- Montana Career Opportunity - Director of Operations - Bear Paw Development Corporation of Northern Montana
The Director of Operations is responsible for the ongoing financial accounting of the organization, including but not limited to the following functions:
Montana Business
- Who's the Boss? Be a Better Team Leader
Managing a team means more than just doling out work. Chances are, you'll be dealing with different personalities and working styles and that you'll be juggling multiple deadlines at once. It's a job that requires both a high level of organization and what they call "people skills."
Montana Economic Development
- California Attorney Cuts Ties to APF - Hardin Jail Project
Mafi declined to elaborate on his reasons for leaving. But Alex Friedmann with the Private Corrections Institute — a group that has long been critical of Hardin for building a jail that would be privately run — suggested it was a sign the project is doomed to failure.
- APF spokesperson holds emotional press conference; lawyer quits project
"A lot of work I've done has been to calm down or at least try to counteract comments from people I consider to be fear mongers," Shay said. "What has happened in the interim, however, is those people's friends around the nation have been in contact with me or tried to access me. I realize I'm being pretty vague so that we don't support or incite these people. I don't want my words to be taken out of context to further inflame the tensions that I'm working under."
- Carbonics Announces Culbertson, Montana-Based Oilseed Crush Facility Revival
With the liquidation complete, focus is now centered on reviving and revitalizing Culbertson’s operations for the benefit of its creditors, stakeholders, the community and the region.
Regional Economic Development
- Montana - You Should Be Here Building Your Business and Living Your Dream
Montana has one of the fastest growing economies in America, offering unique economic opportunity for young professionals, entrepreneurs and companies, that are looking to grow and expand their business operations in a variety of industries.
- Senator Tester and Senator Baucus secure significant funding for Montana energy and water projects
“We’re in the home stretch for getting Montana this money to pay for much needed projects like water infrastructure upgrades and renewable energy technology development,” said Tester, who serves on the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. “I’m proud to support these kinds of projects because these investments will pay us back for generations.”
- Help shape events center for Missoula
An events center would be a wonderful addition to Missoula.
- Ravalli County, Montana Entrepreneurship Center to open next month
“The goal is to catalyze entrepreneurship, to become a knowledge-based community,” Foster said. “We’re moving away from a resource extraction economy to a knowledge-based, value-added economy.”
- Glacier superintendent.: Designate park as a wilderness
Cartwright says proposals to build cell phone towers in Yellowstone National Park and for new roads in Glacier show that even national parks aren’t immune from development.
- American Police Force figure Michael Hilton – a felon with a history of fraud seeking to operate an empty Hardn, Montana jail ordered to appear in CA court
Hardin built its jail in 2007 as an economic development project, but has been unable to fill it.
- Montana jail plan on hold after revelations about lead figure's past - Director of Two Rivers Authority Resigns
The decision also follows revelations that Mike Hilton, the lead figure of the American Police Force, has a history of fraud that includes several years in jail and three civil judgments against him for more than $1.1 million.
Funding and Building your Business
- Rocky Mountain Companies Q3 Venture Capital Totals Around $340M - Pacific Northwest Venture Totals Around $270M
Rocky Mountain companies raised around $340.2M in Q3, down a bit from the $648M raised in the region last quarter, according to an analysis of Techrockies.com proprietary venture capital database.
- Breakthrough Inventions and Migrating Clusters of Innovation
Cities like Austin, Texas, and Boise, Idaho, seem to have become clusters of innovation overnight.
- Economic Competitiveness Teams in Louisiana
To help strengthen municipalities' ability to attract more business, Louisiana Economic Development (LED) launched an online portal to help communities assess and improve their economic competitiveness.
- Green Economies State-by-State
To help states continue to grow these economies, the center released a series of reports to identify emerging sectors in which states can invest their resources for workforce development and innovation.
- Boomers Get Rural
A new report from the USDA says that baby boomers will be flooding out of metropolitan areas and into the countryside over the next ten years.
Incubators and R&D
- Take advantage of cyber-savvy media, business owners advised
The tourism industry has caught on to social media, and organizations that don't use it fall behind.
- A partner can give your business shelter or a storm
Businesses with multiple owners are more likely to survive longer than sole proprietorships, says Brian Headd, an economist at the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy.
- How to Calculate Start-Up Costs
Got a pen handy? To best estimate your start-up costs, you'll need to make a list— and the more detailed the better.
- How Twitter helped sell a company.
“ ‘Yay’ means I sold my first company,’’ Spitzkoff told a friend on Twitter. “Yes . . . there will be tequila shots.’’
Montana Education Excellence
- Winners of the Ig® Nobel Prize
For achievements that first make people LAUGH then make them THINK
Regional Business
- John Warner To Launch University Of Montana Climate Change Studies Program, 10/15, Missoula
A distinguished defense expert and veteran of three wars, Warner joined Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) in 2006 to co-sponsor the Climate Security Act, the only climate change bill passed by a Senate committee. Warner completed his fifth consecutive term as a senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia on Jan. 3, 2009.
- Calif. tribe donates $20,000 for Montana high school
"I think that it's wonderful," Browning schools Superintendent Mary Johnson said of the donation. "It shows that we have a good relationship with other tribes. It shows that other tribes understand our situation." Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/10/03/state/n161144D78.DTL#ixzz0SvdMKxPu
- MSU to spend $1.7 million on handicapped access as part of a settlement with the U.S. Office of Civil Rights.
