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| MATR Newsletter - Tue Nov 17, 2009 |
"I know that Montana is the greatest place in the world to raise a family, to start and grow a business. You know it, and I know it and now we will tell the world." Governor Brian Schweitzer
If your Montana business needs assistance from economic development professionals or you're looking to explore opportunities in Montana: " Montana Economic Developers Association(MEDA) Launches Website Feature To Help You Find Economic Development Experts So You Can Benefit From Their Expertise" http://matr.net/articl ... .html --- " Teaching for a New World: Preparing High School Educators to Deliver College- and Career-Ready Instruction" http://www.matr.net/ar ... .html
Montana World Trade Center
The Burton K. Wheeler Center
- Mountain West Trade Mission to Mexico February 22-25, 2010
The District Export Councils in Utah, Idaho, and Montana and the U.S. Commercial Service offices in Utah, Idaho, Montana, and New Mexico are organizing a trade mission to Mexico February 22-25, 2010.
Highway 12 Ventures
- The news is not all bad for Montana media
How will Montana news outlets navigate these shifting media structures to stay connected both locally and globally?
MEDA -Montana Economic Developers Association
- Community Hours At The WaterCooler
The awesome folks at Boise’s WaterCooler and they’ve graciously agreed to let me (and others) establish community hours there. Just as Brad sets up shop at the Techstars Bunker, once or twice a month I’ll be hanging out at the WaterCooler for a few hours and I’ll meet with anybody about anything.
Developing a more Entrepreneurial Montana
- Montana Economic Developers Association(MEDA) Launches Website Feature To Help You Find Economic Development Experts So You Can Benefit From Their Expertise
“One of the greatest benefits of MEDA is networking. This web tool will help strengthen our network and broaden our scope of services at the same time.” MEDA’s Coordinator, Gloria O’Rourke
Leadership Montana
- Out-of-state firms win elevator contest - will consider moving to state.
The event gets its name from the idea that every entrepreneur should be able to tell the highlights of his or her story in the time it takes to ride an elevator - about 90 seconds.
Montana Business
- You Will Lead the Same Way You Follow, So Be Careful How You Follow
Want to learn how to behave effectively when you are given the privilege to lead others? Learn how to behave effectively as you engage with those that you grant the privilege of leading you.
Montana Economic Development
- Entrepreneurs: Billings, Montana innovator sees sunny days ahead - Sun Mountain Solar Industries
“We wanted to make available to the public an efficient and affordable way to heat their homes and businesses during the cold months by utilizing the power of the sun to help them lower their utility costs.”
- Lockwood, Montana firm flying high with helicopters - HeliProz Inc.
HeliProz and several sister companies operating under the name FlyCo Holding Co., expect to generate revenues of $10 million this year.
- Applied Materials Offers to Buy Semitool for $364 Million
“With this acquisition, Applied will help the world’s leading chip makers create ever-smaller and more powerful devices.”
- Sofast Communications of Great Falls, Montana shuts down
A message on the dial-up Internet connection and Web hosting business says that the business will close because of the high cost to repair equipment.
- Putting ability back into disability
The Anaconda Work and Residential Enterprises, or AWARE, recently launched a quarterly magazine dedicated to deleting these apostrophes, targeted especially to those with developmental disabilities.
Regional Economic Development
- Online survey to help Southwest Montana area businesses
If you are a Southwest Montana business owner, two economic assistance organizations want to hear from you.
- Economic development in Helena, Montana
“We have an opportunity in our region that’s going to happen once.”
Funding and Building your Business
- Boise State, University of Idaho work together, despite the rivalry
Competition for state money once dwarfed any battles on the field. But now Idaho universities are working together to benefit all.
- Think small and region can grow big
Here’s one possible answer: A proliferation of innovative, niche-seeking small and medium-sized manufacturers the region is growing the way it used to produce Douglas-fir seedlings.
Montana Education Excellence
- Start-Up CEOs Gripe About VCs’ Lack Of Operating Experience
“I’ve been an entrepreneur as well as a VC. The biggest travesty that VC firms can visit on a portfolio company is putting an inexperienced representative onto its board. Too many VCs have no real operating experience (sorry, having been a I-banker or recruiter does not count as experience).”
