Joining us on the ‘cast is our frequent guest host, Julio Ojeda-Zapata, as well as Albert Maruggi of Provident Partners (the moderator for the panel discussion on mobile social media). Toward the end Lisa Grimm joins us to chime in on mobile social media and what she’s up to at Mall of America.

The panel, hosted by Albert, included Liz Giel, Digital Strategist at Fallon; Kevin Hunt, Corporate Social Media Manager at General Mills; and Breon Nagy, Marketer at Code42 Software.

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

A few photos from SMBMSP:

Discussed during the show:

• Amazon Kindle Fire launches to mostly positive reviews: Verge; Engadget; GigaOm
• Julio’s draft of his upcoming Sunday review of the Kindle Fire
• B&N Nook Tablet also ships: Engadget; Techcrunch
• Tablet publishing tools are proliferating: Yudu; Genwi; Adobe; App Press; JoeMobi (local Minnesota startup); Apple: In March of this year, Gadget Daily News claimed that Apple has an answer to the iPad publishing question in the works: a magazine template for the Xcode development environment
• Responsive web design: A List Apart article that got this topic started; What It Is and How To Use It; 50 Examples and Best Practices
• Our Minnov8 Gang Podcast is now on Stitcher! Listen to us on your iPhone, Android Phone, BlackBerry and WebOS phones.

Upcoming Events

• Wednesday, December 7th: MOJO Mixer 2 – Speed Mentoring for Startups: 6:00 PM, PSoup HQ, St. Paul
• December 10th to 13th: TIES 2011 EduTech Conference – , 9:00am – 5:00pm, Hyatt Regency Minneapolis

Minnov8 Gang 146 – Is Fire *Your* Tablet? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Graeme Thickins (Phil Wilson is off this week hosting a panel discussion at the fabulous Social Media Breakfast, Minneapolis/St. Paul (SMBMSP)).

Music: “Angel of Mercy” by Guitar Jack via the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show:

• Apple causes ‘religious’ reaction in brains of fans, say neuroscientists
• VISI’s: $10 million dollar expansion in Eden Prairie;  ReliaCloud offering; parent TDS
• LinkedIn Closes At $94 Per Share, With $8.9 Billion Market Cap
  • LinkedIn’s “Pop” on First Day of Trading (article at LATimes) (For comparison, here’s a local angle: In 1995 Secure Computing (then headquartered in MN & now part of McAfee) had a 274% first-day IPO gain)
• Apple Cloud Service (rumors)
  • Apple One Signature Away From Cloud Music Service
  • Apple’s cloud patent (article at AppleInsider)
  • Sony is latest label to sign up for Apple’s iCloud
  • How Apple Plans To Make Cloud-Based iTunes A Seamless Experience
• Earthquakes in the Midwest
• Amazon.com Now Selling More Kindle Books Than Print Books
• The uber-sexy Olympus LS-20 which will do both HD audio and HD video
• That Minnesota company in water Graeme mentioned is Pentair (article at Wikipedia; press release on recent acquisition)

Minnov8 Gang 124 – No Rain in This Cloud is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Our second guest, Fallon Director of Innovation Marty Wetherall, not only has delivered critically acclaimed work at this premiere ad agency, he is CEO of FanChatter, a “chat box” technology that aggregates, organizes and amplifies real-time social conversation. Listen as we discuss how “everything seems to be social” and its implications with these two leaders.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: Profetas is the artist & the song is “Baila” via the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show:

• Google Chrome App Store
• Android App Store
• AT&T to Push Atrix 4G to Counter Verizon iPhone
• Storify Raises $2M From Khosla Ventures To Blend Social Media With Storytelling
• Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis/St. Paul
• FanChatter News Coverage:
  • WCCO-TV news segment
  • Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal
  • Sunday StarTribune profile

Minnov8 Gang 110 – ChitChat Chatter is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson
Music: Dom Duff & the song “March Azur” via the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show:

