What a gorgeous spring week it was in Minnesota last week: clear, sunny, even sneaking into the ’70s.   The only “clouds” in sight were the proponents and would-be adopters of the latest, new hotness in enterprise computing.  Two events, on Wednesday and Saturday, attracted a wide array of these IT professionals, some 350 all told, who were hungry to learn more about… well, “the orange that’s the new pink,” as Larry Ellison would say. It was beyond impressive that so many people would give up being outdoors last week after the winter we’ve had in these parts!  Goes to show how deep our IT roots run in this state. Geeks are everywhere here and, doggone it, we’re proud of it!  We still have many old-school enterprise IT folks who remember the days of time-sharing on mainframes, and way more than our per-capita share of Fortune 500 headquarters in this state, all with huge (well, getting leaner) IT departments. But, along with all that, Minnesota has a seemingly endless supply of boot-strapped Internet and software startup developers — folks that are finding they love what cloud computing is doing for them.

So, it was an eclectic bunch that gathered at these two Minnesota cloud events, and I was there to take it all in….

The first was a panel at the MN High-Tech Association’s annual spring conference on Wednesday at the Minneapolis Convention Center. The conference drew some 850 attendees overall. The cloud panel, one of several breakout sessions, was billed as “Moving Into the Cloud – Drivers, Benefits, Reality.”  I had the pleasure of moderating this one, which featured the following panelists:

- George Reese, CTO and founder of enStratus, a developer of enterprise-grade tools for security and reliability in cloud infrastructures, and author a new book from O’Reilly, “Cloud Application Architectures.”
- Matt Googins, a solution architect at Carlson Marketing Worldwide who has responsibility for a portfolio of IT services and programs for several of the firms large, Fortune 500 clients
- Robert Metcalf, founder and CEO of Flyspy.com, a third-generation travel search engine that’s been in development for seven years. The service displays all your travel options in the next 60 days in a visual format and will be available in beta in the next month or two.

So, just who was in the crowded, standing-room-only audience of more than 200 in this breakout session? I was shocked when I asked for a show of hands and saw upwards of a third say they were with firms of 1000 or more employees. A similar number identified themselves as senior or C-level execs. About 15% were developers or other technologists.

Big Topic to Cover in 45 Minutes
I led the panel discussion around the normal topics: is cloud computing over-hyped (we opened with the Larry Ellison rant — quite timely, as it turned out), then jumped into what are the definitions, the panelists’ experience with app development and deployment, and the platform-as-a-service approach versus infrastructure-as-a-service. The panelists provided an overview of the industry-leading Amazon Web Services offerings. But we moved quickly into a discussion of the advantages and business benefits of cloud computing, which was what most were there to hear — focusing of course on the economic benefit of greatly reduced cap ex and the pay-as-you-go model.  A statement by Reese that the cloud computing juggernaut is coming more from the CFO’s office than the CIO’s may not have been what many in the audience wanted to hear.  Metcalf added later that we don’t have a Chief Water Office or Chief Electricity Officer, and that many of the duties of the CIO are bound to change in coming years. Googins, after several successful evaluations of cloud infrastructure for his large enterprise clients’ apps, said he was within days of presenting to his CIO his recommendations for significant transformation to cloud infrastructure, and was confident that would be approved. He cited one successful application, for Monsanto, that he’s had in the Amazon cloud for nine months at 100% uptime.

But it was Rob Metcalf who may have wowed the audience the most with his success story, calling himself “the poster boy for cloud computing,” and admitting it may be responsible for nothing less than saving his fledgling startup.  Flyspy is a highly complex app that processes more data in 12 hours than Orbitz does in all it queries in a month, so Metcalf knew it would require massive infrastructure. But cloud computing allowed him to lop-off no less than $150,00 from his cap ex budget, which went a long way toward helping him get funding.  He now has just minimal monthly costs to run his service. After about seven months of experience in the Amazon cloud, Metcalf was now touting what the new infrastructure model has meant for his startup. He spoke in glowing terms about his experience with Amazon’s EC2 service, and also the advantages of its Simple Queue Service (SQS) for his particular huge compute needs. He also is a big fan of management and monitoring tools for the cloud,  such as those from Reese’s firm, enStratus. Googins also will be using those tools in a production environment he said he’d be rolling out in about a week.

