Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Archives for May 2009

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 36

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innovation-ideasThe Gang talks about a meetup with entrepreneur, VC, artist and all-around renaissance man, Gary Smaby, and his spearheading of what’s euphemistically dubbed “the collaboratory”, but is officially an Innovation by Design framework to incubate startups, tap into the University brain-trust, and create a culture of innovation within the University of Minnesota (read more in this PDF).

We also talk at length about Minnedemo, the event itself as well as people we met there and reactions we had (Note: we’ll have a video up shortly of a few interviews we did at Minnedemo) and get into a discussion about URL shortening services.

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

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 48:16 — 28.0MB)

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Discussed During the Show Notes:

Author of “Viral Spiral” in Minneapolis

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coverIf you’re interested in open source, public knowledge or observations on the power of the commons in a digital age, you’ll want to know about a new book, Viral Spiral: How commonors built a digital republic of their own, since the author, David Bollier, will be in Minneapolis next Wednesday May 13th discussing it.

From free and open-source software, Creative Commons licenses, Wikipedia, remix music and video mashups. peer production, open science, open education, and open business. the world of digital media has spawned a new “sharing economy” that increasingly competes with entrenched media giants.

Reporting from the heart of this “free culture” movement, journalist and activist David Bollier provides the first comprehensive history of the attempt by a global brigade of techies, lawyers, artists, musicians, scientists. businesspeople, innovators, and geeks of all stripes to create a digital republic committed to freedom and innovation. Viral Spiral—the term Bollier coins to describe the almost magical process by which Internet users can come together to build online commons and tools-brilliantly interweaves the disparate strands of this eclectic movement. The story describes major technological developments and pivotal legal struggles, as well as fascinating profiles of hacker Richard Stallman, copyright scholar Lawrence Lessig, and other colorful figures.

Here are the deets:
Book event & reception
Wednesday, May 13th at 7:30 pm
Magers & Quinn Book Store
3038 Hennepin Av S, Minneapolis
RSVP office@onthecommons.org

Missouri School of Journalism Live Today

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mizzouIf you have any interest in the future of journalism in a day when newspapers are going bankrupt and traditional media losing their grip on our attention — all while citizen journalism and new models are emerging — then you’ll want to be aware that former Best Buy VC and now “Innovation Accelerator”, Kim Garretson (a Missouri School of Journalism or “Mizzou” alumnus) has been actively engaged for some time at the school.

Kim has had the students working on two of his startups, LikeMe as well as one founded in Minnesota, BackstageGallery, which we’ve covered before at Minnov8.

kim-garretsonIf have any free moments today between 3:30pm and 7:30pm, please tune in the live video stream and you’ll be able to watch five teams of Mizzou seniors in Strategic Communications & Convergence Journalism presenting the results of their semester-long social media campaigns & execution for those two of Kim’s startups.

Having done this several times, Kim said that the students “…are guaranteed to KILL IT with their creativity and enthusiasm.” If you’re watching and tweet, use hashtag #mizzou09 as there will be a live Twitter stream screen in the presentation room. On-site judges are CEOs of digital agencies, the head of Social Media for H&R Block, and several others.

Compellent Sure Knows How to Throw a Customer/Partner Event

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I’m impressed. Compellent is hosting one helluva gig this week.  If you don’t know this company — well, you should. It’s one of our state’s best technology-industry success stories in recent years. compellent_c-drive09 Compellent is all about data storage, which is very much still a growth industry, despite the recession. Yes, your company should be so lucky to be in a sector like this.

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.

Innovation in a Time of Accelerating Change

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booksAsk people what the word “innovation” means to them and you’ll hear such phrases as, “…it’s all about making processes more efficient” or “…brainstorming new ideas and implementing them” or “…ways in which we can disrupt and leapfrog our competitors.” Clearly there are many ways to think about the process of innovation, but almost never do you hear entrepreneurs, business analysts or corporate strategists openly discussing the rate of change that’s occurring…

…and how that rate of change is accelerating exponentially….  [Read More…]

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 35

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breakerbreaker1The Gang was goofing around in our pre-show emails signing off with “Breaker Breaker 19 Good Buddy” using 1970’s CB (citizen’s band) Radio talk.

Poking around ahead of the show led us to reading this article about the CB radio ‘bubble’ we experienced and the reason this form of communication exploded on to the scene: “Following the 1973 oil crisis, the U.S. government imposed a nationwide 55 mph speed limit, and fuel shortages and rationing were widespread. CB radio was often used to locate service stations with a supply of gasoline, to notify other drivers of speed traps, and to organize blockades and convoys in a 1974 strike protesting the new speed limit and other trucking regulations.”

The Burt Reynolds movie Smokey and the Bandit was one (and what some term unfortunate) result of the huge CB radio boom in the 1970’s and really shows how it permeated our culture at the time in many ways like Twitter is today with CNN and Oprah jumping in and using it as Twitter grows like crazy…even though quitting Twitter is perhaps the new trend.

It got us to thinking about how much human communication and connection has changed since then and even how Twitter might be construed as ‘the CB radio of the internet age’. No question we have many ways to connect with one another and we talk about some of those in this show, how to achieve higher quality communications, consider what happens if we need to virtualize our communications even more today since most people are not preparing their families, companies or work processes in the event of a crisis (e.g., swine flu, terrorist attack, etc.). As always, we wander off on tangents that seem logical at the time!

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins (our buddy Phil Wilson is off today).

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 39:46 — 23.1MB)

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“Discussed During the Show” Notes:

+ NetBriefings, OnePlace, Yugma, Minnedemo
+ GLUE Conference (and contacting Graeme (email) about the two free passes he has)
+ Leo Laporte using a new Friendfeed groups feature to have chat accompany the TwitLive netcasts
+ Biz Borsch, 20 year old daughter of Steve, in community management with Social Media Eyes (launching soon)
+ Graeme uses TweetGrid for monitoring specific Twitter mentions of a keyword
+ Innovation Accelerator, Kim Garretson, and a new offering he’s ‘accelerating’, Involver
+ A good story that encapsulates the 1970’s CB Radio boom in an entertaining way.