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| MATR Newsletter - Tue Feb 13, 2007 |
"He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery." -- Harold Wilson
Hope to see you in Helena this Thursday and Friday: "Montana Ambassador’s Annual Conference With Rich Karlgaard, Publisher Of Forbes Magazine, Sen. Max Baucus and Gov. Brian Schweitzer, 2/15-16, Helena, MT" http://www.matr.net/ar ... .html
Boomtown Institute
Come Home Montana
- The Agurban from Boomtown Institute - Locate Your Next Plant in a Small Town?
Is your community ready when prospects come knocking? Do you have information ready to present to these prospects regarding your real estate and tax costs, local wage and transportation costs? Keep your community positive and you might just land that next manufacturer looking at your small town.
Developing a more Entrepreneurial Montana
- Montana Career Opportunity - Commercial Sales Representative - Transaria
Fast-paced, high-growth, leading rural data communications provider seeks sales professional.
- Montana Career Opportunities - Creative Director & Senior Designer - O’Berry|Cavanaugh
High-octane individual with proven leadership in taking projects from discovery through delivery.
- "Network'd - The Reality Of Business In Bozeman, Montana, 2/13, Bozeman, MT
Are you feeling the effects of the talent shortage? Bozeman is flush with innovators and entrepreneurs. The town is humming with great ideas and growing companies. Alternative energy, technology, biotech, manufacturing and professional services are all competing for proven candidates, boomer-rangers, MSU alumni and accomplished lifestyle seekers.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Executive Director - The Clark Fork Coalition
The CLARK FORK COALITION, seeks an experienced executive director.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Financial Manager - The University of Montana - Missoula
Interested in living in western Montana?
Montana Education Excellence
- Entrepreneur Day, 2/28, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana
Join us for a great day of learning, discussion and fun as we discover more about entrepreneurism in Montana.
- Ahead for business - Montana DECA state convention this week in Helena
“Some of them are at the same level as some marketing consultants I’ve worked with,” McArdle said. “They don’t know my questions ahead of time, and they’re able to think on their feet very well.”
Education
- Media savvy high schoolers create College Goal ads through MAPS
MAPS http://www.mediarts.org founder Peter Rosten is looking to expand the three-year-old program beyond the Bitterroot. The retired TV and movie producer currently teaches classes in media skills at the high schools in Corvallis and Darby. Next month, he plans to open a branch in the Missoula Boys and Girls Club. And he's taking a proposal to the 2007 Legislature to fund 10 more programs in high schools throughout the state.
- Meet MAPS -Media Arts in the Public Schools.
An introduction to our program and our students. Produced by our 2007 MAPS filmmakers..
- Students, parents team up for college
“It's so important to have a college education, and when I heard about this event I told my grandkids I would bring them,”
- Darby High School Students building electric cars from the ground up
It may not be the Ford Motor Company or General Motors, but students in A.J. Dahlberg's transportation technology class spend almost every day constructing cars - electric ones - in the Darby High School vocational shop.
Montana Business
- North Dakota could solve ed funding feud out of court
North Dakota’s Legislature this session will make or break an experiment by Gov. John Hoeven (R) and key stakeholders in public education to avoid the path that has embroiled 45 states, including North Dakota previously, in school-finance lawsuits that can drag on for years and sow long-lived bad feelings.
- 'One Laptop per Child' comes closer to reality
Few projects are as important or utopian as Nicholas Negroponte's newest obsession. With the energy of a true believer, he wants to put laptops into the hands of every school-age child with his "One Laptop Per Child" nonprofit project.
- Business schools warming to environmental concerns
Business schools are going green.
- Bill Gates' syllabus for tech and education
Gates said he believes that the reasons people select great universities or schools--access to professors' lectures, the ability to discuss issues with other students and the need to attend classes to gain a degree--will all be changed by technology.
- Former Sun CEO hopes the world is his classroom. McNealy says nonprofit Curriki Web site encourages learning - and it's all free!
McNealy has spent most of the past year as the leading pitchman for Curriki, a nonprofit group that's trying to build a mega-Web site of educational materials that teachers, students and parents anywhere in the world can use, modify, critique and expand on. And they can do all that for free.