Audience questions focused on pricing transparency, speed of deployment, the big issue of dealing with culture of the corporate IT department in moving to the cloud, and the status of legal language in contracts used in the new model. On that latter question, Flyspy’s Metcalf said his firm spent months modifying the contracts his data providers normally use for firms that have physical data centers. He said whole sections had to be cut out, many pages, and lawyers don’t do that easily (whereas “they’ll add stuff all day long”).  He said it was a huge hassle for his firm, and darn-near sunk it. But all is now well.

Serious Geeks Ignore Sunny MN Saturday, Talk Cloud Inside
You could tell those who gathered at CloudCampMSP on April 18 at the U of MN’s computer science building were serious. It was the Twin Cities’ first real spring Saturday, and there were tons of things we all could’ve been doing outside.  Being a free event, the less-dedicated of course didn’t show.  But that was a good thing, because the more than 100 who did pretty much filled the schmoozing space and the main room, anyway, and there was a ton of energy in that building.  We first heard lightning talks from local firm Visi.com, then Aserver, enStratus (also local), Microsoft (a local .Net architect) , Slicehost/Rackspace, and Rightscale — so, three of  those came to town just for this event.  Following was a lightning panel featuring three of the above, along with myself and a developer of some new cloud apps for Best Buy (Curtis Thompson), a proponent of PaaS (Google App Engine).  Audience participation was lively, prompting discussions of PaaS vs. IaaS, how businesses have to do more with less today, private vs. public clouds, bandwidth (esp in rural areas), nonprofits’ use of the cloud, and more.  Breakout sessions addressed a number of hot topics (see photo). I attended one on cloud mobility (led by Uri Budnik of Rightscale, all the way from LA), and another on security/reliability/regulation/compliance, led by Jim Hanlon, chief architect at Digital River (DRIV). I was impressed by the amount of intelligence in the room, in both sessions. Highly experienced, senior architects, some from huge firms — along with some pretty damn smart young guys, too, including startup founders (like Lukas Dickie of Gimigo).  Cool mix of cultures! 

In the mobility session, we talked about how we’re starting to hear of the promise of easily moving apps from one cloud to another (or data center to cloud), though Rightscale’s approach, I learned, is about moving servers from one to another; what they do is keep the server config consistent.  Later, in the security/compliance session, we talked about how compliance issues don’t change with the cloud; we still have the hard questions to ask. One big difference now: where is the server physically located?  And what about legal issues of, say, someone subpoenaing all the server records of a cloud provider when it has nothing to do with your company? (Witness the recent FBI example.)  We certainly don’t have all the answers. As Digital River’s Hanlon said, “This regulatory/compliance stuff is really hard, and that’s why companies want to outsource it” — citing it as a major reason they’re in business.

[For a further rundown on CloudCampMSP, go to search.twitter.com and enter "cloudcampmsp" or "ccmsp" -- both hashtags were used variously during the day, along with "cloudcomputingmsp" till I realized my mistake..   The event was one of the top trending topics on Twitter this sunny day in April, and a big success by all accounts. A ton more conversation transpired at a NE Minneapolis watering hole during the reception following...but, naturally, there weren't many tweets from there. And I know you'll thank me for not doing any of my podcast audio interviews while we were all drinking.]

It Was Cloud Week in Minneapolis, and All the Cool Kids (and Old Guys!) Were There is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Though this is a bit off-topic for Minnov8′s mission around innovation in internet and web technology, energy specifically is so intertwined with what we do — and this conference looks so fascinating — that it seemed like something you might be interested in. As they say on the E3 conference site, “If you’ve ever wondered about the potential for algae to cure our oil addiction, the future of solar power or the role the media plays in environmental awareness—join us at E3 2008!”

As this year’s keynote speakers, Manitoba Premier Gary Doer and Terje Gjengedal, vice president of Statkraft in Oslo, Norway, will set a world-class tone. The conference will also feature compelling research posters and breakout sessions along five different tracks:

Renewable and Sustainable Fuels and Products: Catch the buzz on algae to biofuels, catalysis and bioproducts; featuring experts from the Energy & Environmental Research Center, Ever Cat Fuels, Iowa State University, Stoel Rives, Fish and Richardson, and more.

