(WisBusiness) TUES News Summary — 21 Apr. 2009

From WisBusiness.com …

— If the United States is going to change its energy habits, research coming out of places like a new facility at UW-Madison is sure to help.

Scientists and engineers at the bioenergy center – funded by the Department of Energy with a $125 million, five-year grant – are conducting basic research on new technologies to help convert plant material such as cornstalks, wood chips and perennial native grasses to sources of energy for everything from cars to power plants.

“It’s our hope that this work will help wean us from coal and oil,” says Jahn, who was credited in large part with bringing the center to Madison in mid-2007, less than a year after arriving from Cornell University.

Jahn says scientists will soon be able to apply their work practically in their own backyard.

That’s because Gov. Jim Doyle decided in February to install a new biomass boiler to replace coal burning at U-W-Madison’s polluting Charter Street heating plant. The state agreed last year to reduce coal use at the plant under a settlement to stop a federal lawsuit.

Read more from a new interview with Jahn: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=156046

— Gov. Jim Doyle told a conference of UAW officials at the Concourse Hotel in Madison that the American auto industry will, and must, make a comeback.

“You simply can’t have a country that doesn’t make cars,” Doyle said Monday. “We have a president who understands that. We have congressional leadership who understands that.”

Doyle touted the $38 million in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act received by Wisconsin for worker retraining. He said he has been working with the Obama administration since the day after the election to try to help unemployed people.

“We’re going to put these funds to good use because we know there are a lot of really good people, many of them your UAW brothers and sisters … who want to get to work and maybe need to have some new skills in order to do it,” Doyle said.

With the Janesville GM assembly plant slated for closure this week, Doyle said he’s waiting for a federal task force on the future of the auto industry before declaring the ultimate fate of the plant.

“A lot of what will happen to Janesville will depend on what they do,” Doyle said.

Doyle said GM reps have told him in the last couple weeks that they continue to look at the Janesville plant as a possible manufacturing site in the future.

“But I don’t want anybody to draw any false hope from that because they always have been very clear in saying to me, ‘Look, we’re dealing in a really difficult situation right now,'” Doyle said.

Listen to Doyle’s UAW address: http://wispolitics.com/1006/090420DoyleUAW.mp3

— In a new feature at BizOpinion, reviewer Terri Schlichenmeyer says the book “What would Google do?” offers sound advice on running a 21st century company.

Schlichenmeyer says the book is “heavily steeped in geekspeak,” but it’s also filled with real-life examples for working with and retaining today’s computer- and internet-savvy customers (or Generation Google, as author Jeff Jarvis calls them).

Read the full review for more: http://blogs.wisbusiness.com/bizopinion/2009/04/book-review-what-would-google-do.html

— A new software application, designed to help professionals manage pertinent client relationship information, will soon hit the market for small businesses. The product allows users to track breaking news on their contacts and respond using intelligence that relates to the individual.

The startup company, mendotasoft LLC, has developed the product as a Microsoft Office add-on software tool. Contestant Dan Voell of mendotasoft entered the new software as part of the Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest and was one of 50 entrants to move on to the second phase.

Read more about the mendotasoft product: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=156024

— In early April, UW-Madison researcher Adam Wilson posted a status update on the social networking Web site Twitter – just by thinking about it.

Just 23 characters long, his message, “using EEG to send tweet,” demonstrates a manageable way in which “locked-in” patients can couple brain-computer interface technologies with modern communication tools.

A University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineering doctoral student, Wilson is among a growing group of researchers worldwide who aim to perfect a communication system for users whose bodies do not work, but whose brains function normally. Among those are people who have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), brain-stem stroke or high spinal cord injury.

Read more about his work: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.Iml?Article=156008

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TUESDAY, May 12, 11:45 AM at the Madison Club

Join us for a discussion of the Wisconsin budget with Department of Administration Secretary Michael Morgan.  Morgan was appointed secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Administration by Gov. Jim Doyle in December 2006.  He previously served as the secretary of the Department of Revenue during Doyle’s first term and also served as the commissioner of the Milwaukee Department of City Development.  Morgan received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also was a running back on the football team from 1974 to 1977.

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