- Duke Program Seeks to Expand Service Work
Duke University announced yesterday that it would create a program backed by $30 million, half from a donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to help students work on projects like teaching at a school in Durham, N.C., or building one in Kenya.
Montana Meth Project
- Guest Opinion: Leveling the playing field for Montana businesses
In our mind, it just makes sense to hold businesses and individuals who do business in Montana to the same level as we ourselves are held, leveling the playing field.
- Online forums replacing coffee shops for tip-seeking farmers
"You get the best thinkers in agriculture," Winkle said of the forums. "You're mixing such a diverse group of people — from different areas, from different backgrounds, different experiences, different ways of farming."
- Montana aerospace business takes off - Sonju Industrial
“We are going to grow in the next two years,” he said, adding that he expects his company’s work force to surge from 37 employees to 150. “Diversification makes us a healthy business and gives us more opportunities.”
- IntraLogix helps business understand hardware, software systems
intraLogix staffers are adept at bridging the gap between the needs of the middling crowd and the vast steps that technology continues to take. It just may be what keeps an otherwise awkward relationship between techno-fiends and average Joes seamless.
- New Internet services at Montana seed lab should aid marketing
"Another very cool feature will be that the Pure Harvest Web site will allow free advertising for the clients of Pure Harvest Labs," Armstrong said. "You have a result. You haven't sold all the seed. You can post x-pounds of green needle grass for sale."
- 2006 Montana Governor's Excellence in Exporting Award Winners Announced
"The winners of the Governor's Excellence in Exporting Awards deserve to be recognized for their outstanding efforts in exporting Montana products," said Lt. Governor John Bohlinger "These innovative minds are working to put Montana on the map."
Montana Economic Development
- Meth treatment up 192 percent in the Cheyenne, Wyoming area
The report is the first major step as the Cheyenne Meth Initiative works to tackle the problem. The group plans to use the report to develop a strategic plan for addressing meth issues.
- HBO Meth movie pulls no punches, airs at Wilma on Thursday
Besides the Montana lawmakers who got a glimpse of “Montana Meth” last month, those attending the opening of the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival this Thursday will be the first in the nation to view it. HBO has made it available free of charge.
- University of Montana Graduate Business students take the challenge from Tom Siebel to raise funds for the Montana Meth Project
Tom Siebel, the billionaire behind the Montana Meth Project, made a powerful impression on a bunch of University of Montana graduate students last year.
GIS Technology
- State schools chief urges continued funding support
"Montana cannot build a first-class economy with a second-class school system. Continuing down the road to a quality education is not just about my kids, it's about all of us. It's about the future of Montana.'' Montana State Superintendent of Public Instruction Linda McCulloch
- READ stands for the Regional Economies Assessment Database.
Using READ, local economic development practitioners in neighboring cities and towns can examine the range and scope of their common regional economy and evaluate the role or "place" it occupies within the larger economy.
- Montana's Red Lodge, Cooke City, launching $250,000 promotional campaign
"Businesses are plenty busy in July. We're trying to work on the shoulder seasons -- fall and spring."
Funding and Building your Business
- Engineer: GPS shoes make people findable
"We call it a second eye watching over you,"
Regional Economic Development
- Making The Blair Witch Project taught Campfire how to tap the power of curiosity. Meet the puppet masters of viral marketing.
The tiny outfit has been the invisible force behind the country's most groundbreaking viral campaigns--nonlinear, interactive advertising that starts out niche and then metastasizes.
- Outsourcing expands to cover all but the core
There's a new calculation taking hold in corporate suites: Identify a company's core competencies. Outsource everything else.
- How women altered the business landscape
"Women's companies are more likely than others to stay in business, while companies owned by women of color are four times as likely as others to stay in business," Heffernan writes.
- How to Find Ideas For a New Business
If you're thinking about starting a small business dare to let your mind run out a little bit about what type of business it might be.
Government Technology
- Knowledge Worker Quotient
Education is the key to prosperity. There’s simply no way to sugarcoat that fact. Communities without a strong educational foundation — good public schools, community colleges, a local college or university — are at a severe disadvantage in the competition for good-paying jobs with a future.
