A week ago last Tuesday, I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel with Dani and Mike from BigforkWeb, Arnold from CrestonTech and John from Snowdog. We were the technically oriented (ie: computer geeky) speakers for Montana West Economic Development‘s E2 (Entrepreneur-to-Entrepreneur) session for April. These are monthly sessions organized for small business owners, […]

Few towns are as welcoming to felons as Hardin, Montana. Residents there have pleaded with Gov. Brian Schweitzer to send any and all criminals to their town. And since that hasn’t worked out, they have turned to alleged terrorists to fill their empty prison by recently proposing shipping accused members of Al-Qaeda to Eastern Montana […]

In April, Montanans get used to sunny weather one day and snow the next. Farmers start spring planting – if the conditions are right. And on Earth Day, we take inventory of what we still have to do to make sure the world our kids and grandkids inherit is better than the world we inherited. […]

Airlines teach so many lessons about business that I could write about them for weeks. What kind of lessons? How not to treat people. How not to empower our staff. How not to give people an experience that’s so amazing they can’t wait to come back. Despite being frustrating to deal with air travel hassles […]

If you have ever wondered why you never seem to see your tax dollars at work, don’t worry, they’re working, just for somebody else. Remember the big tizzy a couple of years ago about Alaska Congressman Don Young’s “Bridge to Nowhere,” $223 million in federal money? How about the $50 million for Iowa’s indoor rain […]

Burlington Northern Sante Fe is up to something. The railroad giant has approached property owners in Whitefish and Somers, offering to buy their land. No one knows why, exactly, not even those who have been asked to sell. And BNSF isn’t talking – leaving entire neighborhoods apprehensive about what their backyards may soon look like. […]

Americans are smitten with the notion of Robin Hood; a champion of genuine, pure justice who stands up for the downtrodden; a keen and savvy character who strikes out at an unfair system, which indulges a few with opulence while it plagues the masses with poverty. Of course, some can do without the eccentric green […]

Happens almost every day. I run across small (and not so small) businesses who are wasting one of their most valuable assets: Their current customers. If you have 1000 customers and you average $1000 per sale per year for each of those customers, your business is raking in $1,000,000 per year. Regular studies have shown […]

There is a time for relevant debate of cultural issues. And there are merits to arguments when actual laws that affect abortion, guns or privacy are on a ballot or being considered by elected officials. Then there’s this: Rep. Tom McGillvray, a Billings Republican, has proposed that an interim committee made up of lawmakers study […]

What Dennis McDonald lacks in experience as a public servant, he more than makes up for with ambition, which can be a treasured virtue. Unfortunately, Dennis McDonald’s ambition to rise from his current post as a hyper-partisan, double-talking party boss leads him to make statements that are politically convenient rather than truthful or accurate. When […]

You might not be aware of it, but my wife is a junior high school teacher. 6th grade to be specific. Know what that means? Hormones. Drama. Lots of change and other stuff. Having a teacher in the family means we watch every teacher movie ever made. Last night, The Ron Clark Story was on […]

Does anyone remember the New World Mine/Crown Butte/Yellowstone Park fiasco that dragged out in the 1990s near Cooke City? Well, here’s the rest of the story. Cooke City originated as the mining camp of Shoo Fly. In 1869, prospectors poaching on the Crow Reservation found color. The Indians duly ran them off, but the white […]

There is an effort afoot headed by congressional Republican leaders in Washington to shed the label increasingly used against them that they are members of the “party of no.” Whether fair, Democrats have effectively used the GOP’s opposition to the stimulus plan, and now the national budget, to paint the party as one devoid of […]

It’s no secret that Wall Street is motivated by greed. But when it’s left unchecked, corporate power can undermine the fundamental stability of our economy and wreak havoc on working families across the country. Working people across Montana have been living in an economic crisis for years, taking on longer hours, second jobs, credit cards […]

If you replaced your entire staff today, would anyone notice? More importantly, would anyone care? Think about the last customer to visit your store. If they walked into your business tomorrow and all your staff was different from their last visit, would they notice? Would someone notice if they’ve been coming to see you for […]