• iPad means business
  • How to buy
  • To win a copy of “iPad means business”, email steve@minnov8.com with the code word we mentioned in the podcast. We will draw a name at random and announce the winner on Monday on Minnov8
  • “iPads Are Latest Weapon in Medical Sales” (Medtronic is one of the biggest corporate buyers)
  • One way Graeme uses his iPad
  • Apple’s iPad Luring Small Businesses
• Don Ball links: CoCoMSP; Network 2010; pariSoma; iPass; SoCoCo (Graeme’s interview at DEMO); James J. Hill Library and that incubator article in StarTribune.
• CrashPlan
• All social media experts “are actually the same person,” Wikileaks documents reveal

Minnov8 Gang 104 – We Are All Virtual Now is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson
Music: Kahuna Kawentzmann & the song “Late Bird” via the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show:

• Google Zeitgeist and this YouTube video about it
• StarTrib story on Dell’s bid for Compellent and this one in TCBusiness Journal
• Social Media Titans winners
• Graeme’s post about Gazaro Protect
• Visi/ReliaCloud Links:
  • News Release on TDS Communications Acquiring VISI
  • Explanation of Data Centers and the Tiers
  • ReliaCloud comparison of their offering vs. Amazon and Rackspace
  • A cool, virtual walk-through of their Eden Prairie Tier III data center
• Split Rock Partners
• Springpad app
• Upcoming Events:
  • Dec. 15th: MIMA’S “Chrismahanukwanzakah” Holiday Party
  • Dec. 17th: SMBMSP #32: Social Event Planning
  • Dec 20th: SMBMSP Holiday Tweetup

Minnov8 Gang 103 – Surfin’ the Cloud is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott & Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off dealing with his woody).
Music by Andre Bisson and the song, “I’m leavin’” from Music Alley.

Discussed During the Show:

• CrowdPitch at Dorsey Ewald Conference Center in St. Paul. A Rain Source Capital/Funding Universe collaboration
• WordPress Users Group on Thursday, July 22nd; Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis/St. Paul “Small Business Gets Social” on Friday, July 23rd; and Blandin’s Broadband Conference October 13-14 (Robert Stephens, Best Buy Company Geek Squad leader, is keynoting the event)
• Twitter’s business model article in Fortune magazine
• Eweek article on a Presidential Memorandum signed by President Obama would nearly double the amount of wireless broadband spectrum
• Clearwire wireless broadband coming to Minnesota; Article on mobile broadband; The Railroad and Minnesota Broadband
• Apple employee #1, Steve Wozniak, and his Segway polo
• Minnesota’s history of innovation arguably began with the explosion of companies in the business of milling grains (specifically wheat) along the Minneapolis riverfront at St. Anthony Falls. See this page at the Mill City Museum website for more and this Wikipedia page for the technologies entrepreneurs saw and the opportunities for innovation they seized. Image above from the Minnesota Historical Society Visual Resource Database located here.
• FUN FACTOID: One of the early milling companies, the Washburn-Crosby Company (which later merged with 26 mills to become General Mills) purchased a radio station in 1924 and renamed it WCCO, standing for “Washburn Crosby Company”.

NOTE: We’re having issues with the podcast plugin so just in case, here’s a direct link to the show.

Minnov8 Gang 84: Seeing Opportunities for Innovation is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson (Tim Elliott was off this week).
Music by Al Phlipp and the Woo Team and their song, “Timber Stone” from Music Alley.

Discussed during the podcast:

+ SMBMSP at Target Center
+ Minnesota Cup Semifinal event and the semifinalists
+ UnSummit
+ 2005 Bush Administration objection to the .xxx top-level domain
+ The Collaborative
+ A fabulous resource for anyone in business in Minnesota (especially startups!), the James J. Hill Library
+ Alvenda funding ($5M from Split Rock: link to PDF)
+ W3i mobile strategy announcement coming. Check their site Monday morning.

Minnov8 Gang 83: Innovation is Accelerating is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

We revisit Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) through Julio Ojeda-Zapata’s experiences talking about the new iPhone 4 and his reliance on the iPad and HTC EVO 4G on his trip. Many other related subjects are explored to their logical conclusions.

Show Hosts: Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson (Steve Borsch was away this week).

Music by AjT “Apple Chunk Guitar” from Music Alley.