- Recession intensifies Gen X work discontent
The Deloitte study warns of a "resume' tsunami" once economic recovery begins, especially among Gen Xers, and notes that many executives were largely unaware of employee complaints unrelated to money.
- Walking Through Jelly: Language Proficiency, Emotions, and Disrupted Collaboration in Global Work
In an ethnographic study comprised of interviews and concurrent observations of 145 globally distributed members of nine project teams of an organization, we found that uneven proficiency in English, the lingua franca, disrupted collaboration for both native and non-native speakers.
- Adam Smith Video On The Story Of Xobni
Adam did a great job capturing the experience of starting a company and watching a company grow. Adam's both brilliant and articulate. Well worth watching the video.
Montana Education/Business Partnerships
- Montana teachers focus on technology at camp
The idea of Camp Cadre was to learn from the trainers and from one another. And not too long into the day, that’s exactly what was happening.
- Idaho college visits give aspiring Montana kids extra motivation
Talent Search is a college program designed to disseminate information to a large population of students in sixth through 12th grades. The programs currently involve 400 students in the five area middle school and high schools.
- Flathead Valley Community College President Jane Karas honored with CEO award
According to the nomination, Karas “has insured FVCC’s success by forging strategic partnerships with local industries and other institutions of higher learning. The public’s confidence in her leadership led to the passage of a $16 million levy to double the size of the campus and dramatically increase its academic, technical and community education offerings.”
- Flathead Valley Community College Introduces Study Abroad Program in Bali
Participants can earn up to 19 credits while studying on the island and exploring its famed beaches and tropical forests.
- Students learn the value of serving their community at Montana Behavior Initiative Youth Days
Students did community service projects across Bozeman as part of the Montana Behavior Initiative Youth Days, a program run by the state Office of Public Instruction to promote community, citizenship, leadership and learning by serving.
Wyoming Business
- Program pairs Montana students, professionals
For the past four years all the juniors in the district have had a chance to observe someone in a profession they're interested in pursuing.
Education
- Eleutian Technology looking beyond Ten Sleep, Wyoming
Company consulting with officials to expand to other Wyoming locations
- Statewide sales tax proposed for Wyoming colleges
Sixteen of Wyoming's 23 counties pay nothing to support the community colleges.
Other Economies
- Social networks could help community college students
But while large numbers of students say they use such tools in their daily lives, many two-year colleges have yet to mine the potential of the technology.
- Teaching for a New World: Preparing High School Educators to Deliver College- and Career-Ready Instruction
Just as our students do not always receive the preparation they need for twenty-first-century success, neither do all of their teachers.
- Qwest Foundation offers grants for high-tech education
Officials with the foundation said educators can apply for awards until Nov. 20, with funds disbursed early next year. This year marks the sixth annual round of grants.
Connectivity & Communications
- Budget insiders see worse ahead in Calif., Mich.
Both California and Michigan were prominently featured in a new report issued this week by the Pew Center on the States, “Beyond California: States in Fiscal Peril.”
Miscellaneous Ramblings
- Rewiring an Old Fund for Rural Broadband
The Universal Service Fund, set up 75 years ago to get phone service to rural communities, may extend funding to rural broadband and other new media.
Legislative Newsletters
- Author Ken Auletta goes to the heart of Google - "Googled: The End of the World as We Know It."
"Microsoft had cold businessmen," he said. "They were out to kill the competition. You're not cold businessmen. You're cold engineers."
Government Technology
- Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch’s Newsletter - A Commitment to Open Government
Welcome to my first newsletter! This quarterly packet is intended to enhance your understanding of the Montana Office of the Secretary of State through useful and timely information.
- Idaho state government efficiency Web site launched
The Web site provides graphic representations of the overall budget, as well as breakdowns by policy area, including general government, public safety, health and human services, education, economic development and natural resources. There also are breakdowns by revenue and by expenditure, and an area for readers' comments on every page. The input will be reviewed, and plans are in the works for highlighting and seeking public feedback on the results.
- Off-shoring: Is it good for Montana? Economist looks at shipping IT jobs overseas
It’s hard to say if offshoring has really cost American jobs, but it’s a popular target when people are feeling the pinch.
- Former manager on Montana's POINTS doesn’t endorse off-shoring
POINTS, undertaken in Gov. Marc Racicot’s second term, cost Montana an estimated $60 million in the software, which was abandoned in 2005, and in lost tax revenue.
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