Renewable and Sustainable Electricity: Learn the latest in wind expansion, solar energy and nanotechnology; featuring experts from Xcel Energy, Windustry, Cymbet Corporation and more.

The Nexus of Energy, the Environment and the Economy: Get the facts on fuel standards, green marketing and the state’s renewable energy portfolio; featuring experts from the Great Plains Institute, GE Capital Solutions, the Minnesota Legislature, Fresh Energy and more.

Conservation and Energy Efficiency: Expand your knowledge of sustainable cities and next-gen energy systems; featuring experts from Volvo, 3M, Faegre and Benson, Xcel Energy, the Electric Power Research Institute and more.

Special Topics: Explore the issues surrounding technology commercialization, research investment and environmental news reporting; featuring experts from Cargill Ventures, Fredrikson & Byron, WCCO (Don Shelby), Minnesota Public Radio and more.

At $80 for those of us in business, this is an inexpensive conference and is sure to spark ideas on, perhaps, applications that could streamline some of these areas? I’ll wager you’d come away with at least one idea on something that needs fixing and you’d be just the person to do it. More about registering can be found here.

E3: Energy, Economic & Environmental Conference is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

As more of us get connected via the internet and through web applications, seek ways to make our collaboration more powerful, shift our old serial and linear processes to ones that are parallel and associative, OSS is a key building block of internet and web technologies and applications. OSS is also gaining momentum globally and affecting all industries and institutions, even educational ones. 

That said, educational institutions often lag the private sector in adopting new technologies until proven, especially the Kindergarten through senior high school (K-12) levels. K-12 is often seen as risk-averse and needing clarity about the efficacy and pedagogy of using any particular technology. It must be proven and the benefits to learning and student achievement crystal clear before any technology is implemented, especially OSS. 

On the flip side, higher education is a hotbed of OSS use and many projects have origins in colleges and universities. One could argue that our public institutions taking risks, researching new possibilities, and pushing against the membrane of the future is at least as important as their educational mission and has contributed code and thought leadership in OSS. 

Though I’ve been aware of the OSS learning management system called “Moodle” (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) for some time, I was both delighted at what I discovered at the U of MN and surprised (stunned might be the better word) by its adoption within Eden Prairie schools where my son attends high school.

There are lessons in this story for all of us about how two very different educational organizations recognized that collaboration, human connection, and the move to parallel and associative learning is at the core of education going forward, and took calculated risk with the OSS Moodle to meet new needs.

MOODLE AT THE U OF MN
While performing some research for one of my clients on learning management systems (LMS), I stumbled across a Powerpoint deck entitled, “Moodle Implementation at the University of Minnesota” (PPT) by Elena Ivanova, I.T. Professional focused on Moodle and Scott Barnard, Emerging Technology Lead in the Digital Media Center.

In the slide deck they discussed why they adopted Moodle. One that came as surprise — and confirms what Minnov8 readers understand about the new collaboration paradigm exploding as the web matures — is that University faculty embraced the Moodle social constructivist philosophy which has, at its core, collaborative learning.

To me, this is a fundamental recognition of the shift occurring with the internet and web. Books like Wikinomics to Wisdom of the Crowds or Here Comes Everybody discuss mass collaboration, an emerging parallel and associative way of learning and collaborating instead of what we’ve always done (i.e., linear, serial learning and collaborating). With more and more opportunities to connect with one another online — and a participation culture of always-on and always-connected continues to accelerate — driving learning models forward that map to what’s happening online is key to the University’s future.  

I reached out to Ms. Ivanova and Dave Sandum, Eden Prairie School’s Director of Operational Technology, to discuss the reasons behind the adoption of Moodle (Sandum could not be reached after repeated attempts and his comments are from this Eden Prairie News article).

On this point about collaboration and the fundamental shift occurring, Ivanova said this, “That would be a question for someone with a PhD in education, but I personally think that (Moodle) does not impose any major obstacles. It still supports and encourages linear structure of a regular academic course.”

