Specifically, Compellent’s product is a simple SAN, or storage area network. The company, which IPOed in October 2007 (NYSE stock symbol: CML), turned in some pretty impressive numbers a few days ago. It announced record revenue in its first quarter of $28.1 million, up 53% from a year earlier, and $1.0 million in net income. The revenue figure was even up 4% from Q4 2008, and it was the company’s fourteenth consecutive quarterly revenue increase. If an emerging Minnesota tech company in this economic environment could be said to be on a tear, Compellent would be it.

The company’s annual business partner and customer event, called C-Drive, is being held this week at the Bloomington Sheraton, and this is clearly the biggest one yet. The business partner portion of the event is May 4-5 (agenda), followed by a networking reception Tuesday evening May 5 for both partners and customers, while the customer portion of the event runs May 6-7 (agenda).  Existing or potential business partners and existing or potential customers may still register for the event, which starts today.  (Media and analysts may also register at the same page.)  It’s obvious that a lot of planning went into this year’s version of the event, which draws attendees nationally and features speakers from partner firms, from Compellent itself, and from some major technology vendors. In addition, industry analysts are among the attendees, and members of the technology press are moderating two panels.

Compellent Sure Knows How to Throw a Customer/Partner Event is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

For those of you not yet on Twitter — and aren’t you feeling so smug you’re not wasting as much time as the rest of us? — you’re likely not aware there’s a site called Twitterholic, which ranks the popularity of Twitter users by number of followers.  Actually, despite what non-Twitter users may think, this social-media “microblogging” tool is proving to be quite useful for many in business, media, and even government, if the list of Minneapolis’ Top 100 Twitterers is any indication.

To better understand who’s doing these rankings, here’s how Twitterholic cutely explains itself:

“A few times a day, we calculate individual statistics for each twittering twit in our database. In other words, WE”R IN UR TWTTR PAGES, READN UR STATZ.  This list is updated daily so you can find out who the most popular twitter users are. To participate, do what you normally do — twitter constantly — if you deserve to be on the list, we’ll find you.”

Twitterholic ranks users across the world, with Barak Obama still leading the pack, CNN now in #3, and Twitter itself down the list further at #9.  But, beyond that global ranking, the two developers who built the site (based in Orlando, FL) devised a way to rank Twitter users by city — I assume, in our case, by finding the word “Minneapolis” or “Mpls” in individuals’ profiles.  Note some people choose to leave that part of their profile blank, while others insert something clever like “here” or “Earth” or “at my desk,” and thus they would not make it into their city ranking. (Note also the Minneapolis ranking of course does not include our friends across the river in St. Paul.)

But what are some things we can learn from the list of the Mill City’s top Twitterers?  First, that there are more than a handful on the list that have been twittering almost from when Twitter first became available, back in early 2007.  The man in first place, Lee Odden, fits that bill, and now has more than 5000 followers.  Lee is a consultant in search engine optimization (SEO), and speaks frequently at conferences all over the country. He obviously knows how to spread the word about his Twitter page, online and off.

Some locally based media outlets made the list, too, with Finance & Commerce ranked a surprising #26, our friends at MinnPost at #36, and the venerable StarTribune at #74.  Media organizations naturally tend to use Twitter to send out links to stories as they publish them. The Strib’s number of updates listed in the rankings, however, boggles the mind: 37,947!  Could our local daily possibly be putting out *that many* links in only 1.5 years?  Note the highest ranked media person on the list is James Lileks, a columnist at the StarTribune; his personal Twitter page is at #6.  Jim is a famous early-adopter of tech toys and tools. 

Others types of folks represented on the list include at least a couple of execs at local big companies: Barry Judge, Best Buy’s CMO (a recent convert), at #7, and Pete Steege, an exec at Seagate’s offices in Shakopee, at #20. Several PR and advertising types are on the list, too — including #11 (@PerfectPorridge), #16 (@tbrunelle), #22 (@MrChristopherL), #27 (@AxiomPR), #85 (@aeklund), #93 (@donmball), among others.  (I’d put myself in that category, too, and was very happy to see myself moving up the rankings at #31 after only a year on Twitter.)  A recruiter I know (@MNheadhunter) is at #29.  And several folks qualifying as Web 2.0 consultants or geeks obviously dot the list as well.  No question that many of these people tweet at least some of the time about their personal lives (I try not to!) — but you may be surprised that most on this list write or post links about business matters quite often, on such topics as how they use technology in their work lives, interesting articles they’ve read (I have a real weakness for this myself), and of course chatting back and forth with their work colleagues or business friends, about all manner of things. 

And how can I not call out that Minnov8′s own Phil Wilson came in at #89 (@Philson).  What’s more, a fun creation of his ranked even ahead of his own page, at #86.  I certainly recommend you follow that one: @comicTwit.  It provides me with many laughs as I scroll through a lot of crap (I mean tweets) from my own followers on Twitter.  Hey, there’s a lot to be said about not taking ourselves too seriously! 

