Butte, Montana is not without its challenges.  Once home to the "richest hill on earth," it's now the site of an enormous hole in the ground and a very expensive Superfund clean-up.  Hometown corporation Montana Power Company, once the largest and most valuable company in the state has devolved into nearly bankrupt Touch America, which was recently delisted by the NYSE.

No one would blame the citizens of Butte for being a bit pessimistic about their economic prospects.

On the other hand, Butte is not without assets.  Montana Tech can make a case for being the best school in Montana.  Butte sits at the intersection of two Interstate highways and is within easy driving distance of Yellowstone Park and a terrific local ski area.  It's the home of a busy railroad port and has surprisingly good air service.

So how would Butte become fixated on a project like Destination: Montana!?  Does the world really need a hybrid of Branson, Missouri and Winnemucca, Nevada?  With an inhospitable climate?  At a cost of $1.8 billion?

It's simple, "human have an innate tendency to try to link major events with major causes."  It seems obvious that a heroic economic turnaround requires a mammoth investment.  We just have a hard time coming to grips with non-linearity.  Notwithstanding our fascination with stories about the butterfly effect, we are much more inclined to believe in conspiracy theories or fate than the possibility that small changes can really produce big effects.

Consequently, no matter how compelling the evidence supporting the impact of entrepreneurial growth companies and entrepreneurial peer networks, it's hard for us to commit to their development.  After all, how can changes that impact individuals and very small companies accumulate into anything of importance?

A couple of years ago, Motley Fool co-founder Tom Gardner came back to Montana, where he'd done some schooling, to preach his sermon about the power of compound interest at an economic development summit that drew 1,000 attendees from across the state.  I'm not sure that the lesson stuck.

I shouldn't be surprised.