You have a site which is broken into the weeks/topics, and every week you add materials to read (pdf, words, lecture notes), and activities to participate in (like assignment, quiz or forums). Once you feel comfortable you may use more collaborative features, like allowing students to rate one another in the forum, add and comment on glossary entries, and more.”

Ivanova also emphasized that Moodle is also easy to use and intuitive, has a rich set of tools, lots of 3rd party add-ons, good design and the University team behind Moodle could point to a highly successful implementation of it at U of MN-Crookston. 

Ms. Ivanova made it clear that this major adoption at the U of MN didn’t come easily and they still have an active license with WebCT and it’s used throughout the University. In fact, she’d worked with WebCT and Desire2Learn (another LMS) for several years, and thus could see that Moodle was missing some features (like releasing courses with certain conditions attached or timed release).

How successful is Moodle adoption at the U of MN?  Total user base has 44,000 users and over 2,000 sites in production (667 are in-use and active), which places UofM in the top 2% of moodle installations by user count. (As a point of comparison, there are approximately 2,600 active sites on WebCT yet at the U of MN). (More statistics here).

MOODLE AT EDEN PRAIRIE SCHOOLS
While attending curriculum night at Eden Prairie High school (where parents get an introduction to teachers, curriculum and the overall high school experience) for our ninth grade son, his American Studies teacher pulled up an orientation slide and talked about access “to our Moodle site.” 

Since my son is in an enriched program with a remarkably challenging textbook (it’s even a dense, difficult read for his Mom and I!), having what our son needs online with Moodle means he can access all of his support materials from home whenever he needs it (and like most kids, he forgets stuff at school but can get it online now).

Eden Prairie News reporter Leah Schaffer wrote this article about Eden Prairie’s adoption of Moodle and comments by Dave Sandum where he emphasizes the collaborative and social aspects of the Moodle LMS and where they’re headed directionally:

“A classroom automation system,” is how David Sandum would describe it. Sandum, the techonology director for Eden Prairie schools, said Moodle gives teachers the ability to organize and conduct entire lessons in classrooms electronically.

“[It] takes things to the next level where you’re able to basically work in a collaborative form.” It breaks down the traditional four walls of the classroom, to create “anytime, anywhere learning [and it] really puts the social networking elements into learning,” said Sandum.

Sandum said they looked at Moodle as a pilot to see if its adoption went well, as far as student learning. It turns out that they may go beyond Moodle. Sandum said their goal is to basically create and support, internally, an Eden Prairie MySpace for education.

In my discussions with various Eden Prairie teachers over the years — including one who was a favorite of both my kids and a credentialed educational technologist, the now retired Sally Knaeble — I was always taken aback with the almost laughable (and sad) lack of technology in the schools. 

Outdated computers, lack of teacher self-publishing tools (K-6 and middle school websites look like they were done in 1997 and blogs? What’s a blog?), inadequate portals and parental tools (like something as simple as shared calendars amongst teachers that we could subscribe to, and/or RSS feeds from pages), a $4.6 million annual bond referendum passed in 2004 with $2M each year for technology improvements is now bearing fruit. Ironically the free Moodle software — with servers, support, training and other costs attached — is a smart use of this funding.

What impresses me more about both the U of MN’s direction and Eden Prairie schools embrace of Moodle is this: a deep and profound recognition of the new paradigm of human and machine connection driven by the internet; the demand for online access to information, materials and each other around learning; and the willingness to adopt OSS and discover how even learning can become more parallel and associative and begin to wean students off of the old ways of serial, linear learning.

Moodle Makes Its Mark is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

According to the U’s own business development people (see link to Powerpoint presentation at bottom), the 20-year success record of the U’s technology company spinoffs is only half the university average nationally — and less than one-fourth the success record of the nation’s premier schools. What’s more, in one recent year (2004), for example, the U of MN spun off only one company compared to 14 at the University of Michigan and 16 at the University of Illinois. Why I am focusing here on spinoffs? Well, because, according the U’s own business development people, creating university spinoffs is “much more profitable than licensing (revenues)” to the school.

