Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation
Another MIMA Summit is behind us, as well as another day of fleet feet and live blogging by the Minnov8 Gang. Congratulations to Tim Brunelle, Erin Rauk, Christopher Pollard, Greg Swan and so many others for your incredible efforts.
Covering that many great sessions was a challenge and a real treat. Re-live the magic with the liveblog recap.
Today, Minnetonka-based Inveni LLC is telling the world its newly launched discovery engine “will drive social recommendations in the Web’s next wave.” The company’s free consumer service will also enable better targeted advertising. The Inveni discovery engine, says the firm, will change how consumers both make and receive recommendations on the Web. As of today, the service is publicly available, after more than a year in development and several months of private beta testing. The company is making its debut at the TechCrunch Disrupt event in San Francisco, and also demonstrating its technology later today at the midVenturesLAUNCH startup conference in Chicago.
“The next wave of the Web will be about personalization. 
We’re focusing on using personalization to meaningfully improve discovery and decision making,” said Aaron Weber, CEO and cofounder. “The Inveni discovery engine leaps ahead of other online recommendation services. What we’ve developed is unlike anything previously available. Inveni consolidates ratings you put anywhere online – Netflix, IMDB, and more – provides tools to make and receive recommendations wherever you are, and helps you make better, more informed buying decisions.” The service has received positive feedback from users during the private beta over the past several months, said Weber.
Inveni provides its highly personalized product recommendations based on a consumer’s universal taste profile. To create a personalized taste profile, Inveni empowers users to aggregate product and service ratings they’ve made across the Internet to quickly build deep, rich profiles of their tastes. 
Beginning with the media categories of movies and TV, users can share their taste profile information with friends and other services online. Inveni also facilitates product recommendations between friends (word of mouth), based on their tastes.
“We use this taste profile data, along with our unique crowd-refined recommendation engine, to provide highly targeted advertising, while simultaneously providing consumers with a compelling personalized service for discovery and sharing,” said Robert Bodor, CTO and cofounder, “We aim to become the premier provider of highly targeted consumer data for advertising online. We do that by turning the current consumer data model upside down, putting the user in control of their information. We are entirely opt-in, and are raising the bar on consumer privacy protection.”
The company produced a fun, two-minute video to describe its value proposition to consumers, which you can view here. … [Read More…]
The MIMA Summit is a two day event (day one is workshops and day two is the full conference) and the Minnov8 Gang will be liveblogging the event put on by the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA).
On Monday we’ll be liveblogging/covering the MIMA pre-conference workshops. On Tuesday (during the full conference day) we’ll be covering it live and also be selectively bringing in tweets from people we trust since there are only four of us, ten sessions and one of us (Phil Wilson) will be conducting speaker video interviews for most of the day on Tuesday!
Liveblog #1: You can follow the Monday pre-conference workshops liveblog on this page.
Liveblog #2: The Tuesday full conference liveblog is on this page.
The Gang covers the events of this past week and then launches a call to Albert Maruggi of Provident Partners. Albert was on the panel at the Social Media Club’s “Social Media & Family” event this past week and had some interesting perspectives on its use.
Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off this week).
Music: Kahuna Kawentzmann & their song “Passage to Papeete” via the podsafe Music Alley.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 35:28 — 20.7MB)
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Discussed During the Show:
+ Mobile Twin Cities
+ Rainmakers Conference
+ Startup Weekend Twin Cities: tech.mn coverage
+ Social Media Club: Social Media + Family event
+ Facebook outage (Facebook’s response; article in the Guardian)
+ One of the many reports from Pew Internet: The Millenials
Today was the first day of the Rainmaker’s Conference, the 7th Annual event that brings together RAIN Fund members (an angel investment fund), entrepreneurs, investors and sponsors. The intent is networking, education, and exposure to RAIN fund entrepreneurs as well as numerous other startups in order to expose their companies to this key group of people.
Ironic that it was raining like mad all day? Yep. My key takeaway? There is A LOT of very interesting and exciting investment and entrepreneurial activity going on in Minnesota! There were well over 200 people in attendance, substantially more than last year and a great turnout.
Opened by Steve Mercil, CEO of RAIN Source® Capital (the largest network of Angel Investment Funds in US), and keynoted by Richard Sudek, an angel investor, former entrepreneur and academic, there was ample opportunity to connect with local and regional startups at tabletops in the lobby. I happened to run in to Lief Larson of Workface (who was showing BusinessCard2 with some new and interesting value added capabilities); Aaron Weber (co-founder of W3i) and his to-be-launched startup Inveni on Tuesday out at Techcrunch Disrupt (and it is HOT so go watch the video); Lisa Foote with MixMobi who has garnered key investments already for their mobile platform; and Jerry Grabowski of Redliner (see Minnov8’s story here) among others.
Two panels rounded out the day: one on Angel Investing in 2010 & Beyond and the second Funding Universe’s Crowd Pitch…a company showcase where six startups pitch their business plans followed by screening sessions and voting on whether they’re worthy of investment. Crowdsourcing at its best (the winner won’t be announced for another hour or so).
Graeme Thickins pulled aside Pete Birkeland, CFO at RAIN Source Capital to chat about the event. Pete is part of a team that manages 23 funds in 6 six states with $40 million under management and is a guy who has worked in this area for 10 years on both the entrepreneurial and investor side.
Podcast (m8-audio): Download (Duration: 3:47 — 4.4MB)
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This Wednesday night at the Depot in downtown Minneapolis the Social Media Club of Minnesota (SMC) is presenting a panel discussion entitled Social Media + Family. Though the final list of panel members has yet to be announced, Social Media Club Founder, Chris Heuer will lead a group of “dads and moms who blog/podcast for a panel discussion around their use of Social Media.”