Discussed during the podcast:

iPhone 4 live blogs: Engadget | gdgt

Julio’s impressions of iPhone 4 vs. HTC EVO 4G  on Your Tech Weblog

Simplenote app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

Reeder app for iPhone and iPod Touch

Read It Later

Instapaper

Pulse News Reader app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

Readability

Safari 5 Extensions blog

Xmarks extension for Firefox, Chrome and Safari

Apple TV Rumors at Engadget

Julio’s “Twitter Means Business” book website

Julio’s latest TWiT appearance

Events:

Social Media Breakfast, Twin Cities

fontconf

Unsummit 2010

MIMA “Crowd Source/User Generated Content with John Winsor” Event

Minnov8 Gang Podcast 82: Vicarious WWDC is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

In the movie The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Humphrey Bogart’s character Dobbs, and two other gringos, embark in to Mexico to find gold in the Sierra Madres, an area in great flux and riddled with banditos, but policed by the Federales. In one of the signature lines in the movie the banditos, trying to convince Dobbs and his cronies that they’re Federales, say, “Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!“ (usually misquoted as “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!“). There are several moral and philosophical questions in the movie and Dobbs dies, the banditos are killed by the Federales, the gold is lost and thus the analogy might as clear as mud: chasing opportunities won’t be easy but they’re out there; barriers and obstacles (and bandits) stand in your way; but we thought exploring opportunistic thoughts in this podcast was worthwhile.

Special Guest: For part of the podcast, Meg Canada joins us to talk about libraries, the iPad and more. Meg is a senior librarian for Web Services and Training at Hennepin County Library and currently coordinates public training and  social media efforts for the library. She volunteers helping with the Unsummit, recently presented at MinneWebCon, and is a regular contributor to Social Media Breakfast.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Opening & closing music is “Santa Maria” by Will Kriski from Music Alley, purveyor of podsafe tunes.

Discussed during the show:

+ Past Events: CloudCampMSP (see Minnov8′s coverage here); IgniteMPLS; Social Media Breakfast;

+ Upcoming Events: Mobile March; MIMA; DEMO; SxSWi; MinneWebCon

+ Mobile: MixMobi; WordPress mobile plugins (Mobile Edition; WPTouch); Square (mobile commerce)

+ Devices: Apple iPad; Microsoft Courier; Dell Slate

+ Other: Google pagerank to require speedier websites?; Hacker News.

Minnov8 Gang 69: “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme is off this week)
Music by Mean Gene Kelton and the Diehards and the tune is “Running from the Law”. From the podsafe music network Music Alley.

+ Google Buzz
+ Greg Litman (WCCO News & Sports producer) post on Arik Hanson’s blog
+ Juicy Lucy controversy
+ Phil’s video interview with Chris Brogan: “Catching Up With Chris”
+ Garrick Van Buren‘s Cullect.com
+ Steve’s post about Where are you paying attention?
+ Sarah Lacy controversy at SXSW & Danah Boyd’s Web 2.0 Expo speech and Twitter debacle
+ Craig Neal from Heartland Circle and his Art of Convening
+ Steve’s post about MSNBC’s awesome Super Tuesday primary coverage
+ The perfect valentine for social media folks to their sweetie: a “broquet” (a bacon bouquet)
+ What’s up with St. Valentine and how did we get to the point of giving cards, flowers and chocolate? (bonus link: History of Valentine’s Day)

Minnov8 Gang 67: Is Google Buzz a Taser or Cupid’s Arrow? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music by Endlouz and the tune is, “Bad Advice” (Disclaimer: This was NOT chosen as an indictment on the commentary by the Gang!)

Discussed during the show:

+ Clove (by Spice Apps)
+ Analyst Noise on the Apple Tablet
+ IDC predictions for 2010
+ Minnebar
+ Mary Meeker’s Internet presentation at Web 2.0 Summit (video)
+ Jolicloud, Google Chrome OS
+ Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis/St. Paul (SMBMSP)
+ Don Ball and his new collaboration workspace concept (announcement; pictures; pricing)
+ Overnight Website Challenge (please note the AWESOME faux dot matrix printer feed on the page…nice job nerds!)
+ Chuck Olsen (@Chuckumentary) in Copenhagen and here is TheUptake
+ 91st PGA Tournament at Hazeltine in Chaska and hundreds of Tiger Woods jokes.

