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| MATR Newsletter - Fri Mar 16, 2007 |
"Plans are useless, planning is essential." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Boomtown Institute
Come Home Montana
- The Agurban from Boomtown Institute - It's Not Just the Money - Why Toyota Choose Blue Springs, MS
Toyota officials say it was because of the area’s people and how everyone worked together to bring the project to fruition.
- Interesting Encounters - Why should a bank make a loan to a company that brewed burnt coffee?
Clark also related the story of getting a call to go visit a coffee shop that was needing funding, “We went down to their store and I thought that the coffee tasted burnt and I didn’t see anyway that they were going to be able to get people to pay the $3/cup that they were charging. As you’ve probably guessed, I turned down Howard Schultz of Starbucks Coffee for a loan.”
Developing a more Entrepreneurial Montana
- Montana Career Opportunity - Sub-Center Manager PTAC (Procurement Technical Assistance Center)
Responsibilities will include: day-to-day operation of the Montana Procurement Technical Assistance (PTAC) Sub-Center located in Bozeman.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Director of Human Resources - NorthWestern Energy
Accountable for the development and implementation of human resources policies and programs that provide HR support to business units, employee compensation and benefit plans, retention and recruitment, organizational development, labor relations, performance management, and HR service center management.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Associate Commissioner - Montana University System
Responsibilities include: successful administration of media relations, governmental relations, legislative coordination, and communications with various constituent groups and the public; building, maintaining, and improving collaborative partnerships between the Montana University System and the state's communities, businesses, local, state, and federal government and organizations.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Communications and Public Relations Leader - Montana State Fund
Develops, manages, evaluates, and maintains internal and external communications programs and projects, including conceptualizing, writing and editing annual report, customer satisfaction survey, newsletters, brochures, manuals, and other employee and customer relations materials for Montana State Fund.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Credit Union CEO/President
Trico Educational Federal Credit Union is seeking a highly motivated visionary leader
- Education Meets Leisure - Moguls and medicine in Montana
"This is the icing on the cake," said Hanowell, who's from Washington, D.C., and anticipates a career in emergency medicine. His Big Sky gig had him skiing half a day and working at the clinic the other half.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Geographic Information Officer - State of Montana, Department of Administration, Helena
This position is responsible for providing geospatial leadership for the state, developing all enterprise geospatial policies and managing the implementation of the Enterprise Geospatial Architecture for the State of Montana.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Curriculum Director - Rocky Mountain School of Photography
Requires ability to coordinate educational content and provide leadership in curriculum development.
Developing Tech Jobs in Rural Communities
- On the Road to an Entrepreneurial Economy: A Research and Policy Guide from The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
In the essay that follows, we distill what we’ve been learning through the research we sponsor and the feedback we receive from entrepreneurs, both Version 1.0 On the Road to an Entrepreneurial Economy 1 about the specific challenges to continued innovative entrepreneurship that confront the United States in the coming years, and how those challenges might be addressed. In particular, we outline some of our views on policies that we believe the best research suggests are likely to be most conducive to innovative entrepreneurship, as well as those subject areas that could benefit from future research.
Education
- U.S Job Satisfaction Declines, The Conference Board Reports... But It's Up in the Mountain States
The most content workers tend to reside in the Mountain states (MT, ID, WY, NV, UT, CO, AZ, NM). Here, 56 percent of all workers say they are satisfied with their job.
- Governor Calls For Help In Rural Job Growth
"If the governor is talking about infrastructure investment, he's on to something," Hood said. "If you used the money to improve the road system or address water and sewer capacity, you are implementing a policy that has a large number of potential beneficiaries."
- Report Says Public Schools in California Are ‘Broken’
“The structural problems are so deep-seated,” a summary of the report said, “that more funding and small, incremental interventions are unlikely to make a difference unless matched with a commitment to wholesale reform.”
Montana Business
- Rep. Denny Rehberg: "Give Montana education the funding it deserves."
"In Montana testing has shown many of our rural communities and Indian schools are the areas most in need,” Rehberg added. “We don't need more reorganization from the department. We need more money directed to the tried and true programs where we know problems exist."
- Report: More kids in state preschools
Parents searching for a school can now use a free website to find parent-generated ratings and basic information on virtually every preschool in America. The site, http://www.savvysource.com, offers what its creator calls "kind of a combination of Zagat's and Craigslist" for parents of young kids.
Montana Economic Development
- Wind harvest in Montana
“I’m not coming in here saying this is what we might do, it’s a nice area,” he said. “We already have contracts.” The wind farm, if completed, would bring to fruition a project that local residents have long speculated about.
- 2007 Made in Montana Marketplace a Success Sold Out Show & Record Setting Public Support
"The Made in Montana Marketplace has a history of success, and the word has gotten around," said Governor Brian Schweitzer.
GIS Technology
- Montana Commerce Director, Tony Preite to Present Montana Ethanol Producers And Consumers with a $87,500 check from the WIRED Program
EPAC will use the Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) grant to conduct 13 workshops which will support the biofuels industry across the 32 county WIRED region in eastern and central Montana and on six Indian reservations.
- Understanding the Economic Benefits of the Information Technology Revolution
Money spent on computing technology delivers gains in worker productivity that are three to five times those of other investments. Ensuring that societies fully benefit from the potential of the IT revolution means that policymakers must devote the same, if not higher, level of attention to it than they currently give to more conventional economic policy areas.
- Montana World Trade Center Newsletter March 14 Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
A group representing nearly a dozen organizations returned recently from a five-day trade mission to northern Italy and was hailed by Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg as a "superb team effort."
Funding and Building your Business
- States try GPS to protect social workers
To boost worker safety and efficiency, two states — Mississippi and Alabama — are equipping their frontline caseworkers with Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking devices.
