About

Minnov8 was started to focus on technology innovation in the State of Minnesota. Borne out of a frustration that there wasn’t a showcase for the talent, brainpower, creativity, and innovation that exists in this Land of 10,000 Lakes, several geeks set forth on a quest to deliver a destination site for just such a purpose.

Your humble, modest, and foolhardy band of merrymakers includes:

	Steve Borsch: With more than 25 years in high tech playing a variety of roles in sales, sales management, business development, and strategy creation, Borsch has enjoyed leadership roles at Lawson Software, Vignette, Apple, Pioneer New Media, Panasonic Communications, as well as local startup Authorware (now part of Adobe’s Macromedia acquisition). He is now CEO of Marketing Directions, Inc., a 26-year-old trend forecasting and management consulting firm in Eden Prairie, MN, under various ‘dbas’ like Innov8Trends. Clients include startups, small-to-midsize, and enterprise organizations. Borsch also blogs on trends in all sorts of areas that interest him at Connecting the Dots.
	Tim Elliott: After 20 years in technology marketing at Kodak, WAM!NET, and Datalink, Tim discovered podcasting and blogging. He created the first wine podcast, Winecast, in late 2004, and today it is a top 10 wine blog. Tim founded Acan Media in 2006 to bring online consumer-direct and conversational marketing to the wine industry.He also consults with technology firms and Web 2.0 startups. Tim’s personal blog can be found at timelliott.us where he writes mostly about social media marketing.
	Graeme Thickins was never a U.S. Marine, but he’s always looking for a few good clients. He’s a technology marketing consultant, new media strategist, and startup advisor. In 1982, he began boot-strapping what became GT&A Strategic Marketing Inc., a marketing, communications, content development, and startup advisory consultancy. In this role, he began to immediately make a damn good living because he was  injecting a major amount of mojo into his tech startup clients (more 100 of them to date) — helping them launch their brands, grow, and build significant shareholder value. And for many of them, he began contributing right from the initial concept stage. Graeme went on to serve in several interim roles as a marketing and content development executive for some of his Minnesota-based emerging technology clients.Since 2005, he’s written Tech~Surf~Blog, which focuses on technology trends, entrepreneurship, innovation, startup issues, venture capital, angel investing, and other topics, and via which he often reports from major technology conferences around the country. It’s syndicated by so many other sites and blog networks, he’s lost count, and has been named one of the “Top 100 Analyst Blogs.”  Graeme is also a widely published writer, his work having appeared in such media outlets as eWeek, Network World, Computerworld, The Angel Journal, Chief Executive magazine, and the Read/Write Web blog.  To get some of what Graeme’s got for your business, it all starts with an email: graeme@thickins.com. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/graemethickins.
	Phil Wilson is the Director of Operations at Recursive Awesome, a Twin Cities’ mobile development firm and founder of RemainComm, a content creation firm. Phil spent 24+ years in broadcasting and has successfully built, managed, and marketed successful brands for both small and large companies. Adept at merging new and traditional media, he is responsible for creating content for many companies across broadcast, social, interactive and mobile media. He is co-counder of Mobile March, an annual event highlighting mobile technology and use and co-founder of Localtone Systems, which maintains Localtone Radio, a website dedicated to allowing users to expose and control the play of local music.  Phil is a frequent blogger, videographer and podcaster for all things tech and communication here and elsewhere.
	The header graphic for Minnov8 was inspired by the original one for Minnov8 that our friend, fellow podcaster and all around great guy, John “JohneeBee” Benson, created as we were just getting going.If you need media, graphics, or animations that are fun, gorgeous, and make an impact, visit his site now.Or, stop on by his show Mostly Trivial and subscribe to it today…it’s free and fun.