Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Archives for October 2011

Minnov8 Gang 143 – “Bacon” a Cake?

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Social Media Breakfast of Minneapolis/St. Paul (SMBMSP and its history here) was held Friday, October 28th, and the Gang sits down with the founder Rick Mahn, Mykl Roventine and the speakers for the 40th Breakfast, Lisa Grimm and Meg Knodl.

The discussion surrounded social media, its future, what’s next for SMBMSP and a synopsis of Lisa and Meg’s presentation about community management. Revealed during this podcast is that SMBMSP has a “bacon sponsor”…who would’ve guessed!  😉

Hosts: Phil Wilson and Graeme Thickins (Steve Borsch and Tim Elliott are off this week)

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 22:54 — 13.2MB)

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“Thank You” for the Books for Thai School

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Back in September I wrote a post called, “English Books for Thai School – Can You Help?” and was so pleased people jumped in to help. We collected well over 250 books for the school and delivered them when the students and teachers arrived at the Mall of America at the outset of their time here in Minnesota.

I cannot express enough my thanks for all who helped out:

Lerner Publishing: Kathleen Clarke responded to a blind email request of mine and she put together a big box of brand new, amazingly high quality books, perfect for the English program at Strisuksa school

Meg Knodl

Meg Knodl: As senior librarian in Communications and Community Engagement with Hennepin County (Minn.) Library, Meg had great suggestions on buying surplus books from the library system (a sale was just ending and she connected me with the right folks).

Paul Schroeder

To show the power of social media, I’d placed a plea and link to that Minnov8 post mentioned above on my Facebook wall. Two people responded immediately with a third who joined in:

Paul Schroeder:  A fraternity brother of mine who read about my plea on Facebook responded by collecting several dozen books and even cajoled a friend of his in participating with some novels. These novels, while not perfectly targeted to the students, surprisingly were very welcomed by the teachers!

Sherry Collins: She had several ideas I took advantage of and then recommended a site I’d never heard of, FreeCycle, a kind of “Craigslist for free stuff” and I placed a post in the Minneapolis Group

The very generous donation by Beth Sullivan, volunteer for The Women's Prison Book Project

Beth Sullivan: She responded with 75 classic (and new!) books that were extras from a non-profit she volunteers for, The Women’s Prison Book Project.

As these great volunteers were putting forth such kind efforts to gather books, I’d been interacting with my contact at the school, Lynn Brown. Mentioning the phenomenal work of Project Gutenberg, I asked her to go through the books there and make recommendations and we’d download the books for her (since their internet connections are pretty minimal at the school).

What happened next surprised even me and set me on a course I hadn’t expected. …  [Read More…]

Minnov8 Gang 142 – Gurf Navis is the Rafter

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Phil gives Steve a bad time about his new iPhone 4S and Siri, the intelligent agent (NONE of which is TRUE). We then have on our guest this week, technologist, entrepreneur, civic strategist, and “burr under the saddle” of various goofballs, Ed Kohler.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off).
Music: “Cover the Distance” by “Ruddinn“ via Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 53:15 — 31.2MB)

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Ed Kohler

Discussed during the show:

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Minnov8 Gang 141 – Everything’s a Beta

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Andrew Eklund of Ciceron on the Minnov8 Gang PodcastOne of Minnesota’s premiere interactive marketing thought leaders and practioners, Andrew Eklund of Ciceron, shares his insights and perspectives after Wednesday’s MIMA Summit as well as on other key trends in new media.

Listen for the discussion wrapped around Andrew’s best line of the entire podcast (in Borsch’s opinion). While discussing how Ciceron encourages clients to think about what they offer, in a world where everyone is an instant critic who can tell the world, he says in passing, “every product is an iteration of its future self.” Find out what the “new and improved” Andrew 2.0 means.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, and Phil Wilson
Music: “Zydeco Junkie” by “Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band” via Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast (m8-audio): Download (Duration: 1:05:33 — 64.2MB)

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:05:33 — 38.3MB)

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MIMA Summit 2011: Interview With Tim Brunelle and Ed Boches

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The president of MIMA, Tim Brunelle, and his team have put together an amazing 10th annual MIMA Summit event.  MIMA, as the oldest and largest interactive marketing association in the U.S., with more than 1300 members, never fails to disappoint in drawing excellent, in-demand speakers to its annual event. I had the pleasure of running into Tim chatting with one of those speakers, Ed Boches, who was a founder of the famed Mullen agency in Boston, and is now its chief innovation officer. Tomorrow, Ed will team with a colleague of his, Dave Armano, EVP-global innovation & integration at Edelman Digital, to do a talk they call “Group Therapy for Would-Be Innovators.” It is sure to be a highlight of the event, and I will be there!

