|
|
|
| MATR Newsletter - Tue Dec 2, 2014 |
|
This MATR newsletter sponsored by: Add an event... Upcoming Events
New Events
MATR supporter: To subscribe or unsubscribe from the free weekly MATR newsletter, please visit our list info page |
"People say that fame is important, but in the end it really isn’t. People say that wealth is important, but in the end it really isn’t. My ex-wife had a father who was in the tombstone business. I’ve seen a lot of tombstones. None of ’em have net worth on ’em. It’s the people you develop. That’s what you remember when you get to be my age. I don’t have much patience with CEOs who don’t see it that way." Tom Peters
2014 Montana Politics & 2015 Legislature
Montana Data Focused Business Cluster
- From Broken Homes to a Broken System - Native American youths struggle for support
"We can't have statewide economic prosperity without economic prosperity for the tribal nations in Montana." Gov. Steve Bullock
PrintingForLess
- Statistics Are Dead - Long Live Data Science... The lunatics are running the asylum
Data Science is all about extracting knowledge from data (I think just about everyone agrees with this very vague description), and it incorporates many diverse skills, such as mathematics, statistics, artificial intelligence, computer programming, visualisation, image analysis, and much more.
- Working the Land and the Data
...better uses of data analysis have raised his return on investment to 21.2 percent, from 14 percent.
Great Falls Development Authority
- Boost Your Credibility with Print
PrintingForLess.com offers a full line of high quality products to help you grow your business.
Inteneo Systems
- Great Falls Development Authority's Top 18 for November 30, 2014
Great Falls Top Economic News
Come Home Montana
- Companies with HR analytics outperform those that don't
According to Debra S. Osborn, Head of HR Reporting and Analytics at Aetna, HR analytics is a rapidly emerging field. Some recent surveys show that if companies have an HR analytics function, they outperform companies that don't. Debra thinks that it's because people really help to drive any company's business success.
- How Analytics is Revolutionising Retail Banking | Innovation Enterprise
The cost of acquiring customers far outweighs retention costs, but with customers more informed than ever, it's not a given to expect them to stay loyal to you just because of the rigmarole that comes with changing banks.
- Savvy Entrepreneurs Use Data Mining To Look Forward
How "big data" embodies an extraordinary wealth of experience from which to learn.
- Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die
Their computers say, "I knew you were going to do that!"
Montana Business
- Montana Career Opportunities - Asset Management Engineer, Environmental Compliance Specialist, Operations Planning Supervisor - Northwestern Energy
NorthWestern Energy is committed to providing excellent service for our customers.
- Java Developer position in the Flathead Valley
Montana Economic Development
- Google video honors Missoula's local businesses
The goal is to teach small business owners how to increase their presence on the internet.
TEDx Events in Montana
- December MEDA News, Grant Ops, Spring??? and More....
A lot is going on behind the scenes; MEDA committees are hard at work for the spring conference, Rotunda Day, and preparing for the 64th Legislative Session.
Careers
- Today's classic TED Talk Péter Fankhauser: Meet Rezero, the dancing ballbot
Engineering student Péter Fankhauser demonstrates Rezero, a robot that zips around while balanced on a sphere. Designed and built by students, Rezero is the first ballbot made to move quickly and gracefully -- and even dance.
Come Home Idaho
- How to Get More Respect From Your Boss With Less Work
There's hope for all you baby boomers fretting that eager millennials will edge you out of a job: Experience matters when it comes to the quality of ideas.
- The 7 Attributes of People Who Get Things Done
Profiles and resumes still focus too much on responsibilities rather than results.
- The Art of Social Media: Guy Kawasaki Gives Advice on How to Sell Yourself
The gist of all social media marketing, they write, is "to make money." To do that, you need to figure out "what kind of people you need to attract to make money," then figure out "what those people want to read (which is probably different from what you want them to read)."
Next Generation Broadband in Missoula
- Idaho's rural areas hurt by young adult migration
With fewer people spending money at local businesses, more businesses are forced to close down, eliminating employment opportunities for those who want to stay in town.
City Club Missoula
- Fiber Fight: Broadening Gig City Touted as Model in Broadband Debate
If cable and phone companies don't provide faster web service, more municipalities say they want to do it themselves as municipal electric utilities have done in Chattanooga, Tullahoma, Tenn., and Dalton, Ga.
Incubators and R&D
- City Club Missoula Presents: Proposed Merger Of Community Medical Center and Holiday Music with Darko Butorac and his Symphony String Quartet , 12/8, Missoula, Montana
The proposed sale of Community Medical Center to RegionalCare Billings Clinic has caused some uncertainty in the community.
Regional Business
- Researchers testing plastics made from crops
If the technology can be developed, no longer would bags and other long-lasting plastic products pollute ditches, parks and waterways.
Wyoming Business
- What falling oil prices will mean for state budgets
It costs $60 to $70 to produce a barrel of shale oil, leaving little margin once the price of crude dropped to the $75 range in November.