Regional Business
- Show Me the Money, Part I --- Greed or Fear: What Really Motivates Investors
In the first of a two-part series on funding your startup, our columnist gives the lowdown on loans, equity investment, and grants
- 6 Degrees to a Perfect Startup
“To succeed, you have to work your contacts.”
- Intellections Newsletter: Microsoft-Novell Deal Raises Implications for Patent Licenses Based on Open Source Applications
There are many in the open source community who believe that software should not be patented at all.
- Good Employees Don't Grow on Trees
"If life were fair, employees would be perfect.
- Venture Capitalists and Angels invest $40 Billion per year but see only $18B in exits
For every Sequoia investment in Google there are a hundred investments that are losers.
Regional Economic Development
- Labour shortage hitting West hardest
Labour shortages are hurting productivity and profits by forcing some small firms to turn down business.
Utah Business
- USDA Funding Opportunity - Community Outreach and Assistance Partnerships
Community Outreach and Assistance Partnership Program announces the availability of approximately $5 million in fiscal year (FY) 2007 for collaborative outreach and assistance programs for women, limited resource, socially disadvantaged and other traditionally under-served farmers and ranchers, who produce Priority Commodities as defined within the RFA.
Utah Economic Development
- Logoworks of Lindon, Utah is named to Next Net 25 list
Lindon-based Logoworks has been named to Business 2.0 Magazine's http://www.business2.com Next Net 25, its guide to the "hottest Web 2.0 companies" for 2007.
- Venture-capital funding in Utah plunges 31%
"In 2006 we just didn't have any huge deals," said Devin Thorpe, president of the MountainWest Capital Network and founder of Thorpe Capital, a Salt Lake-based investment bank. "There were a couple of really big deals in '05 that were almost aberrations."
Wyoming Business
- Utah rolling out ads. $3.4M campaign using TV, print and Web to lure tourists
All ads will display the "Utah: Life Elevated" brand.
Government
- Rifle maker, A-Square, brings business to Glenrock, Wyoming from KY.
Eighteen months after start-up, Alphin said he would like to have 21 to 23 workers on the job.
Other Economies
- Wyoming hires new information officer - Robert von Wolffradt
Freudenthal's office said von Wolffradt, 50, will be responsible for developing a technological roadmap for the executive branch. Von Wolffradt has served as director of information services for Snohomish County in Washington State for the past five years and has previous experience in the private sector.
Incubators and R&D
- 75% of education school grads can't get jobs in Michigan
State's economic woes hit teaching jobs hard, accelerating brain drain
University TechTransfer
- High-tech incubator attracts $60 million in investments
"We are very proud of this milestone as it clearly demonstrates that significant money can be raised by promising, local technology businesses,"
The Creative and Cultural Economy
- U-M (University of Michigan) gains in turning technology into startups Commercializing research is promising in bringing millions of dollars, more jobs
Whether developing new drugs against debilitating diseases or refining software that helps fly fishermen improve their skills, commercializing research holds the promise of bringing millions of dollars in revenue to the university, and more jobs to Ann Arbor and the Michigan economy.
Non-Profit NewsEnergy
- Charities Are Boosting Pay To Compete for Top Talent
Salaries for top executives at nonprofits have climbed 25% to 50% since 2000, says Jennifer Bol, head of the education, nonprofit and public-policy practice at Spencer Stuart, an executive-placement firm.
Connectivity & Communications
- Report: Burying greenhouses gases will be key
To halt catastrophic climate change, the US has less than a decade learn how to capture and store carbon dioxide.
- Sneak preview of big report: Change is 'already showing up' The second report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts massive humanitarian crises.
Reports that the effects of global warming may be felt by the average person quicker and deeper than previously thought were reflected in a flurry of news coverage over the past week.
- The Precarious Future of Coal
A new MIT report says that much more effort is needed to develop and test technology that will make clean-coal power plants economical and practical.
- An Unusual Coalition Starts Push to Fix Ozone Layer and Slow Global Warming
An accelerated phaseout of the refrigerant could speed up by five years the healing of the ozone layer of the atmosphere.
- In a Test of Capturing Carbon Dioxide, Perhaps a Way to Temper Global Warming
American Electric Power, a major electric utility, is planning the largest demonstration yet of capturing carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power plant and pumping it deep underground.
Transportation
- Montana State University works to improve rural emergency communication
The Department of Homeland Security has given Montana State University $300,000 to help improve emergency communications in rural areas and rugged terrain.
- Google Adds a Safeguard on Privacy for Searchers
The company keeps logs of all searches, along with digital identifiers linking them to specific computers and Internet browsers.
- How Free Wi-Fi Could Change Los Angeles. What could it do for your community?
The plan would not only help make online access more affordable and available but expand the public sphere, turning every corner park and sidewalk bench into a possible home for the kind of coffeehouse culture that has always been a defining feature of urban life. It would send a message that the digital realm is a kind of public utility, as accessible as water and electricity.
- Technology cuts down on Web registrations
An emerging technology standard could be the answer to a major headache: It lets consumers use the same user name and password for hundreds of websites that require a sign-in.
Cool Stuff That's Coming
- Missoula officials set to discuss passenger train revival 3/15
The sound of an eastbound Amtrak train hasn't echoed off Mount Sentinel for decades. The Montana Association of Railroad Passengers wants to change that.
- Ridesharing With The 'Net
An Internet option for metro commuters http://www.NuRide.com offers seven-county carpooling through the Internet, complete with perks and flexibility.
- A 25-year-old experiment is turning everything we know about matter upside down, and may even have demonstrated an example of an entirely new state of matter. The universe is a string-net liquid
“What if electrons were not elementary, but were formed at the ends of long strings of other, fundamental particles?”
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