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| MATR Newsletter - Tue Oct 20, 2009 |
"Keep some grain in the bin for next year. Decide on an overarching goal or two as a leader and don't get diverted by less important matters. Hire good people and turn them loose. Have a staff that can talk you off the ledge at times." Gov. Brian Schweitzer on hims management style. http://www.matr.net/ar ... .html
As the economy begins to improve, there are great positions and talented individuals available on MATR at "Come Home Montana" http://matr.net/news.p ... ntana including: "Montana Talent Available - Network Administration and IT Management - Jeff Kempka" http://www.matr.net/ar ... .html
Montana SBA
PrintingForLess
- SBA’s New Dealer Floor Plan saves Family Business in Polson
“If it was not for SBA and Martin at Eagle Bank, Mission Valley Auto would have been forced out of business,” said Vert-Rubel. “I am very thankful as this program helped me where others couldn’t.”
TechRanch
- Printing Matters August 2009 Newsletter from PrintingForLess.com
This month, we're providing tips to make your employees feel valued, introducing carbonless forms, and premiering a new customer YouTube video with some very furry actors.
Come Home Montana
- Match the Tactic to the Venture
I am finally starting to see enough value in Twitter, Facebook and other social media/collaboration tools to include them in the plan.
Leadership Montana
- Survey: Most Missoulians like it here
"The quality-of-life rating for Missoula County is just through the roof."
- Montana Career Opportunity - Data Systems Engineer - Northwestern Energy
Data Systems Engineer ensures the integrity of all data systems within engineering and is responsible for the AM/FM system, the System Integrity database for Gas and Electric, electric reliability database and many other databases that are being used by Retail Operations.
- Montana Talent Available - Network Administration and IT Management - Jeff Kempka
My talents, interests, skills and experience lie in Network Administration and IT Management; although I also possess significant experience in teaching, training, and project management.
Montana Business
- 30 Challenges That Can Develop Leaders
There is no shortage of developmental challenges a leader could face throughout their careers. Here is a summary of three decades worth of research that describes these challenges.
- Centered leadership through the crisis: McKinsey Survey results
Practicing each dimension of the centered-leadership model is linked to higher levels of personal and professional satisfaction.
Montana Economic Development
- Original Mountain Mudd owners, Brenda and Dennis Burkhartsmeier, on hook for $500K
The Montana Supreme Court this week upheld a decision by Yellowstone District Court Judge Susan Watters that Brenda Burkhartsmeier owes more than 10 times the original settlement of $47,630.
- Sidney, Montana revels in oil boom
Jobs galore
- Californians second-most-taxed in U.S. - Montanan's among the least taxed
California has the highest statewide general sales tax rate of 8.25 percent (including a 1 percent mandatory “local” add-on rate), and six states tie for the second-highest rate of 7 percent: Indiana, North Carolina, Mississippi, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Tennessee.
Regional Economic Development
- Montana Receives $13 Million for Unemployment Modernization Act
"This will make it easier for those Montanans who are upgrading their skills and those seeking part-time work to get the support they need as they go through this process," says Commissioner Kelly.
- Melstone, Montana drug, hardware store hopes to survive with help from the community
A proposal by Becky Jennaway was one of the first to gain traction. She suggested that the community form a cooperative to buy and operate the Lazy JC. With the help of the Montana Cooperative Development Center in Great Falls, a steering committee recently finished the paperwork necessary to get the co-op rolling.
- Build It With Tax Incentives, and Hollywood Will Come
One director bought himself a $61,000 Range Rover and a feather bed, as well as an iPod for his 15-year-old son. Another picked up a new Mercedes-Benz for $67,000. All the purchases were made with the help of a 50% tax credit, courtesy of the good people of Iowa.
- With New CEO, Kellie Danielson, Montana West Economic Development Looks to the Future
At a time when many businesspeople are forced to get creative or reinvent themselves, entrepreneurship becomes key. And, as Danielson reminds, “Montana is an entrepreneurial state.”
Careers
- Worker shortage looming
Students drop out of high school because they do not see the benefits of graduating without any hope of going to college, yet with as little as six months of additional training they could earn much higher incomes in jobs less vulnerable to outsourcing.
- North Idaho College struggling to train enough students for 'middle-skill' positions
A report released this week says that economic recovery will be tied to states' abilities to prepare workers for jobs such as sales and administrative jobs. That could put an additional burden on community colleges already dealing with budget reductions.
- Giving Rural America a Competitive Edge
"When the broadband stimulus plan for the U.S. is rolled out, you will find millions of entrepreneurial Americans opening up new businesses that provide new services and create jobs in every part of the country."
- Stimulate Yourself!
The first step in diversification lies with boosting small local businesses.
Funding and Building your Business
- Watercooler: Six tips for saving cash on job search
With little relief in sight on the employment scene, job hunters have to be savvier and more careful than ever about what they choose to spend money on as they search.
Incubators and R&D
- Perform Due Diligence on Potential Investors
Entrepreneurs ought to vet angel investors and venture capitalists using a "reverse" due-diligence process. Here's how to do it
- Entrepreneurs turn to small business centers for free help
"We help people find what they need — and it's not always money."
- VC Seed Funding is Dead, Long Live VC Seed Funding!
I still believe you need to be careful taking seed money from a large VC, but I believe the arguments for/against are more nuanced than I had previously thought (and times have changed). Arguments for/against after the jump …
- How to Bootstrap Your Business
"It gives you total control over your destiny, and allows you to grow without outside stakeholders putting pressure on you."
- Economic downturn creating a new wave of entrepreneurs
They're called bootstrappers. It's hard to say how many are out there, launching low-budget startups at the kitchen table, usually underwritten with sheer moxie and a few thousand dollars from family and friends.