- Northwest Bank's Idaho executive: 'The next round of stupid is in full swing'
The next round of stupid is in full swing: stretching for yield. Making loans that don't have appropriate equity, real equity. Making loans in higher-risk areas because the yields are higher. Going long-term in investment portfolios even though liabilities or deposits are short-term in efforts to stretch yield on their liquidity. Treating the business like a sales business and focusing on top line growth instead of asset quality.
21st Century Education Initiative - "You Should Care..."
- Hospital association website prompts debate about transparency
Wyoming business leaders say the site doesn't provide useful data.
Education
- The Town Where Everyone Still Walks to School
Lakewood doesn't have any school buses--and it never has.
- Los Angeles schools embrace different vision of history, with lessons from Stanford group
A Graduate School of Education team is coaching hundreds of L.A. teachers to encourage students to think like a historian.
Montana Education Excellence
- For Accomplished Students, Reaching a Good College Isn't as Hard as It Seems
The fact that everyone believes otherwise shows how reliance on a single set of data -- in this case, institutional admission rates -- can create a false sense of what's really going on.
Community
- Cats and Griz, bitter football rivals, work together more than ever off the field
The regents "in their wisdom decided the two campuses should work together - instead of awarding the plum to one campus over the other - and the two campuses have "succeeded together."
- Statewide foundation pitched to Montana regents
Christian said last week that creating the foundation would allow the university system to accept donations that it otherwise wouldn't receive. He says the statewide foundation wouldn't compete with individual schools seeking donations.
Funding and Building your Business
- Building a Community Brand
Mims encourages any community in the process of developing a brand to invest the resources into determining the needs of residents through surveying topics such as the type or retail establishments desired or community assets that would enhance quality of life.
- Video: At-risk Native American teens on reservations find few places to turn
On Pine Ridge and Rosebud, two of South Dakota's largest Indian reservations, many Native American teenagers find themselves caught between broken homes and a broken justice system.
Energy and Climate Change
- Focus On Profits Is Not Enough For A Great Business
In the interest of helping first-time entrepreneurs, as well as existing business executives, keep their sanity as well as their focus, I offer the following pragmatic suggestions for dealing with the triple bottom line requirements:
- Strategies: Eat, drink, be merry -- and network
In small businesses, word-of-mouth marketing and customer relationships are the key to ongoing sales. Nothing beats the impact of connecting with a business owner face to face. So pack your social schedule.
- The Cybersecurity Myths That Small Companies Still Believe
Board members are still befuddled by persistent myths on this topic.
- The Right Startup Board of Advisors Are As Valuable As Money
Your board of advisors needs to tell you the truth about you and your business, good or bad.
Connectivity & Communications
- Stanford engineers invent high-tech mirror to beam heat away from buildings into space
A new ultrathin multilayered material can cool buildings without air conditioning by radiating warmth from inside the buildings into space while also reflecting sunlight to reduce incoming heat.
- "Green Heart" Outdoor Gyms Turn Burned Calories into Clean Energy
The Kilowatts produced by the users while they're exercising enter a local energy network, so citizens can save on their utility bills.
- Big companies promote water sustainability
"In the end, Patagonia may never be completely responsible. We have a long way to go and we don't have a map -- but we do have a way to read the terrain and to take the next step, and then the next."
- Optimism Faces Grave Realities at Climate Talks
Recent reports show that there may be no way to prevent the planet's temperature from rising, given the current level of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere and the projected rate of emissions expected to continue before any new deal is carried out.
- What Can Cities Really Do About Climate Change?
"We hoped to send a message to places around the world that at some point the United States would rejoin the effort to protect the climate," Nickels says. "I think we sent that message far more powerfully than we anticipated."
- Governor Bullock endorses $1 billion clean energy project
"The Gordon Butte Project represents Montana taking a leadership role in defining the nation's energy future", said Governor Steve Bullock. "Innovative energy solutions like this are good for the economy of our rural communities and provide exciting new opportunities for students and workers alike."
Government Technology
- Net Neutrality: 6 reasons why economic developers should care
Second, broadband access is a prerequisite for business development.
Miscellaneous Ramblings
- The big picture: Where your local tax dollars are spent
After months of preparation and a change in budgeting philosophy that's still unfolding, Butte-Silver Bow has produced a giant document that puts the county's finances and operations in terms most anyone can understand.
- Business And Tech Could Transform The Way Our Government Works By 2020
Just as big data analytics allows companies to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, so it allows governments to measure how well legislation and regulation is working.
Cool Stuff That's Coming
- 5 apps to get the best prices this holiday season
Equipped with your smartphone or tablet and the right apps, you are no longer a mere Christmas shopper. You are a shopping warrior.
- 15 Futuristic Gifts for the Super-Early Adopter
Living on the bleeding edge can cause a bleeding wallet. But who cares? For the serious early adopter on your list, only these gifts will do.
Transportation
- A Next-Level Smartwatch That Predicts Seizures
When a person does experience a seizure, the app will alert an emergency contact to help them.
- This Flying Car Could Hit the Market by 2017
"I'm in a car looking down on traffic. And it flies real nice."
To subscribe or unsubscribe from the free weekly MATR newsletter, please visit our list info page