Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Archives for July 2010

Minnov8 Gang 84: Seeing Opportunities for Innovation

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This week’s show theme surrounds seeing opportunities for innovation. We explore many of the events, conferences, and moves made in web and internet technology and also dwell on all the collective energy being expended in Minnesota (e.g., MHTA; MNCup; MOJO MN; Minnedemo/Minnebar; Minnov8; tech.mn). driving toward one thing: sparking innovation in Minnesota. Is it working? What more can be done?

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.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 59:22 — 34.5MB)

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Discussed During the Show:

MentorMate: Turning Vision in to Software

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One of the most challenging things to do as a startup, entrepreneur, or any leader looking to manifest a vision or outcome in software, is finding a trusted partner with whom to turn that vision in to reality. MentorMate, a mobile, application & web software development company in Minneapolis, does this sort of work all the time and might be a firm you’ve never heard of before!

CEO Björn Stansvik and I grabbed lunch last week to discuss his company, their approach, some of the things they do and where they’re headed. To say they’re accomplished is an understatement (the firm is on the State of MN approved vendor list; they’re delivering numerous mobile apps and focusing on cell phone application development; and even creating translation apps) Stansvik himself has quite a list of accomplishments himself.

Björn Stansvik, CEO

Deciding to come to this country as a tourist many years ago, he was focused on getting a work visa and staying in this land of opportunity. He ended up finding a company for whom he wrote an 80+ page market analysis of opportunities for their product in another country and politely inserted himself in to their company by asking for a computer and desk. They declined, but he appeared anyway and worked for free for two weeks. They sponsored and hired him.

The way he tells the story you can see how this is a man who becomes totally focused and consumed with a goal, achieves it, and goes on to the next one. Quite impressive but the proof is always in the deliverable for a company in this space, right? Let’s take a look at two that are public and visible….  [Read More…]

Powerful Document Collaboration with Redliner

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If you collaborate with others on contracts, agreements, leases, press releases, copy for your website, or any other activity where multiple people have to touch an electronic document, you know all too well the incredible frustration that results from trying to track changes to any of it! Redliner is a new offering, still in beta, that not only eliminates that frustration but does so with enough unique aspects that you’ll likely stop using Google Docs, emailed Word .docs or other means to collaborate with clients or colleagues.

Jerry Grabowski, Redliner’s CEO, carved out time last week to sit down with me and talk about Redliner, their target markets and a bit about the features of the product they’re delivering as software-as-a-service (SaaS). To say that they’ve got a unique opportunity is an understatement.

All the things you’d expect in an online collaboration space are here and then some you wouldn’t expect: Document editing like we’ve all come to know; an audit trail of who has edited the document and when; and even simultaneous editing by multiple users. What I haven’t seen as well executed as Redliner has done it is: The ability to accept or reject changes and (probably my favorite feature) is the ability to make private comments about a proposed change to someone else. I can’t tell you how often I could’ve used this when I was managing dozens of contracts simultaneously while running strategic alliances at Lawson Software and how it would have been enormously useful to be able to coach one of my alliance managers on some salient point within the agreement before our company would propose a change. …  [Read More…]

How Many Social Media Day Cards Did You Get?

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Yesterday (June 30th) marked the first ever Social Media Day. By no means was this a national “bank” holiday, nor a holiday proclaimed by the recognized official holiday creator…Hallmark. No, this was a day proclaimed by perhaps the purveyor of social media news, Mashable.

What pray tell is the purpose of Social Media Day? The folks at Mashable are glad you asked. It’s “A day that honors the technological and societal advancements that have allowed us to have a dialogue, to connect and to engage not only the creators of media, but perhaps more importantly, one another.”

Um…yeah. Allow me to translate; It’s a day to get your butt up from behind the monitor, your nose out of your smartphone, relax you thumbs and meet the people you tweet, poke and follow face to face.  A day to put the social in social media. Oh, and there’s booze and munchies. Of course, Mashable’s Pete Cashmore embellishes it a bit more in his welcome video. (Really…the video was meant to be played at gatherings around the world. Kinda creepy…) Perhaps he has a desire for this to be much more of a “revolution”. No matter, the intent is to get you out and about.

The local Minneapolis meet up was superbly organized by our friend and social media maestro, Mykl Roventine. Mykl is responsible for, or part of, everything social media from Social Media Breakfast, to Unsummit, to Tech Karaoke and beyond. When Mashable sent out the word to have a Minneapolis Meetup, Mykl stepped up and secured Chino Latino in Uptown, gathered up some sponsors (SMBMSP and Sterling Cross Media) and rallied the troops. Mykl tells the story in the video below.  (Forgive the sound quality..I guess the EVO 4G won’t replace my Flip cam, at least not without some sort of outboard mic.)

At 6:30pm some 50 of the 70+ who signed up began to congregate, the drink flowed and the tasty appetizers were savored. Much of the Twin Cities’ Social Media actives were in attendance and some new faces were spotted and welcomed. It was a great time. Of course, those of us who dig the social “media” are never really far from it as everyone checked-in, tweeted and posted photos throughout the evening. Yep, there was a tweet wall. However, well…there was just very little discussion of this “revolution” of which Mashable was speaking. It was just plain social.

Perhaps it’s because we, here in the Land o’ 10,000 lakes, already get the whole social part. While the concept of Social Media Day is all well and good, there are any number of meet-ups, tweet-ups, happy hours and  breakfasts of which you can attend during any given month in and around the Twin Cities. It makes me feel kind of sad for those in other cities who must look to, or be prompted by, Mashable to get together in “real life”. While no specific date for another gathering has been past down from the social media mount, you’re encouraged to once again step away from the warm glow of the screen and meet and greet your friends and followers in person at a location of your choosing. Oh…and don’t forget to check in on Foursquare.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqjwUlIFk0E