And, besides, the largest source of the U’s licensing revenues will run out soon. That was the focus of a recent Sunday feature in the StarTribune by my friend Thomas Lee, entitled U’s Transfer Problem: The University of Minnesota needs more eggs … and more baskets. With time running out on its royalty income stream, the U is scrambling to find the next Medtronic. An excerpt:

Judging from the university’s recent track record of converting its vast reservoir of research into cash, the U faces an uphill climb. The school that’s known for inventing the pacemaker, the heart valve and one of the Web’s first Internet browsers is desperate for a hit.

At a time when the state’s economy is slowing and its medical device sector is maturing, the U’s long commercialization slump has attracted the urgent attention of lawmakers, venture capitalists and others concerned about where Minnesota’s next Medtronic or St. Jude will come from.

The next day, we find this look at innovation at the U is a two-part series in the StarTribune, with another article appearing by Thomas Lee, this one entitled: His Job: Magician – The University of Minnesota’s research VP brings his experience honed in Madison to jump-start innovation in the Gopher state. In this piece, we hear about specific programs the U has undertaken since 2005 in an attempt to make up for the expected drop off in licensing revenues, starting next year.

One of Mulcahy’s first priorities when he arrived in Minnesota was to recruit industry professionals like former Honeywell executive Jay Schrankler to run the Office of Technology Commercialization. The office traditionally had been staffed with academics who had little or no business experience.

In the past, many of the university’s start-ups failed because the school lacked the business talent to fully develop the ideas before it sought outside capital, experts say.

The school hired a half dozen “strategy managers” with experience in fields like software, pharmaceuticals and medical devices to determine if faculty research or technology can be licensed or spun out into new companies. The Venture Center, under former investment banker Doug Johnson, launched a “CEO in Residence Program” in which outside entrepreneurs and business people regularly examine potential start-ups, mentor MBA students and help structure deals.

The article says the U has set some lofty goals compared to the numbers I cite in my first paragraph above. To wit:

Schrankler and Johnson say their goal is to spin off three companies a year, including one that has the potential to go public in five years with at least a $250 million market value. They also hope to generate $50 million to $60 million in royalty income annually.

Johnson said, “There is plenty of world-class technology at the U.” He cited a company called Orasi Medical, which the U recently spun out, and another university medical startup that several VC firms are interested in. He also cited the work of a medical researcher at the U, Dr. Doris Taylor, which recently received wide attention:

• Here’s the story as published by UMNnews: Researchers Create a New Heart in the Lab: Work Opens a New Path to Replacement of Hearts and Other Organs.

• The day before, the doctor’s work was published by the journal Nature Medicine: Technical Report abstract – Nature Medicine 14, 213 – 221 (2008).

• And here’s how the New York Times reported the breakthrough that same day: Researchers Create New Rat Heart in Lab.

Dr. Taylor will be the keynote speaker May 29 at the U of M Alumni Association’s 2008 Annual Celebration, being billed as “The Heart of Discovery,” and the featured guest is Earl Bakken, the founder of Medtronic. Tickets are available to the general public at the alumni association web site.

What’s the take of the investment community to the U’s latest initiatives in technology commercialization? Well, one VC gives the U a big thumbs-up. David Spreng is a Minnesota native (and U of M grad), and is now based in Palo Alto, CA, as Managing General Partner of Crescendo Ventures. On his blog, called “Lightbulb,” he wrote an upbeat blog post citing Doug Johnson’s CEO-in-residence program: The University of Minnesota May Have Cracked the Code.

(By the way, here’s a link to the Powerpoint presentation I mentioned at the beginning of this post, actually a PDF: A Presentation on Industry/Academic Partnerships, by Doug Johnson, Office of Business Development, University of Minnesota, which is dated May 2006.)

What’s your take on the U of M as a source of technology innovation? What about the Institute of Technology — are you aware of any promising new technologies coming out of the computer science and EE programs? Is medical technology sucking all the oxygen away from IT and Internet startups in Minnesota? And do the innovations that really matter happen outside the walls of academia, anyway?

Speak your piece in the comments.

The Latest on U of M Technology Innovation and Commercialization is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.