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| MATR Newsletter - Tue Jun 23, 2009 |
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"Delusions of grandeur make me feel a lot better about myself." ~ Jane Wagner
Big Sky Commerce
Vision Net
- Investors Bet on Payments via Cellphone
The aim is to turn phones into virtual credit cards or checkbooks, enabling the kind of click-and-buy commerce and online banking that people have come to expect on their PCs.
Highway 12 Ventures
- Videoconferencing helps companies cut travel costs
"Change in the economic environment has led to (companies) reducing travel, and that has played well for the videoconference industry."
Boomtown Institute
- Balihoo Gets Toasted
It’s been tremendously gratifying for me to watch Balihoo (which CEO Pete Gombert started while camping out in our conference room for a few months), grow into one of Boise’s most important and successful companies.
Come Home Montana
- Boomtown Institute - In Rural America Small Business in King
Investing in small businesses also helps revitalize our main streets and build our communities. That is why I was pleased to hear recently that Washington is paying attention to the needs of rural small businesses.
Montana Business
- 'Rendezvous' organized for 6/26-28 to bring folks to the rural community of Ryegate, Montana
Riley said he enjoys a rendezvous because it allows him to step back in time to a place where "you don't have all the stress and cares of the modern-day world."
Montana Economic Development
- Managing the Merc: Young owners take the reins of the Polebridge Mercantile in the wilds of Glacier Country, Montana
What 25-year-old Stuart Reiswig is doing, with partner Flannery Coats, is pioneering a lifestyle that just happens to come with a business, an off-the-grid enterprise at the heart of Montana's last outpost.
- Unions, businesses battle over union bill
Both labor and business are calling the Employee Free Choice Act the most significant change in U.S. labor law in six decades, the Washington Post said, but that's the only aspect of the bill they agree on.
Regional Economic Development
- Montana Department of Commerce Grant Offers $300,000 for Tourism Infrastructure Projects August 3, 2009 Application Deadline
“This year’s TIIP grants will join with the job stimulus money already at work around Montana to create and sustain jobs. These grants are a resource to help our community tourism attractions be bigger, better and more successful,” said Governor Brian Schweitzer.
Careers
- BioFuels, Energy Research, Nukes to Propel Rural Economy
Gun sales are hot now, but global warming is turning billions in research and construction toward rural power projects.
Funding and Building your Business
- Advice for Senior Job-Hunters
The market is flooded with senior professionals just like yourself. But there are ways you can stand out and increase your odds of success.
Montana Education Excellence
- The five stages of business decline
“An institution can look strong on the outside but already be sick on the inside, dangerously on the cusp of a precipitous fall.’’
- Why Business Plans Don’t Deliver. The five most common flaws—and how to fix them
Truth be told, most business plans fail to make much impression on potential investors. Most aren’t even read in full. Their shortcomings tend to be obvious even in a two-page executive summary, largely because they are written before enough real work has been done to create a solid foundation.
- Successful Startups Put Some Distance Between Their HQ and Their VCs
New study shows that startups located far away from their venture investors’ offices actually perform better than those headquartered closer to the mother ship.
Montana Education/Business Partnerships
- University of Montana spending frustrates Governor Schweitzer - says University of Montana officials are "tone deaf" for creating new VP after layoffs
“I'm close to throwing my hands up and walking away,” said Schweitzer, who advocated unsuccessfully for a tuition freeze in the next two years because of the downturn in the economy.
- School officials state concern regarding Achievement in Montana (AIM) program’s guidelines
They are also concerned about the security of the computer system. The same server is utilized that protects other confidential information such as Medicare and Social Security files.
- Rep. Villa now governor's education adviser in Montana
Schweitzer said Villa is what used to be called a nontraditional student, but they now are the traditional students. From this experience, Schweitzer said Villa understands moving seamlessly between the workplace and education.
- Quality of life, quality of education
Even before the Montana Legislature approved a bill this spring requiring health insurance policies to cover treatment for children with autism disorders, Dr. Cheryl Young saw a need waiting to be filled.
Regional Business
- Montana State University Management Classes Seek Businesses for Consultation
During the four-month course, students will help manage special consulting projects requested by area for-profit and non-profit businesses and organizations at no cost to the business/organization.
Idaho Business
- Mingle your way to a government contract
At networking events around the U.S., entrepreneurs can meet officials from government agencies and major corporations and learn how to bid on lucrative deals.
Oregon Business
- Idaho 'locavore' creates national farm database - LocavoreNetwork.com
"I wanted to facilitate two-way communication" between growers and consumers."
- Quiznos picks Balihoo of Boise, Idaho for Local Marketing Solution for its 4,000 franchises
National quick service restaurant chain Quiznos has signed on to use the Local Marketing Automation solution from Boise-based marketing technology firm Balihoo for all of its roughly 4,000 franchises.
Oregon Economic Development
- Oregon gets a bigger bite of the Silicon Valley Apple
The hardware cluster is just one piece of Apple's Oregon connection.
Education
- A city in search of 10,000 jobs
If you think Portland has done well without an economic development strategy, just imagine what the city could do with one.
Government
- Budget crisis forces deep cuts at Calif. schools
California's historic budget crisis threatens to devastate a public education system that was once considered a national model but now ranks near the bottom in school funding and academic achievement.
Community
- Should VCs Be Regulated by the Feds?
“Requires hedge funds, private-equity funds and venture capital funds to register with the SEC, allowing the agency to collect data from the firms.”
Connectivity & Communications
- Urban Park in a Rural State - Helena, Montana’s Historic Walking Mall
Helena’s historic Walking Mall in the center of downtown has a stretch of pocket parks – set to create public green space. With islands of green spread throughout a sea of concrete, these spaces provide an ideal environment to bring communities together.
- 1000 New Gardens, Missoula Vegetable Collaboration in-action, reminding you to GET OFF THE GRASS
Part of our mission is to create an Agri-CULTURE by journaling experiences in our MT backyard vegetable plots — the place our community food security begins and where our good times don’t really ever end…
Energy and Climate Change
- Utopia to tell its member cities: Get ready to pay 7 years ago - Those making pledges in 2002 did not expect they'd have to kick in.
The Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency, or Utopia, was set up in 2002 to run a wholesale network that would lease capacity to any service provider who wanted to use the system's fiber-optic lines to serve customers.
Cool Stuff That's Coming
- Computer Clusters That Heat Houses
A novel water-cooling system makes it more efficient for computers to heat buildings.
Legislative Newsletters
- Cell Phones That Listen and Learn - What is your phone telling other people about your habits?
New software tracks a user's behavior by monitoring everyday sounds.
Government Technology
- Senate panel approves Senator Jon Tester’s plan for new energy office in Montana
Montana’s “Renewable Energy Pilot Project Office” would cut red tape on energy projects
Non-Profit News
- Bozeman, Montana drops password request from job applicants
The city of Bozeman abruptly suspended the practice Friday, saying it 'appears to have exceeded that which is acceptable to our community.'
The Creative and Cultural Economy
- June MTc3 - News for the Nonprofit Sector in Montana
Will nonprofits have a home in the healthcare package that emerges?
- One Book Montana aims to provide deeper understanding of human experience. “The Surrounded”
A core belief of the One Book Montana program is that stories bring people closer together while providing a deeper understanding of the human experience.
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