The State with the Best Education Wins!
	MATR Newsletter - Tue Oct 18, 2011

This MATR newsletter sponsored by: Add an event... Upcoming Events MITS 2011 Symposium, 10/18-19, Helena, Montana Shining Light On Social Media - Illuminating The Impact On Business, 10/18, Missoula USU's 2011 Restoring The West Conference Focuses On Biomass, 10/18-19, Logan Utah Double Your December Webinar, 10/18, Online Financial Management For The Close Held Business Workshop, 10/19-20, Butte, Montana, Maximizing Google Tools, 10/20, Bozeman, MT Higher Education Leaders Gather For Discussion, 10/20, Missoula, Montana Webinar: Selling Into The Euro Zone - Opportunity And Crisis The Europe Opportunity, 10/20, Online Sen. Tester And Other Leaders To Discuss Passenger Rail Service, 10/22, Laurel, Montana "One Valley, One Vision" Flathead Valley Annual Economic Development Dinner, 10/20, Kalispell, Montana Crown Of The Continent Symposium, 10/21-22, University Of Montana - Missoula Train The Trainer , 10/21, Missoula 2011 Harvesting Clean Energy Conference, 10/23-25, 2011, Boise, Idaho Photoshop CS4 Basic Begins, 10/25, Bozeman, MT MSU Billings TechExpo Connects Employers With Students, 10/25, MSU Billings MATR supporter: New Events Double Your December Webinar, 10/18, Online Higher Education Leaders Gather For Discussion, 10/20, Missoula, Montana Sen. Tester And Other Leaders To Discuss Passenger Rail Service, 10/22, Laurel, Montana Maximizing Google Tools, 10/20, Bozeman, MT Webinar: Selling Into The Euro Zone - Opportunity And Crisis The Europe Opportunity, 10/20, Online Crown Of The Continent Symposium, 10/21-22, University Of Montana - Missoula MSU Billings TechExpo Connects Employers With Students, 10/25, MSU Billings Photoshop CS4 Basic Begins, 10/25, Bozeman, MT International Trade Alliance 2011 Annual Meeting, 11/1, Spokane, WA Zee Creative Web Marketing Courses, 11/01, Billings, MT Beers With Brad In Boise, 11/4 The 2011 National Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Fall Conference, 11/6-9, New Orleans, LA Montana Rural Community Conference, 5/15-16 , Bozeman, Montana MATR supporter: MATR Web services provided by: To subscribe or unsubscribe from the free weekly MATR newsletter, please visit our list info page

" The Sunflower edge is about innovation, it is the language of innovation. Business schools don't prepare one for innovation like how does one invent a product. The sunflower edge provides a roadmap for innovation, it provides hope to those that need to reinvent themselves individuals, small businesses, non profits and larger businesses..." Rob Ryan The Sunflower Edge Blooms in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana http://www.matr.net/ar ... .html

Montana Department of Commerce

• The Montana State Small Business Credit Initiative (MT SSBCI) Program website
  Montana will be using $12.6 million to create a new loan participation program with the intent to generate at least $10 in new small business lending for every $1 received in Federal funds. The goal is to leverage this initial funding into over $130 million in new lending within Montana.


• Montana Department of Commerce Business Resources Division
  The Business Resources Division is comprised of a variety of programs aimed at improving, enhancing, and diversifying Montana's economic and business climate.

PrintingForLess

• Double Your December Webinar, 10/18, Online
  Last year's holiday marketing strategies won't work. Facebook, Google and Groupon have changed the rules for the 2011 holiday season. Fail to adapt, and you lose the consumer's attention. But if you truly understand the dynamic of the market, you can double your December!

21st Century Education Initiative - "You Should Care..."

• Montana's First Lady Encourages Teachers to Enter Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest Win for a $100,000 technology grant
  Middle and high school science and mathematics instructors are invited to fill out a short application online at: https://pages.samsung.com/us/sft/home.htm


• Tech sector targets future leaders - Enablers for the ICT, health and life sciences sector.
  The not-for-profit group partners with the region's tech companies to grow the sector in the southeast of the province - including ensuring that today's students realize the fun and possibly lucrative careers that the sector provides those who emerge on graduation day with the skill sets the sector so badly craves.


• Putting Students Where They're Needed Most - Venture for America
  Venture for America, a nonprofit he founded this summer, recruits college seniors to spend two years after graduation at start-ups in struggling cities.


• Anybody can be creative. You just have to learn how.
  The program aims to help students unlock their creative potential by teaching them to become, among other things, more open to experimentation, more comfortable with ambiguity and less afraid of failure.