Minnov8 Gang 60: Staying Ahead of the Storm in 2010 is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Libraries used to be places to go solely to find information and knowledge in containers called “books” that were comprised of “atoms” and organized by Melvil Dewey’s cool Decimal System, but increasingly library systems are morphing in to places to get connected online where patrons can find their information and knowledge in “bits” while interacting with the library in an increasingly virtual and — most intriguingly in today’s participation culture — in an online and interactively social way.

The Gang had a chance to invite Meg Canada on the podcast to talk about the 21st century library, what our biggest Minnesota library system is doing (and what she’s driving within it) to embrace new realities that are internet-centric and deliver a surprising array of services you may not know even exist. Meg has long impressed us with how much she “gets it” with respect to new media and social technologies, but have been quite delighted to see how much of her energy is invested in the social and internet community in Minnesota and the role she plays in nurturing it along with good humor and an eagerness to serve others.

Meg is a senior librarian for Web Services and Training at Hennepin County Library and currently coordinates public training and social media efforts for the library. She volunteers helping with the Unsummit, recently presented at MinneWebCon, and is a regular contributor to Social Media Breakfast. Had we known beforehand that she also sings regularly with the Twin Cities chapter of TechKaraoke, we would’ve had her croak out an Etta James tune or something. We’ll get her on another podcast soon and have her sing.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Opening & closing music is “38 Special” by Charlie Musselwhite (iTunes link) from Music Alley, purveyor of podsafe tunes.

Discussed during the show:

+ Wired article, “YouTube’s Bandwidth Bill Is Zero. Welcome to the New Net”

+ Libraries & Broadband by Ann Treacy on the Blandin on Broadband blog

+ Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) on Twitter

+ Hennepin County Library (HCL) and their services; Bookspace, a social site for HCL book lovers; eBooks and downloadable audio books and videos; and a remarkably easy to use, searchable database of all events and classes in the HCL system; HCL on Twitter.

Minnov8 Gang Podcast 55: The Connected & Social Library is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Discussed during the show notes:

+ Social Media Breakfast-Minneapolis St. Paul (SMBMSP) and these items: Julio’s image gallery and his use of PicPosterous; Graeme’s video; Hart Van Denburg’s article in City Pages

+ Apple’s Snow Leopard: Steve’s experience post; getting ready for the upgrade using Onyx; The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg review; the fabulous screencast creation tool that both Phil and Steve use called Screenflow

+ Screensharing: Adobe Reader 9; Mikogo; Dim-Dim; Skype screensharing

+ Other: HTML 5 article; Forrester analysts start own firm; Microsoft’s Office.com; Free Agent Nation by Dan Pink; Rainmaker’s Conference; MIMA Summit; Steve’s blog for Scholastic, the K-12 publisher.

Minnov8 Gang Podcast #49: MN State Fair & Snowy Leopard is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.

Discussed during the show:

+ Twitter down (and Dragnet’s “Blue Boy” LSD episode); FanChatter; Blog comment addition vendors: Echo and BackType (and BackType Connect for WordPress); Minnesota startups BusinessCard2 and Extendr as well as Retaggr

+ Federal Trade Commission (FTC) looking in to Google’s Eric Schmidt on Apple’s board (now potentially a moot point)

+ Pending Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proceedings regarding wireless open access and handset exclusivity are in motion, and as part of this the FCC requested more information from the Google Voice app rejection by Apple (good overview of the controversy–and Apple’s overall app rejection policy–in this BusinessWeek article)

• FCC’s letter to Apple
• FCC’s letter to AT&T
• FCC’s letter to Google

+ HTML 5 and the open source video codec rejection; Google acquiring On2 and conjecture it was a strategic move to open source On2′s codec, move away from Flash (and minimize the possibility Adobe could make it a ubiquitous application platform as well as continuing to extend its reach as one for video) and not require licensing H.264

+ The MiFi device and the Wired article referred to by Tim; Comcast getting in to wireless broadband

+ “Social Media on a Stick“: Social Media Breakfast, Minneapolis/St. Paul (SMBMSP) is meeting at the State Fair

+ Blogwell is next week! This is positioned as a must-attend event for anyone interested in corporate social media use

+ Evocam: Steve’s geek fun this weekend.

