A National Ecommerce and Telework Demonstration Project
Funded by the US Department of Labor Office of Disability Employment Policy, the Montana Job Training Partnership, Inc., has created the Montana Choice demonstration project to bring real choices for web-based self-employment to individuals with disabilities. Two-hour multimedia presentations to over a dozen rural communities invited attendees to participate in an online course; "A Beginner's Guide to Profiting from the Internet" providing ten two-hour hands-on lessons covering an overview on what's already working for others. Review the self-directed lessons without restriction at http://lone-eagles.com/ecom.htm

Redefining Workforce Education by Addressing Systemic Change
"Montana Choice," is now in year two of a five-year demonstration project showcasing innovations in entry-level Ecommerce education online training for individuals with disabilities. Participating Montana One-Stop offices are in Cutbank, Butte, Hamilton, and Glasgow.  Project goals include raising awareness on viable solutions, providing individualized skills assessment and skills transfer, and documenting success stories. The Montana Choice Process is described at http://lone-eagles.com/montana-choice05.htm
A summary of actual grant is at http://lone-eagles.com/MJTPChoiceProject.htm

Developing Community Mentoring Programs
Community Management Teams are developing strategic plans for each region and will be implementing community mentoring programs for skills transfer, both online and offline. Mentors will receive advanced training and assistance creating their own self-employment success stories. Electronic portfolios will document all successful skills transfer between mentors and mentees. A skills registry database will be part of an e-marketing strategy for skills transfer services as mentees learn to become mentors. Participating communities will review successful innovations from other rural communities such as local business web directories, e-marketing strategies, and how to best support local entrepreneurs.

Helping Montana's Rural Communities Become Sustainable
The dramatic economic decline of rural America has created new pressures to find innovative solutions. Our past economy depended primarily on big corporations, but today the reverse is true, the real growth is in microenterprises. Our key developable resource is the learning potential of each and every citizen.

Everyone is Welcome to Participate
Everyone interested in the latest opportunities to learn to use the Internet for self-employment and entrepreneurship is invited to attend any of the dozen planned introductory presentations, join the online class, and/or attend the hands-on skill-building workshops planned for participating communities.

Doing for Ourselves, Together!
Participating communities will receive training on how to create a local community network and how to develop community content themselves as a base for creating new income opportunities in partnership with the Lone Eagle Self-employment Incubator at http://lone-eagles.knet.ca  "People-centered community knowledge networks" are the means by which we’ll all have access to all our knowledge to combat information overload and to preserve our cherished rural lifestyle.
Extensive resources for community networking are at http://lone-eagles.com/smart.htm

Global Competition from Innovative Rural Communities
Rural communities around the world, many now with equal Internet access to American communities, are aggressively embracing their newfound global market potential. No longer do U.S. communities enjoy a ten-year first-to-market advantage of local Internet access over our global rural competition.

Ecommerce is steadily being re-recognized as a viable option to tap into global markets. Outsourcing jobs to India has certainly validated that telework works. As the nation's largest employer, the U.S. government has passed legislation to dramatically promote telework for federal employees. Individual entrepreneurs using eBay number 114 million, now too many to ignore, exchanging 28 billion in goods per year, with 430,000 persons self-employed full-time using eBay. eBay is one of the fastest growing companies in the world.

A Case Study
Donnie Morrison, a grassroots champion of the Outer Hebrides Islands in Northern Scotland, saw dwindling populations in his regional communities. Young people were moving away, schools were losing students, the local economies were dying. Donnie was successful bringing high speed Internet to his communities and high-paying telework jobs, and today the communities are once again healthy and growing. http://www.work-global.com By Donnie's own report, his most successful innovation and key to his success was his creation of a community skills registry database. 

The questions we’re at last starting to ask are  “What’s the best our community can do for itself based on new knowledge of the best successful innovations already working for other communities?”  What does our community do to inhibit innovations? and what have other communities done successfully to encourage and support innovation? Our rural communities are suffering out-migration of our youth, representing the loss of our future citizens and the vitality of our rural way of life. To determine our own destinies we have the opportunity to quickly learn the rural ecommerce and telework strategies which are already working for others.

The online course A Beginner s Guide to Profiting from the Internet requires minimal computer experience. Everyone interested is invited to take this $39 online course. Preview the lessons and details at http://lone-eagles.com/ecom.htm. 
Extensive resources available at http://lone-eagles.com/articles/articles.htm

To Register
Contact your nearest One Stop office or
Frank Odasz, PH: 406 683 6270, Email: frank@lone-eagles.com