• BYU-Idaho: Leading by innovation
  "If we continue on in the direction we have been on with having a much narrower focus and not as much support for innovation and new approaches to solving problems, I am afraid we are not going to have the same quality of higher education that got us to the same political, social and economic prosperity that we had in the past," said John Curtis, director of research and public policy for the American Association of University Professors.


• Schools offer path for science-minded
  "The students that come into the STARS program and who enroll in my introduction to research class, they are well above average for their enthusiasm for getting into research."

Rob Ryan's Entrepreneur- America

• The Sunflower Edge Blooms in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana
  "Lack of self reliance reflects a deep malaise in our country and in fact the entire world. I watched Steve Job's 2005 Stanford Commencement Address http://matr.net/article-46641.html today. It was interesting to see that, just like Rob, he said getting fired and being forced to go it alone was the best thing that ever happen to him. I hope a zillion people who have been laid off listen to the speech today and hear that message. Maybe that will be all it takes to get them to try to find a better personal destiny." Terry Ryan

Come Home Montana

• Montana Career opportunity - Adobe Application Engineer - E*Pro Inc
  We have an urgent requirement for Adobe Application Engineer with one of our direct clients.


• Bigfork, Montana Named Top 100 Community for Youth
  America's Promise Alliance 100 Best Communities for Young People award, presented by ING, honors towns across the country for improving and supporting the lives of the resident youth and reducing high school dropout rates.


• Montana Career Opportunity - Chief Financial Officer - Montana Community Development Corporation (Montana CDC)
  The CFO is responsible for the overall planning, directing, and coordinating of all financial activities at Montana CDC and its subsidiary corporations.

MEDA -Montana Economic Developers Association

• Montana Economic Developers Association - 2011 Fall Conference Summary
  From the Professional Development Training (thanks, PPL Montana) to the presentations, ice-cream and tours, the MEDA Fall Conference was a success. Thanks to everyone for attending.

Montana Business

• Kalispell, Montana's Torrent Technologies Taking the Flood Insurance Industry By Storm
  "It made a lot of sense to be in Seattle in the beginning," Pine said. "But there really wasn't a question where to put our hub. The great thing about Montana and specifically Kalispell is there's a wonderful work force of people. For our type of business, it's an excellent place to have a service-based operation."


• Schedulicity: A Bozeman, Montana Based Business With A Global Impact
  "We currently are in almost two-thousand cities across the United States and Canada since our launch a little over a year and a half ago when we launched Schedulicity," said Schedulicity CEO Jerry Nettuno, "we've already scheduled over five million appointments and most of those appointments are booked after business hours."


• Schedulicity Awarded Top Honor by Tech Awards Circle
  Tech Awards Circle winners are selected by an independent circle of journalists and are considered the "best of the best" in the computer and consumer technology industries today. Previous winners include companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Rosetta Stone, Carbonite and YouSendIt.

Montana Economic Development

• The Yellowstone Business Partnership Cooperative center gets grant to aid businesses
  MCDC works to develop businesses using the cooperative business model, both to keep businesses open and to establish new ones, typically in rural communities. In a cooperative, customers are owners of the business and share in its profits.


• Bozeman, Montana area looking to revamp down local economy
  In the last 18 months, the city has hired an economic development director, created an economic development council, joined an economic development district, streamlined the planning process, altered the zoning process, jump-started two-year programs at Gallatin College and mended damaged relationships with businesses and other governmental bodies. And so far it's worked.


• Big Sky Economic Development Corporation Annual Meeting This Thursday, 10/20, Billings, Montana
  There will be a series of free seminars that businesses can take part of to gain valuable insight on topics such as "Marketing on a Shoestring Budget", "Ways to Motivate Employees" and other valuable topics for small businesses. Building Success will run from 8:30 to 11:30 AM also at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.


• Senator Tester's Job Creation and Capital Formation Roundtable Videos Now Available
  Senator Tester hosted a roundtable in Bozeman to explore the role of universities in federally funded research in capital formation and job creation. This site will share video and legislative solutions from the event.

Montana's "Big Sky Blue" Supercomputer

• Supercomputing exec director leaving Montana's Rocky Mountain Supercomputing Center
  "I have been honored to help my home state move into the supercomputing and knowledge economy. I see a bright future for increased supercomputing use in Montana to benefit research, education and business." Earl Dodd

Funding and Building your Business

• Celebrity Endorsements are Hot For Startups Today
  Startups using celebrities is such a hot topic these days that , noted author and entrepreneur, has coined a new term "star-ups" for the phenomenon.


• Marketing Excellence
  Beer adverts usually follow the same storyline about who has the coldest chilling system, the best sports offers or the hottest models but a new campaign from Carlsberg is highly original and features a night out at the cinema.