According to the SMC, “For the last several years, the majority of the focus has been on how Social Media has been transforming organizations, but at the same time, social media has also been transforming the relationships between parents and their children; between husbands and wives; and between all members of extended families.” Not only will the ever present privacy and safety concerns be discussed but the organizers hope to explore beyond the this very real family concern and reach into topics like the impact of social media on the family’s communication. Full event details are available here.
Our guest on this show’s “Startup Spotlight” is Alex Huff, founder of LoudClick (which we profiled here) and now ClickWrite, the latter a, “…microsite platform creating a coordinated network of websites. The network consists of a corporate (brand) website integrated with local or targeted microsites. ClickWrite creates individual, unique microsites – with unique URLs – all coordinated from a central administration interface. This structure offers amazing flexibility and SEO benefits.“
Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is traveling this week).
Music: H-Beam & their song “Tank” via the podsafe Music Alley.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 54:29 — 31.7MB)
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Discussed During the Show:
+ MN Blogger Conference
+ The Collaborative event
+ Graeme’s liveblog archive of his coverage of DEMO
+ Julio Ojeda Zapata’s tumblog with posts about the MN Blogger Conference and this one with a video of his great Skype use to bring in two guests from California for the event
+ UPCOMING: Startup Weekend; Rainmakers Conference, MIMA Summit (Minnov8 will be covering this even extensively).
+ Podcast download link (if the player below doesn’t appear)
Last night, EarthClean, a Minneapolis-based start-up that makes an environmentally friendly fire retardant, was named “Minnesota’s Top Breakthrough Business Idea” and honored for its innovative business concept. Area business leaders and investors selected EarthClean as the 6th Annual Minnesota Cup winner, awarding it $20,000 as Clean Tech & Renewable Energy Division winner and an additional $20,000 as grand prize recipient.
Founded in March 2009, EarthClean develops innovative, game-changing technologies and high performing products that are safe for plants, animals, fish and people. The start-up’s first product, TetraKO®, is a biodegradable and non-toxic water additive that helps firefighters knock down and suppress fires far more effectively than currently available suppressants. The product is pumped through standard fire equipment and adheres to any surface, in any attitude, of its targeted structure. Exposed to heat, TetraKO immediately attacks the fire tetrahedron (the chemical chain reaction of fuel, oxygen and heat) resulting in a dense, white steam that is cooler than the fire itself, thus further suffocating the blaze. The result is exceedingly fast and thorough extinguishment with far less fire destruction and water damage, and reduced risk for fire fighter professionals.
Congratulations to the EarthClean team! If you have a moment, check out this video on the fire retardant at WCCO.com and head on over to the MN Cup website and view the press release which is here.
Our guest this week is Tim Brunelle, CEO of the agency HelloViking. Tim is a writer, with 17 year’s experience at agencies such as TBWA/Chiat/Day, McKinney, Ogilvy, Mullen, Heater Easdon and Carmichael Lynch–where he was most recently an Executive Creative Director and the Head of Interactive. He is also the President of the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association and has been an adjunct professor for the past three years at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He only infrequently appears in crystal balls and does so only in his capacity as MIMA president.
Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: 2MorroW EvR AfteR & their song “Kamikaze Luv” via the podsafe Music Alley.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:06:30 — 38.9MB)
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Discussed During the Show:
Earlier this week, I sat down for coffee with Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad, to chat about a number of things, and we decided to do an impromptu audio interview. I realized later it was almost three years to the day when I’d first met Robert, at an event where he was honored as Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2007 Minnesota Cup reception at the University of Minnesota — and I blogged about that, quoting from his great talk. I’d also heard him speak before at other local events, where he’s always a favorite. I have much admiration for the man, not just because he’s the spiritual leader of 25,000 geeks and has a real passion for technology, but because he’s a marketing genius.
What’s more, he’s really funny and entertaining. I also find it fascinating that he began college as an art student, then switched to computer science (coming to the U of M for that, from his native Chicago). I’ve since seen Robert at many of our local tech “barcamp” events, MInneBar and MinneDemo, for which he and his employer of the last eight years, Best Buy, have provided much support. Hats off to them for that. (As Robert likes to tell it, “Geek Squad acquired Best Buy in 2002.”)
But, this day, I thought it would be a great opportunity to let Robert tell us about the new role I knew he’d recently been promoted to — that of Chief Technology Officer, reporting the CEO of Best Buy. I knew something was coming, because he hinted so in a meeting with me and my colleague Steve Borsch during the summer. There was no Best Buy press release announcing his appointment, which I guess is common for them, but I actually confirmed it a few weeks ago when I hit Robert’s LinkedIn page. (He told me he didn’t want any hoopla around being named to his new role, that he’ll be happy to get recognition when he has some results to talk about.)
We recorded a 21-minute interview, where Robert touched on an array of topics. He talked about technology trends, and how his job is translating those into actionable intelligence for Best Buy. He spoke about his developing relationships and partnerships with companies like Google and Facebook, and how he really finds Best Buy a dynamic place to work, giving him a “palette, and a canvas.” He also tells the inside story about how was first asked to be CTO, involving a trip to New York with CEO Brian Dunn on the company jet to meet with Eric Schmidt of Google. Robert also talks about what motivates him, how he thinks more like a startup guy, but has the unique advantage of such big resources at Best Buy — and the abilily to open doors anywhere. “I have the best job,” he says. “I get to travel the world and visit all these companies.” He said over the next five to ten years, “we’ll be exploiting the four screens.” In that regard, he talks in particular about how one of those, TV, is coming into an new exciting phase. “I like sitting on the main chess board,” he said.
But let’s get to it…
Podcast (m8-audio): Download (Duration: 22:30 — 20.6MB)
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