MIMA Summit 2011: Getting ‘Social’ With the Mall of America

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The 10th annual MIMA Summit, organized by the Minnesota Interative Marketing Association (MIMA), kicked off today in downtown Minneapolis, and continues with a full schedule through tomorrow, October 12.  I chatted with two presenters after their afternoon workshop: Bridget Jewell, PR manager, and Lisa Grimm, digital brand manager, at the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN.

Minnov8 Gang 140 – Heaven is no Apple Store

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The passing of Apple’s co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs, overshadowed all other stories of the past week…even Apple’s own introduction of the iPhone 4S. Still, there were numerous things to talk about since the acceleration in technology innovation continues unabated.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, Phil Wilson and Julio Ojeda Zapata
Music: “Even Meaner” by “Mean Gene Kelton & the Diehards“ via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:02:02 — 36.4MB)

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Discussed during the show:

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#Minnedemo Turns Up the Heat in Downtown Minneapolis

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Several hundred tech lovers crammed into Schulze Hall at the University of St. Thomas last night and challenged the air conditioning on another day of near-record highs in the state, for the latest edition of the quasi-quarterly Minnedemo event.  Luckily, there was plenty of cold beer — thank you, sponsors — and a damn nice appetizer buffet as well.  Nothing brings out a crowd more than free beer and food… oh, and a chance to sit in a large, crowded auditorium and listen to startup pitches for half the evening, while you overhear others in the lobby having fun and drinking beer.  I decided to join the outliers after only one demo, exiting the auditorium for what I thought would be a just a while — but then I never made it back in. Oh, well, I’d heard enough startup pitches in recent days and weeks to make my head explode, anyway (including some of those on the evening’s agenda), so opting for schmoozing in the lobby seemed like the sane thing to do.

And it did prove to be a better bet for me, and for several of the folks I did said schmoozing with.  Wow, there were so many great conversations and introductions brokered, my head was spinning. Or was that the beer? No matter, a good tech time was had by all.  And you can read all about those startups that pitched in the auditorium here. A brief stop at the after-party (on the outdoor patio on the second-floor of nearby Brit’s Pub) put a nice capper for me on a very pleasant — warm! — evening, blabbing with so many of the key players in our awesome Minnesota startup community.  Thank you, Minnedemo organizers and sponsors, for another great get-together!

Minnesota EduTech Startup KidBlog Now Reaching One Million Users

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On Wednesday, I stopped into the EduTech Minnesota conference at the U of M. I wanted to catch up with my friends Matt Hardy and Dan Flies, cofounders of Kidblog.org, and hear about the latest with their startup.

It turns out, of the 10 startups that were selected to present at the event, none even comes close to the level of adoption these guys have achieved to date, which they announced in their presentation at #EduTechMN: 1,000,000 students using the platform, in more than 80,000 classrooms. And all that from a startup that began as just a sideline for Matt to use in his own classroom!

Here’s my interview:

The founders describe their creation this way:  Kidblog is a platform that provides students with an authentic, engaging, and interactive learning experience. It’s designed for elementary and middle school teachers who want to provide each student with his or her own, unique blog. It has simple but powerful tools that allow students to publish posts and participate in discussions within a secure classroom blogging community. Teachers maintain complete control over their students’ blogs. And a teacher can set up a class with no student email addresses. 

Matt likes to say it’s “built by a teacher, for teachers, so students can get the most out of the blogging process.” He also points out that teachers who’ve tried other blogging platforms (perhaps with limited success), such as Blogger, Edublogs, or WordPress.com, “will notice the Kidblog difference immediately.”

Best of luck to this emerging, homegrown Minnesota edutech company!

[This post first appeared yesterday on Tech~Surf~Blog.]