• Understanding How Dilution Affects You At A Startup
  Understanding how you're likely to get diluted over time is a more difficult concept.


• Ten Tips On How To Work With Your Board Of Directors
  Strategy mistakes are harder to admit than execution mistakes.


• Complaints Are Good for Business
  "Building a business, especially at this pace, you are making mistakes all the time. The best thing a company can do is embrace its mistakes."


• The Best Way to Fire an Employee
  Be sure.


• How To Set Performance Standards for Your Startup's New Hires
  It's extremely important to understand exactly what employees need to know in order for them to become valuable team members.


• M&M's: The Key to Hiring Success
  A recent study showed that people who eat sugar are more agreeable than others.


• Try These Ten Startup Work Relationship Strategies
  Just because you are an entrepreneur, or work in a startup, you can't ignore the rules of building and maintaining relationships.

Montana Education Excellence

• Crown Of The Continent Symposium, 10/21-22, University Of Montana - Missoula
  Massive grizzly bears, insatiable mountain pine beetles and relentless climate change are just a few of the topics on tap for the inaugural Crown of the Continent Symposium on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 21-22, at The University of Montana.


• Supporting local schools and economies - Farm to School
  Farm to School programs are a win-win situation for all involved. In Montana, 80,000 students are served by the school lunch program every day.


• Task force to take hard look at changing Bozeman school calendar
  During informal discussions, some task force members said they'd like to shorten the summer break and "eliminate ... summer regression," when kids lose ground and need to review what they forgot over summer.

Montana Education/Business Partnerships

• Service is a solution in Montana
  Corporation for National and Community Service programs -- AmeriCorps and VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) -- help our communities address some of our most pressing challenges like teacher and nursing shortages, access to health care, K-12 academic success, disaster response, environmental degradation and reintegrating veterans into civilian life.

Idaho Business

• Chubbuck, Idaho Allstate Insurance Co. call center to mark grand opening - expected to create 500 jobs
  The company says employees hired at the facility will help its customers around the nation who dial in to toll-free sales and service lines.


• New call center opens in Meridian
  ProService plans to hire up to 100 people within two years.

Utah Business

• Wayne Rogers: Utah's Educated Workforce Makes the State Stand Out
  As a part-time resident of Utah for the past 30 years, Rogers said one of the things that makes Utah special is the high quality workforce here. "I am not an expert on this, but I think the workforce is better educated than in many other states. They are technically more proficient and I think the universities and schools in Utah do a better job than others schools."

Washington State Business

• Boeing and Microsoft boom, but Washington State busts
  "I'm beginning to get a little tired of going in there and trying to put a smiley face on bad news," Raha says. "I don't even try anymore. Now people are just afraid every time I show up for a meeting."

Education

• Montana State University online teacher preparation program now accepting applications
  Since the program is taught entirely online, students do not have to be based in Bozeman, or even Montana, to enroll.


• Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev promotes alliances at University of Wyoming Speech
  "There will be failure but the most important thing is to persevere." Mikhail Gorbachev

MAPS : Media Arts in the Public Schools

• MAPS students attend annual Hatch Festival in Bozeman
  The Hatch Festival is one of the premier events in Montana for aspiring filmmakers.

Other Economies

• New York's top court hears arguments on economic incentives
  The state's top court heard arguments this week on whether there's any merit to a lawsuit that could upend New York's long-standing system of distributing billions in economic development incentives to private businesses.

Connectivity & Communications

• Stanford summer course yields touchscreen Braille writer
  "The killer app was not a reader, but a writer!"

Energy and Climate Change

• App Eases Simplifies Vehicle Charging
  The rise of EV cars has been good for reducing emissions, but they add unknown variables to the utility infrastructure, because power companies aren't sure when or how much their systems will be tapped to recharge batteries.

Cool Stuff That's Coming

• Paralyzed man's mind moves prosthetic arm
  Tim Hemmes, who is paralyzed, was able to control an external arm-like device with his thoughts. A grid of electrodes placed on the surface of his brain interface with a computer, allowing him to move the arm to high-five his girlfriend.


• CMU Researchers Turn Any Surface Into A Touchscreen
  Soon you, too, will be able to talk to the hand.

Transportation

• Missoula International Airport director named regional executive of year, says more changes in store
  The No. 1 request that we receive in terms of air service is for service within the state of Montana, specifically Billings.


• Bitterroot rail line no longer in service
  Montana Rail Link shut down its Bitterroot rail line on June 2 after floods washed out a section of track between Florence and Stevensville.

HACKING AND VIRUS ALERTS

• Preventing a Pearl Harbor of cyberspace
  "There's a strong likelihood that the next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a cyberattack that cripples our power systems, our grid, our security systems, our financial systems, our governmental system."

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