Minnov8 Gang #46: Addicted to Twitter, Chatter about FanChatter & More is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Afterwards, we headed out to the deck to record our M8 Gang podcast and were joined by Meg and then Bryan Person, the founder of the national Social Media Breakfast group. Added to this podcast were three interviews at the end which Graeme Thickins had recorded before the event began. Your hosts for this podcast are the typical cast of characters: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.

Show Notes:

+ Minneapolis/St. Paul WordPress Users Group

+ Here’s a quick iPhone 3GS video of the venue:

Minnov8 Gang @ Social Media Breakfast #17 is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.

Discussed during the show notes:

+ Social Media Breakfast-Minneapolis/St. Paul (SMBMSP) last week

+ Best Buy’s new Twitter initiative

+ MagentoCommerce

+ Upcoming WordPress meetup/unconference on Thursday, July 30th at 6:30pm

+ GDGT.com

+ Vendor Relationship Management

+ Posterous

Minnov8 Gang 41: What if George had an iPhone? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

The event was originally slated to be held indoors at Deluxe, but free tickets for the 125-person capacity room sold out on the group’s online sign-up site within two hours. So, organizer Rick Mahn and sponsor PartnerUp (a Deluxe company) scrambled to accommodate demand. They quickly decided to open up the event by holding it outside, and then promptly sold out all 250 tickets. 

Just what is a “Social Media Breakfast”?  As explained on the group’s web site (a social networking site, of course!): “It’s where folks get together to talk about using social media and social networking tools in their business or careers. It’s about networking, it’s about learning, and mostly it’s about people.”

The SMB concept has taken off nationally, now with 25 chapters. But in early 2008 the Twin Cities group was one of the first to get started — the third, actually, after Boston and New York City, according to Bryon Person, the founder of Social Media Breakfast. Person spoke at the local “SMPmsp 15″ event at Concordia College in St. Paul on May 16. (Person is based in Austin, TX and is a blogger, podcaster, speaker, and social media evangelist for LiveWorld. He is @BryanPerson on Twitter.)  Person also said the Twin Cities SMB group has held the most meetings of all the chapters, and consistently has the biggest attendance.  Thus, one could conclude that Friday’s outdoor event was the biggest SMB breakest ever held nationally, since attendance was about twice that of the largest previous SMBmsp event.

Speakers at the “SMBmsp 16″ event included Tim Brunelle (@tbrunelle on Twitter), pictured at right below, who spoke on “The Impact of Social Media on the Advertising and Marketing Industry,” and Minnov8′s own Steve Borsch (@sborsch on Twitter), at left, who presented on the topic of “Personal/Professional Hubs: A Place to Aggregate Your Digital Life.” 

Borsch commented later, after he had left for Chicago immediately following the breakfast. “Wow, what a great event. Thank you to PartnerUp and Deluxe for going way above and beyond the call of duty to host this gathering and making it such a success.”  As he was presenting, Borsch said he was thinking: “Gee, if I’m sweating up here in the shade, imagine how they must be feeling!” The sun was amazingly strong, even so early in the morning. He said later on the SMBmsp site’s blog: “This event just goes to show the level of interest, the strength of our community, and that each of you recognize how fundamentally important is the shift being exhibited by the onrush of social media… Or it was all just about free hats and bacon?”

Borsch uploaded a PDF of his Apple Keynote presentation, which was shown on the Jumbotron (he’s shown here readying for his talk), and it is viewable and downloadable at that link above.  “I was using my iPhone to control the presentation with the ‘Keynote App’ from Apple. You can see one slide and your notes — flickably scrollable to advance the slide or scroll your notes — or, in landscape mode, to see the next slide queued up ready to go. It runs over wifi.”   [Yes, that's our Steve Borsch -- the ultimate geek!]

For more on SMBmsp, you can read all the tweets posted about it by simply going to search.Twitter.com and entering either “SMBmsp” or “SMBmsp16″.  You can also see some great photos here: a Flickr set by Jamie Thinglestad.  The closeup photo above of the two speakers, and the two shots below are Jamie’s, used here with permission; all other photos are from my own Flickr set.