- The Sopris Foundation - Innovative Ideas for a New West will again occur in May 2007. Likely in Missoula, Montana
Create Community encapsulates a goal Sopris cherishes. In the face of certain trends (sky-high real estate values removing homes for locals — or — thousands of temporary homes for oil and gas workers) how do full time neighbors retain their foothold in the place they helped create? How do we gather in order to empower community revitalization?
- The February issue of Intellections - Montana's Senator Baucus Supports Allocating Resources for Increased Intellectual Property Protection
If we are to remain a country that rewards innovation and provides incentives for technological advancement, then we must be willing to make intellectual property enforcement a priority.
- U.S. must boost high-tech talent
Finding top talent in the technical field will be the major challenge for businesses in 2007, according to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report.
Idaho Business
- Lawmakers can connect to thousands via just one phone call.
"The technology is terrific because it allows me to have conversations with constituents in a way that, prior to this, was simply impossible," said Rep. John Kline, R-Minn
Washington State Business
- Nampa, Idaho business group to dissolve. Members coaxed companies to city for past 57 years
"It's clear they did change the face of Nampa and the economy," said City Councilwoman Lynda Clark, whose grandfather, Earl Antrim, was an original board member. "They did step in at a real critical time in Nampa, and we are still benefiting from it."
- Idaho has the will and capability to become energy independent
Idaho's core strengths in agriculture and high technology position the Idaho economy to lead and prosper in the clean energy sector.
- Idaho Commerce Dept. director on tech: ‘I agree we could do better’
The challenge Idaho faces now is the same as when people were leaving the state – companies are struggling to find people to fill their high paying jobs.
Wyoming Business
- Ask.com, Intuit bringing new data centers to State of Washington
Lured by the promise of cheap hydroelectric power, two major high-tech companies have chosen Central Washington for new data centers.
- Northwest a player in world wireless congress
Many Puget Sound-area companies will have a presence at the show, which is expecting more than 60,000 attendees. The list includes Microsoft, InfoSpace, SNAPin, SinglePoint, Intrinsyc, RadioFrame Networks, T-Mobile USA, Medio Systems, Action Engine and Volantis.
Miscellaneous Ramblings
- Wyoming Career Opportunities - Three Senior Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analyst - Torrent Technologies
We value all members of our team, not just senior management. We believe that beyond a paycheck, every member wants challenging work and a sense of accomplishment and appreciation. We offer not only competitive compensation, but ownership as well by making Torrent’s Stock Option Plan available to all full-time employees.
Careers
- A Head For Detail. Gordon Bell feeds every piece of his life into a surrogate brain, and soon the rest of us will be able to do the same.
His goal is never to forget anything.
- Second Life is being hailed as the next MySpace
The online role-playing site is a creation, but the social situations conjured up can feel just like they do in real life: awkward.
- Best Firefox Add-Ons
One of the most attractive features of the Firefox browser is its customizable architecture.
Energy
- Finding Time: Blending Networking Into Your Life
If you're doing it right, networking isn't something that takes lots of extra time in your life.
- These Resume Gaffes Do Immediate Damage
You don't want to make the staffing professional's work even more difficult by presenting a poorly prepared resume that's sloppy, difficult to read, or otherwise complicates the matter. If you do, it probably will be immediately rejected.
Connectivity & Communications
- Branson, Gore Team to Save Globe. U.K. entrepreneur and former U.S. VP offer $25-million prize to combat climate change.
Carbon harvesting from the atmosphere, he said, could be a good way of tackling the problem. So far, however, a method for achieving this has eluded scientists and engineers.
- Biomass plants find power in poop
Here's the stuff of America's energy future: wood trimmings, cow manure, chicken litter, household trash and landfill gas.
Commuter Rail Development
- Wireless sensors extend reach of Internet into the real world
"I see this as the next wave of extending the Internet into the physical world," said computer scientist Deborah Estrin, who heads the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing, a UCLA-based consortium of six schools.
- Will Commuter Rail Happen In Southeast Michigan?
In order to alleviate congestion and auto-dependency, mass transportation proponents are working diligently to develop southeast Michigan's first commuter rail line.
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