But the most surprising thing of all on this Minneapolis Twitterers list?  Our city’s tech-savvy mayor, R.T. Rybak, comes in at #38!  So, local government has at least one representative.  And our city’s convention bureau, which dubbed itself “Meet Minneapolis” some years ago, is ranked at a very respectable #57.

So, whom do you know on the list, or whose tweets do you like?  By the way, be sure to follow us at www.twitter.com/minnov8!  Hey, we may not be on the Top 100 list yet, but we’re good…  :-)  

UPDATE 12/16/08: So, what about a Top 100 list for St. Paul?  Well, the Twitterholic developers must need to tweak something, because there are only two people on the list I could find.  I will leave the retarded jokes for others… Seriously, @albertmaruggi, our Social Media Breakfast buddy, kinda looks like he owns that town on this list, huh? And the Top 100 for “Twin Cities”?  That list needs serious help, too — only one person shows up there. One change on the Minneapolis list, if you’re reading the comments: Minnov8′s own @timelliott changed his profile to say “Minneapolis” (from “Twin Cities”), and he’s now at #20, pushing everyone below down a notch.  Note he’s been on Twitter for 1.8 years, tied for longevity with Lee Odden, as well as with @swirlspice, @edkohler, and @garrickvanburen.  But @Lileks beats that, at 1.9 years. Longest of all, though?  That would be @alexisthegirl — who’s been on for 2.0 years! Yikes, she must have been an early beta user.

What Can We Learn from the Minneapolis Top 100 Twitterers List? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

The recently released on-line game “Budget Hero” launched in May by American Public Media in partnership with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, may not get you spot at the cabinet table; it could give you valuable insight into the budget process.

According to Michael Skoler, executive director of the Center for Innovation in Journalism at American Public Media, “Budget Hero is a new type of journalism that gives people the big picture on the complex and fragmented federal budget process. We created this news game to help Americans feel they can understand and participate in the national debate over the election, the budget and the direction of our country.”

Skoler shared with me that the game was in the talking stages for over a year and a half. “We sometimes thought we were crazy to build something as ambitious as a game…something that was journalistically sound yet simple enough for all to understand and take part in.“ With the involvement of many firms, think tanks, the Budget Office, as well as help from game development consultant Ben Sawyer, Budget Hero soft launched in May.

“The saying ‘you can’t understand until you walk a mile in someone else’s shoes’ best describes Budget Hero,” said David Rejeski, who heads the Serious Games Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “The game empowers players to take on the role of our government officials and allows anyone to try out their solutions and ideas on how to manage the federal budget.”

So let’s play…

Both audio and graphics are very appealing, giving you the feeling you’re playing inside a “Schoolhouse Rock” cartoon. Instructions are clear and easy to understand, completely unlike the legislation process you’d really have to endure in real life. Once through the “briefing” and just a few clicks into the game you realize this is much trickier than another round of Clue or game of Life with the family. And this definitely is no Guitar Hero (Slash would be so busted.)

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View the introduction to Budget Hero

You can open up large categories of the budget and review “cards” that represent specific policy decisions. You make your policy decisions by “playing” the card or cards that align with the values you chose early in the game. So under Defense and Diplomacy, for example, you may choose to pull all troops from Iraq by 2010, withdraw troops over five years, or stay the course in Iraq and add two new Army divisions.

Your experience with the game is enhanced by working to achieve a variety of financial and policy goals. Financial goals might include balancing the federal budget by a certain year, eliminating the national debt or limiting the size of government by keeping it at a certain percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (or GDP, which measures the size of the economy). Policy goals might include providing universal health coverage, fully funding No Child Left Behind, or raising or lowering income taxes.

While it’s quite the juggling act and incredibly challenging, the real value is in the learning. I never really accomplished all that I wanted in my first session though, my fellow Americans, I’m not sure you would be that much worse off under my proposed budget…well maybe. However, I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the cards to explore the pros and cons. Even the best of intentions have their downsides. The site also allows you to learn how the choices were made for the game allowing even more insight to the process and the power of the decisions made.

And that’s the point of Budget Hero: finding out what impacts our federal budget from many sides. “Budget Hero is unique in that it provides the player with immediate feedback on how their choices affect the federal budget in terms of revenues, spending, deficit and debt, and the economic, societal and individual impact of their policy choices,” stated Skoler.

Not just a way for individuals to learn, Budget Hero also allows you to compare how your policy choices and budgets stack up to other players across a wide range of demographic groups based on gender, income, age, political loyalty or region. American Public Media is also hosting an online discussion for players of “Budget Hero” on group discussion site Gather in this area here. Skoler adds, “And the game collects the choices players make, as well as their comments, so our journalists learn how people think through the budget debate.”

Budget Hero is also available as a widget for the websites of public radio and television as well as commercial news organizations. It’s likely you’ll hear more about it between now and November. So go play the game and, if all goes well maybe we’ll see you on the ticket. Me, I think I’ll take another crack at the family budget. We have a far less complicated foreign policy.

Budget Hero Arrives Compliments of American Public Media is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.