I asked Phil Wilson, fellow contributor to Minnov8, for his reaction to SMBmsp 16:  “It was great to see so many new faces coming to check out what’s happening in our social media community.  I hope that they can come back to really get a sense of how easy it is to connect with the group.  I prefer a more intimate setting where we can better discuss the topics presented, but it was fun to be part of ‘Social Media Palooza’.  I’ve never seen a keynote presentation on a jumbotron!  Steve’s presentation was spot on. I also thought Tim Brunelle had some great information and insight. For anyone interested in using social media for business or ‘brand’, it’s vital to keep in mind the impact it will have on marketing and advertising.”

Anyone may join the “SMBmsp” group by registering for free at its site.  There are currently 827 people who have done so, according to the Members page.  The site has a regular podcast, and also a blog where any member can post.

Could MSP Be the Social Media Capital of the World? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off today).

Discussed during the show notes:

• Apple’s new iPhone 3Gs:  Selling previous iPhone’s online so as to upgrade; Crunchgear on tethering; Anandtech article
• Social Media Breakfast MSP this Friday
• TOSBack, a ‘Terms of Service’ tracker, which is a website that monitors changes in TOS
• Cory Doctorow’s book Craphound, read as a free audiobook and downloadable here and his website/blog here (with all of his books listed since once you start reading/listening to them, you’ll keep going).

Minnov8 Gang 40: Jobs, iPhone, Pre & Cory is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Today’s hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson. (Photo credit: Lee Odden (TopRankBlog; Flickr).

Joining us on the podcast is a brand new Minnov8 contributor and participant, Gary Koelling, who is Senior Manager, Social Technology at Best Buy Inc. After interactions with Graeme Thickins — who isn’t bashful about promoting Minnov8 — Gary decided he’d like to create for Minnov8 and completed the form (hint: you could too!).

Gary is the founder of BlueShirtNation.com, Giftag.com and leads several social technology projects within Best Buy. He describes himself as a tinkerer, gadfly (and an aspiring iconoclast), reader, tryer (someone who tries), teacher and listener (with a fairly tuned bullshit meter). Due to the success of the efforts he’s involved in, and the high profile of our hometown consumer electronics retailing giant, Gary has been able to talk to lots of people and companies around the country about social media and social technology.

Our favorite quote about his speaking around the country from his LinkedIn profile? “I don’t know if it’s helping, but I enjoy it.” We sure think so since he’s in-the-game, taking risks, experimenting and driving towards high value outcomes for his employer.

LINKS
Here are links to sites, products or other resources discussed during the podcast:

• Good economic news for MN tech firms in Q4 2008: MTS revs up 9%, EPS up 21% (view MTS “Test Suite“) and NVE up 24%, EPS up 44% (view NVE “Fun Facts” page)
• Mashable article on 40 Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them (Scroll down to the “Retail” section)
• Fortune Top 100 Best Places to Work: Mayo (24th) and General Mills (39th) as great places to work (via MNHeadhunter)
• Forbes listing America’s Top Most Wired Cities: Minneapolis is #7 on the list
• The (mostly mythological) “Osborne Effect” but is there some reality to it in an online world?
• Macintosh image editors increasingly used by Tim Elliott: Acorn and Pixelmator
• Gary headed to Etail in Phoenix and a Computerworld event (both he and his cohort and colleague, Steve Bendt)
• EVENTS: Social Media Breakfast 1/30/09; Minnedemo (RSVP if you want to get in!) 2/6/09; Unsummit 3/7/09.

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 22 is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Today’s hosts: Steve Borsch,Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, Phil Wilson, Garrick Van Buren

Connie Bensen is a woman who is completely engaged in the social media world and has turned it into a thought leadership position as well as career. She’s not only connected with other social media leaders who are geographically disbursed around the globe, but she’s also involved representing social media analytics company Techrigy…and all from her home 4.5 hours north of the Twin Cities! Who said outstate Minnesota people aren’t connected and fully engaged in the 21st century communications revolution!

Show notes:

+ Book Connie mentioned, “Personality Not Included”

+ Other links mentioned: Brian Brown’s Twitter account (from Ideapark); Graeme’s Twitter account; Fast Company article about “8 Experts Predict How Web 2.0 Will Evolve In 2009“; ComicTwit (and its Twitter account)

+ Connie has several key resources linked to from her home page here…definitely worth reading ‘em!

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 17 is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.