That still leaves roughly $700,000 worth of additional handicapped-access work at dorms and dining halls that MSU has scheduled to be done through 2017.
- Higher ed turns more and more to nontenured instructors
From a management point of view, having fewer tenured faculty is less expensive during a time when money from the state isn't increasing much.
Idaho Business
- New State Report Cards Released by Work Loss Data Institute
The report cards help employers, insurers, TPA’s, state governments and consultants answer the questions, “Who is doing well and why?”
Utah Economic Development
- The clock's ticking for Idaho higher education
In the long run, Idaho probably can't afford the higher ed system as it exists today. So higher ed reform in Idaho isn't just a political and economic imperative, but an existential one. How long will Idahoans be willing to export their best-and-brightest high school graduates? How can the state attract the good jobs of the future with the educational system of the past? And at what point is pretty good just not good enough?
- States reconsider hefty film subsidies — What about Idaho?
"A lot of film commissioners think we shouldn't be playing these games, but the fact is it's happening," Peg Owens, director of the film office in the Idaho Department of Commerce.
- Secure Data Sanitization - Boise firm satisfies growing demand for sanitizing hard drives
A well-known nonprofit program that provides refurbished computers for students has sprouted an unexpected offshoot: a business that erases data on hard drives.
Washington State Business
- Utah cuts liability on incentives - New structure helps ensure that companies fulfill promises.
If a company doesn't expand as planned, it is likely to get only a fraction of the promised money -- or none at all. And that's especially important given how large incentive packages have become in recent years.
Wyoming Business
- 10 Clark County, Washington tech firms you've never heard of
Amid rounds of downsizing and generally slow business as a result of the recession, a collection of Southwest Washington technology companies are surviving and thriving, spinning out creative new products and services in near anonymity. The sector is downright vibrant.
Education
- Wyoming's largest utility, Rocky Mountain Power proposes 13.7 percent rate hike
RMP anticipates an overall growth rate of about 3.9 percent among its Wyoming customers, while total energy demand across RMP's six-state service region will drop 1.6 percent.
- As wind farm plans spread, Wyoming considers nature of wind rights
"Wind is a commodity that has value as do the minerals below the surface of the land, and you can severe the minerals."
Community
- How to kill a great public university: The U C Berkeley story
It’s dismaying to realize that the grandeur of Berkeley (and the remarkable success of the University of California system, of which Berkeley is the flagship) is being jeopardized by shortsighted politicians and California’s colossally dysfunctional budget processes.
- Welcome to KIPP, the Knowledge Is Power Program!
Every day, KIPP students across the nation are proving that demography does not define destiny.
- Educator promotes new ways to reach students
Today's educators are often still using chalkboards to educate students living in an iPhone world.
Connectivity & Communications
- Why community still matters in the digital age
The report represents one of the most comprehensive and fundamental attempts to identify the types of information a community needs to not just function, but thrive.
Energy and Climate Change
- Get all Americans online, panel says
The nation needs to give the same urgency to making sure all Americans have broadband access as the Eisenhower administration did in building an interstate highway system a half-century ago, a report released Friday concluded.
- Online hate speech: Difficult to police ... and define
"We've gotten to a place where we made it unacceptable for haters to hate in the public space." So they turn to the Web, where they can be anonymous.
- Video chat gets an upgrade
A survey this spring by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that only about 20 percent of adult U.S. Internet users have participated in a video chat.
Visit Montana
- Germany's Role in the Green Energy Economy
The country, which is located on the same latitude as Canada, had the largest number of installed solar panels as of 2007.
- "The Navigator: Rural Oregon's Guide to Saving Money by Saving Resources."
The publication is a hands-on, here's-how-you-do-it guide to the multiple state and federal programs that help farmers, families and small businesses conserve water, improve energy efficiency and transition to renewable energy.
- Report: Climate change 'greatest threat ever' to national parks
According to the report, the risks of a changed climate dwarf all previous threats to our national parks: “If we continue with high emissions of heat-trapping gases, our nation could be 7 to 11 degrees hotter by the end of the century — and our parks would be drastically changed.”
Government Technology
- Montana Scenic Loop 400 miles of beauty and adventure
The loop — 400 miles of some of Montana's most scenic highways — recently was named one of the Top 10 Scenic Drives in the Northern Rockies.
- Fly-fishing at Alta Ranch in Montana - It's easy to get hooked by the lure of the Bitterroot region.
After four days of nonstop fishing, I have a sore shoulder, a scarred finger -- I hooked myself with a fly -- and my own Norman Maclean stories.
Small Diameter Timber Utilization
- The Montana GIS Portal Gets a Facelift!
The Montana GIS Portal helps people find data to use in concert with their GIS and mapping tools to perform analysis that drive decisions made by policy makers around the state.
- Montana Governor Schweitzer: New Technologies, Strategies Will Assist States in Protecting Key Wildlife Corridors
“Wildlife know no boundaries, so to be successful, wildlife protection must work across jurisdictions - federal, state, local and tribal,” Schweitzer said. “Since maintaining healthy wildlife is a primary public trust responsibility of the states, it makes good sense for Montana and other states to take the lead.”
- Fueling a new industry - Companies turn waste wood into energy
The wood powers boilers at the University of Idaho’s campus, provides energy for the Clearwater Paper Co.’s Lewiston plant, and creates electricity for an Avista Corp. biomass plant in Kettle Falls. It also supplies energy for a container board plant in Montana.
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