Montana Education Excellence
- U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu Announces Investments in Wind Energy Research Facilities
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu yesterday announced new ARRA funding for three university-led wind energy research facilities that will help test and produce advanced land-based and offshore wind turbines.
Regional Business
- Controversy surrounds new MSU president selection; New pres issues letter to community
Leath reportedly told the newspaper he withdrew on Sunday because he wasn't comfortable with the salary negotiation process and thought the school was trying to get a low bid from him, instead of making an offer.
- University of Montana Football Coach Bobby Hauck excludes student journalists from interviews after questions about alleged assault by athletes
In recent weeks, head coach Bobby Hauck has publicly belittled Kaimin reporters at weekly news conferences, and followed through with an earlier threat of shutting the students out of interviews. Now, the football athletes are no longer speaking to the student reporters either - a silence the Kaimin believes Hauck ordered.
- After-school activities in rural Montana communities amplify academics
Riddle said it took a little while for the program there, now three years old, to catch on. Now, the school offers a four-week summer camp where they averaged 80 to 85 students every day. There are approximately 140 students signed up for after school activities and they have up to 50 that show up daily.
Oregon Business
- Foreclosures in Rural America? Who Knows!!Fu
Laws are being written (or not) to deal with the housing foreclosure crisis. But nobody really knows how many homes in rural America are affected.
- Commercial Real Estate Bust of 2010
Coming soon to a market near you: a bust in commercial real estate that will make the subprime mortgage crisis look like a picnic. The other shoe drops in 2010.
- U.S. Chamber feels heat from Obama, defectors
On the day he won the Nobel Peace Prize, President Barack Obama took a swing at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Obama criticized the chamber Oct. 9 for spending millions on a “completely false” ad campaign that claims “local butchers and other small businesses will somehow be harmed by this agency.”
- State Green Economy Profiles
This data is designed to provide a detailed, empirical account of each state’s existing assets across multiple green sectors and serve as a foundation for identifying future growth areas and related needs.
Education
- Jive Software of Portland, Oregon adds $12 million in venture funding
"We're doing a lot more hiring! In just the last month, we have added 11 new Jivers with 10 more starting in the next two weeks."
Government
- Igniting and Sustaining STEM Education
Once student interest in STEM-related fields is established, they will discover they are on a successful path not just for higher education, but for the workforce as well.
- In some classrooms, books are a thing of the past
"Whoever thought this up makes life so much easier,"
Montana Meth Project
- Business magazine, McKinsey Quarterly, interviews Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer on leadership, management and communication style
Keep some grain in the bin for next year. Decide on an overarching goal or two as a leader and don't get diverted by less important matters. Hire good people and turn them loose. Have a staff that can talk you off the ledge at times.
Community
- Meth Use Down By 63% Since The Launch of The Montana Meth Project
Young people helped develop the graphic ads used by the meth project. Slaughter described the theme of the fifth ad campaign that will launch in January, "It's going to be from the adult perspective about my son or daughter, and that's about all I can tell you."
Energy and Climate Change
- The Boomtown Institute - Does your community have a grocery story?
If you live in a rural community, you understand that our grocery store is arguably one of the most important businesses in town.
Miscellaneous Ramblings
- Customers say new PG&E meters not always smart
Ron Hunter's electric bill reached $1,363 in July. His suspicions about the meter grew in September, after a blackout hit his Bakersfield home. The Web page that allows SmartMeter users to see how much electricity they consume, hour by hour, showed that his electricity use actually rose during the blackout.
- Ethanol Refinery Turns Wood Chips Into Fuel
Coskata says its ability to use a wide variety of feedstock to produce ethanol sets it apart from competitors locked into feedstock such as corn or sugar cane. The company, which is backed by General Motors, is focused on using waste materials instead of food crops, thereby side-stepping the whole food-for-fuel debate.
- Energy Firms Deeply Split on Bill to Battle Climate Change
As the Senate prepares to tackle global warming, the nation’s energy producers, once united, are battling one another over policy decisions worth hundreds of billions of dollars in coming decades.
- Nuclear Power Renaissance?
Thirty years after Three Mile Island, nuclear is still too risky. But now the risks have shifted from physical to financial.
- Scraps of power: Wood waste targeted as energy source in Hall, Montana
Eagle Stud is one of eight Montana mills working with NorthWestern Energy http://www.northwesternenergy.com/ on the feasibility of wood-fired electricity as a renewable energy source.
- Zero-waste strategy moving from fringes to mainstream - Yellowstone National Park
Across America, an anti-garbage strategy known as "zero waste" is moving from the fringes to the mainstream, taking hold in school cafeterias, national parks, restaurants, stadiums and corporations.
Cool Stuff That's Coming
- Latest bank fee is for paying off credit card on time every month
These fees are the credit card industry's response to credit card legislation that will, among other things, restrict credit card issuers' ability to raise interest rates on existing balances.
Government Technology
- New lighting technology gaining ground
Just when you were finally warming up to the idea of swapping out your old light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones, you may soon find a new alternative at your local hardware store.
The Creative and Cultural Economy
- Wikigovernment: Crowd Sourcing Comes To City Hall
We can foster that yearning by deploying these exciting new tools in the service of building community. Yes, it's risky to be a pioneer, but in a rapidly changing world, it's even riskier to be left behind.
Transportation
- 33rd International Wildlife Film Festival - Call For Entries And Festival Highlights - Deadline January 30, 2010
Don’t miss the 33rd IWFF – share your films, your passions, and your ideas. Be a part of making a difference in the present and future of Wildlife Film!
- How do we get bikers to obey traffic laws?
Heading home from work yesterday, I ran five red lights and three stop signs, went the wrong way down a one-way street, and took a left across two lanes of oncoming traffic. My excuse: I was on a bike.
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