Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Archives for March 2012

Minnov8 Gang 163 – Is Retail Dead?

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The announcement by Best Buy on cutting $800M by FY 2015, closing 50 stores and corporate layoffs of 400 people sparked a lot of conversation on this show about retail and its disruption. Online commerce, mobile devices, easy price-checking, big-box competitors cherry-picking hot product categories to sell and more is causing Best Buy no end of headaches.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off this week)
Music: “Universal Domain” by Dreamline from the podsafe Music Alley

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 52:20 — 30.7MB)

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Minnesota Cup Entry Starts Today

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The 8th annual Minnesota Cup has officially launched!

This is Minnesota’s premiere entrepreneural event and past ones have seen stiff competition in every category since there are so many great startups here in our State. To familiarize yourself with this year’s competition, please find several resources below in the embedded document (we compiled the press release, “fast facts” and a good article on the MN Cup for you to review in one place which, if you want, you can also download using the download button in the toolbar below).

Use the “Full Screen” button for the best way to view this embedded doc:

SaaS Camp 2012

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Lief Larson, CEO of Workface, will be holding a single-day event called SaaS Camp 2012.  This inaugural (but hopefully annual) event is focused on education and networking within the developing SaaS community here in Minnesota.

Why this ‘camp’ and why now? Over the last few years, Lief has said he’s had the incredible opportunity to travel to, attend, and speak at numerous SaaS-specific events. Most of what he has learned has been locked away in his head as tacit knowledge. Since “the cloud” and software as services online has become so hot, Lief has been asked by several companies to share some of this information. Like all of us, Lief’s weekday priorities to Workface means that a weekend event would probably be the best forum for the SaaS community.

Lief Larson, CEO of Workface

SaaS Camp 2012 is being tightly packed into a single session-intense Saturday and has been created for SaaS practitioners and businesses embarking on SaaS models.  It will be held at CoCo MSP in the Minneapolis Grain Exchange on Saturday, April 21st, from 9am-4pm.

Thirteen major areas of SaaS will be covered, ranging from pricing models to channel development.  The price is $199, which is being used to cover the facilities costs, catering/lunch, and materials.  It will be limited attendance because Lief is hoping to keep it manageable and more intimate.  Registration info available at: http://saasclass.com/events or http://saascamp2012.eventbrite.com.

Minnov8 Gang 162 – N-N-N-Nerds!

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The Gang heads down to The Nerdery’s Overnight Website Challenge. Our own Tim Elliott, organizer of team “Full Court WordPress”, introduces us to Sherilyn Howes, Associate Director of Youth Performance Company (current website). (Note: The photo above is of teamBIOS, a group that had a suspiciously interesting “tent” setup in the center of their table).

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 37:21 — 21.6MB)

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Discussed during the show:

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Minnov8 Gang 161 – Mobilecise!

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Mobile March is in full swing today and the Gang has on Guy Thier, Chief Information Officer at Bally Total Fitness. Bally is among the largest full-service commercial operators of fitness centers in North America in terms of members, revenues and square footage of its facilities. As CIO, Guy is responsible for creating and executing Bally’s technology vision to support Bally’s market strategy. Like jazzercise in the 1980s, you’ll hear he’s done more to accelerate use of mobile technologies than any other CIO we’ve found and “mobilecise” Bally Fitness in unique and innovative ways.

Justin Grammens

Also joining us on the ‘cast is Justin Grammens with Code 42 Software, one of the cofounders of Mobile March along with Phil Wilson and Linda Cummings in 2010. Mobile March offered two tracks of learning this year: Mobile Development and Mobile Business. By offering content that appealed to mobile developers, business people, these co-founders hoped to facilitate a greater understanding between all constituencies that make mobile happen. We think it worked well and was a great event!

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off)

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 36:36 — 21.2MB)

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Upcoming Events:

Minnov8 Gang 160 – The de facto ‘Genius Bar’ for Android

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We are so pleased to have two guests this week: first up is the self-proclaimed “communications passionista“, Mall of America social media expert Lisa Grimm down at the SXSWshow and we get some insight in to her adventure to Texas and that event.

Lisa Grimm

Our second guest is none other than Chief Technology Officer of Best Buy, Robert Stephens, and his just-announced departure and the likelihood his adventure will be heading west to San Francisco. As always, Robert demonstrates how he is an incredibly accessible leader and so willing to connect with those of us in the technology trenches. He has been such a supporter and asset to the Minnesota tech community and will be sorely missed (though we suspect he’ll stay close to Minnesota tech regardless of where he lives)!

We wish them both happy trails and listen for why Robert believes that, “…the Geek Squad is the de facto genius bar for Android.”

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson
Music: Speed Limit 35 & the song “Throb” from the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:13:29 — 43.1MB)

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Discussed during the show:

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Entrepreneur’s Rally at CoCo Minneapolis

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Join the Entrepreneur’s Organization — Minnesota Chapter for an “Entrepreneur’s Rally” on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 at CoCo Minneapolis. Invited by Cem Erdem, founder, President and CEO of Augusoft, Inc. and of Project Skyway to this event, I realized quickly that this year’s event is bigger and better than last year’s and you must attend if you are an entrepreneur!

Details in the embedded PDF below or go directly to the registration page.

Minnov8 Gang 159 – Social Chatter

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Marty Wetherall

Social media ‘chatter’ seems to be growing exponentially and the services capitalizing upon it are being launched, or accelerated, by the week. Marty Wetherall, Director of Innovation at Fallon and co-founder of Fanchatter, joins us to talk about what’s happening with his startup and about the growth of social chatter overall.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson
Music: Mario Tomic & the song “Blue Note” from the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:02:50 — 36.9MB)

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Discussed during the show:

Upcoming Events: