Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Startup Spotlight: Drivetrain

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Minnesota, developer, entrepreneur, and tech catalyst, Dan Grigsby, has joined forces with Tom Brice and Pete Schwamb to launch a mobile, social and web application development agency. Drivetrain’s kick off event was held at Pizza Luce in Minneapolis. In a unique approach the launch party went beyond the normal “all about us” agenda, that any launch party should be, to include collecting food for Second Harvest. Kudos to Dan and his team who report they received enough food for a thousand meals for local families in need.

Here’s Dan talking Drivetrain and offering a little insight into 2011. Tis the season for making predictions for next year.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DfQXQLIsX8

MNAMA Event Looks at Digital Marketing Trends

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At a recent Minnesota-American Marketing Association event Rick Mathieson, author of “The On-Demand Brand” talked about the future of digital marketing. The group that had gathered at Vic’s in Minneapolis listened as Rick highlighted his 5 trends to look for in 2011.

While Rick may be a bit aggressive with how far some of the trends may be developed by this time next year, he made some key observations in his presentation including how important new technology and media channels will help “supercharge” traditional media. I had a chance to sit down with Rick after the event to talk at a bit more length on some of his topics.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXgNOQPDjpw&feature=player_embedded

For more on this event and others in the Evening Digital Series be sure and check out the MNAMA website.

A Day At Camp

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While most in the Twin Cities awoke to a snowy November day yesterday a hearty band of bloggers, programmers, designers, and assorted geeks braved the slippery, slushy roads for a day at camp…Word Camp. The first such event in the Twin Cities, the day was a resoundingly successful local presentation of the “everything WordPress” gatherings being staged throughout the country.

The first Wordcamp was put together in 2006 in San Francisco by Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of the open-source blogging software, WordPress. Since then, according to the Wordcamp Central site, over a hundred have taken place. Wordcamps have taken place or will take place from Austin to Jerusalem and Bangkok to Melbourne and by all accounts Minneapolis-St. Paul was a standout…at least to us.

The day began with brief yet sincere opening remarks from event organizers including local WordPress Users Group founder Toby Cryns, and designer Lauren Freeland as well as Matt Barker, Brandon Hedges and Jeff Martin. Special recognition was also given to a cast of interns (free help) for all of their efforts. It was the beginning of day of exceptional sessions and presentations (not to mention some pretty nice swag) that ranged from the the exceptionally technical and coder focused to the beginner and casual user levels, all in a well thought out track based schedule.

While the day was chocked full of great sessions by both local and national, let’s call them “Wordies”, I was particularly taken with presentations by Josh Byers on customizing WordPress (though I could have done without quite so much information about the Lord of the Rings) and a somewhat snow-shocked Vegas resident John Hawkins on building plug-ins. Even Minnov8’s own Steve Borsch and Tim Elliott gave a solid overview of WordPress for small business. And, though some of the sessions were a bit redundant or a tad too self-promotion oriented, the day exemplified the community surrounding “the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.” (WordPress’s words, not mine.)

No where was that community more on display than in the Technical Support room. This dedicated tribe of Wordie geeks spent the day selflessly addressing specific questions and fixing problems with sites for anyone who wanted to ask for their assistance. I didn’t even see a tip jar. The energy in that room was similar to the one experienced at the Overnight Web Challenge, a caffeine fueled 24 hour web development event that has gained serious geek cred in recent years.

Kudos to all who spent months organizing the event and to those who braved the snow, and sometimes questionable skills of Twin Cities drivers, to participate. As one who considers himself a WordPress tinkerer I look forward to next year. I can only imagine that the WordPress pros are already counting the days. Bravo!

Losing a Friend You May Have Never Known

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Today we received the sad news that after much searching the wreckage of a small plane carrying Luke Bucklin and his sons, Nick, Nate, and Noah was found with no survivors. We, along with the rest of the technology community, friends and family are deeply saddened by this loss and send our prayers and condolences to his wife and family.

Many of us at Minnov8 had the pleasure of meeting Luke and if you had that same pleasure I’m sure, even while grieving his loss, you are grateful for having known him. Professionally, if you are a member of the interactive, web, or technology community and had never met him, you most likely know of him or know those impacted by him…thereby, touching you. Luke’s company, Sierra Bravo and it’s Nerdery were, are, and will continue to be true innovators. As a person, you just have to take a look at the Nerdery Blog to see how deeply employees felt about their leader, boss and friend. As a family man, your heart breaks just glancing at his wife Ginger’s blog. Such a brave woman to actively inform the world about the progress and ultimately sad conclusion of the search for Luke and their sons.

Luke’s humble attitude is exemplified by his comment in a Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal article (photo left); “We like to work on stuff and do a good job but we don’t do much chest-pounding.” Because of that attitude many outside the technology space may never know how they were impacted by Luke…but they were.

The technology and interactive community in the Twin Cities, whether you consider it big, small, active, or not, is a close one. Close enough to feel the loss of someone so important to it’s very existence…whether they met him or not.

100 and Counting…

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The hot 100, the first 100 Days, the top 100, the turn of the century… One hundred always seems to be a bit 0f a big deal. We sometimes become fascinated with 100 of anything. (Kind of odd for a bunch folks who just can’t seem to get behind the metric system, don’t ya think?) Here at Minnov8 we are not immune to a bit of centuplicate fascination. So we’re a bit giddy about our next Minnov8 Gang Podcast.

For the past two plus years my colleagues (Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins) and I have, for the most part, spent some 60-90 minutes each week talking about local tech, web and social media topics impacting Minnesota…and beyond. We’ve been honored to be joined by guests from the local and national interactive and tech world to talk about everything from local start-ups to mobile, apps to entrepreneurs, Google to gizmos and yes, probably too much Apple. It’s been such a blast that we all were taken by surprise when Steve, our fearless leader, noted that our next one is number 100.

A normal podcast on such and auspicious occasion just won’t do. OK, we realize that the 100th Minnov8 Podcast may only really be a big deal to us and our most devoted fans (a very nice guy named Ray) but we’re going to celebrate it…in public…anyway.

So here’s the plan, we’ll record the next Minnov8 Gang podcast, the 100th, on Wednesday, November 10th. We’ll do it somewhere at Chino Latino in Uptown where we can gather together a few guests, including some of our favorites from the past 99 podcasts, while raising a celebratory glass with each other. It’s not going to be a big deal involving steam tables of crab cakes and pot stickers. Nor will it be a white linen affair requiring pre-registration via Eventbrite. Nope, just a nice casual gathering of friends doing what we always do; talk about web and tech innovation in the land of 10,000 lakes. As soon as we confirm the spot, we’ll pass it along. So, Chino Latino it is. Wednesday November 10th at 5:30pm. Feel free to join us if you’d like.

In the meantime, while we scurry about preparing for the fun, please feel free to take a stroll down memory lane and listen to some the past 99 podcasts.

MHTA Has a Two-Track Mind for Social Media

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The Minnesota High Tech Association is all set to present Social Media: Marketing and Enterprise 2.0 this Thursday morning October 7th. In a time where you may think the conference, meeting, or coffee talk on the topic of Social Media are a dime a dozen, the MHTA is striving to cover two sides of the equation…with two separate panels.

Albert Maruggi of Provident Partners will moderate a panel addressing Social Media in Marketing/PR, a topic that continues to evolve. Panel members include: Bob Brin, Padilla Speer Beardsley, Arik Hanson, ACH Communications, Kate-Madonna Hindes, GirlMeetsGeekMedia, Tyler Olson, SMCPros, and John Bernier, Best Buy. This group will explore the latest Social Media trends.

At the same time, on the other side of the wall at Best Buy, yours truly will be moderating a panel on Social Media in IT/Enterprise (the nifty 2.0 version of the word business).  Panel members; Rick Mahn, Social Media Consultant, Gina Debogovich, Best Buy, Ernest Grumbles, Merchant & Gould, and Nancy Lyons of Clockwork will discuss the internal uses of Social Media as they pertain to employee engagement along with addressing legal concerns.

We look forward to an interesting morning inside the heads of these Social Media thinkers. Get registered to day as it will close Monday, October 4.

MIMA Summit Liveblog: “You Are There” Edition

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Another MIMA Summit is behind us, as well as another day of fleet feet and live blogging by the Minnov8 Gang.   Congratulations to Tim Brunelle, Erin Rauk, Christopher Pollard, Greg Swan and so many others for your incredible efforts.

Covering that many great sessions was a challenge and a real treat. Re-live the magic with the liveblog recap.

Social Media Club Focuses On the Family

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This Wednesday night at the Depot in downtown Minneapolis the Social Media Club of Minnesota (SMC) is presenting a panel discussion entitled Social Media + Family. Though the final list of panel members has yet to be announced, Social Media Club Founder, Chris Heuer will lead a group of  “dads and moms who blog/podcast for a panel discussion around their use of Social Media.”

According to the SMC, “For the last several years, the majority of the focus has been on how Social Media has been transforming organizations, but at the same time, social media has also been transforming the relationships between parents and their children; between husbands and wives; and between all members of extended families.” Not only will the ever present privacy and safety concerns be discussed but the organizers hope to explore beyond the this very real family concern and reach into topics like the impact of social media on the family’s  communication. Full event details are available here.

The Joy of Infiltration Champions Open Game Development

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The mind of Zach Johnson is an interesting place. While much of it remains unexplored it’s filled with plenty of ideas, projects and fun. We last talked with Zach about Scribbls, a great site where doodles can give birth to hilarious results that he and his Watermelon Sauce partner Paul Armstrong developed.

His most recent work comes from his own Zachstronaut, which he describes as a “web rocket-lab” site to showcase his love for the internet and gaming as well as his experiments. The result of that work is his internet game Infiltration.

Infiltration was built in response to blog Boing Boing‘s call for games to be developed that were inspired by “chip music“. (You can vote for Infiltration through today, 7/15). Most likely very familiar to gamer cycles but not far beyond, chip music is inspired by early video game soundtracks. Think Asteroids, Pac Man and a host of Nintendo games. Grab a Casio keyboard and hang on…

Johnson, a fan of this unique musical genre, has spent more than his fair share of time listening to chip music and envisioning the game activity that it might accompany. A User Experience developer at Worrell, he says, “Video games contributed to shaping my entire career in computers.” It was clearly a natural for him to develop a chip music inspired game.

Indie game developer game designs tend to be very simplistic, with an almost nostalgic look and feel. “Part of the design is a nod to the old school music but it’s probably more about the amount of time and money indie game developers have to spend on the games.” He goes on to note, “It took nine people a year to write Pac Man, I wrote this in about 30 hours.”

Johnson also saw an opportunity to advance his passion for open programming. “I wanted to make a game that didn’t need a plugin.” Hence the use of Javascript, allowing the ability to play the game directly from your browser. “Javascript and browser based games offer a very low barrier of entry.” notes Johnson.

The use of coding language like Javascript and HTML5 is on the rise as many see the use of Flash diminishing. “I don’t hate Flash, but it’s obvious it is going the way of the Dodo.” according to Johnson referencing the ownership and closed nature of the language. “I always bet on the openess of  web.” When developing the game and entering the Boing Boing contest (Did I mention you could vote for his game through 7/16.) Zach thought that the use of Javascript would allow him to be more unique and give him an upper hand. But “The use of Javascript was more prevalent than I thought…which is good.” Nearly half the games submitted use it.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhvupyRdR5I&feature=player_embedded

The design of the game and the participation in the contest serves Johnson in number of ways. First and foremost, it’s a hobby. It also clearly promotes his programming skills and many projects while allowing him to share his passion for open web design. In addition, while he could have spent much more time on the game he appreciates the short-term goal. “The competition set a deadline. Otherwise I can spend a lot of time on it. I need to make a game I need to get done.”

Where does he see this indie game developer movement going? “There are plenty of applications from entertainment to art to even civil engagement. Imagine someone demonstrating the need for better routing of traffic through a game.” He also notes a very basic result. “If I can make little tidbits of joy for someone, that’s great.”

MixMobi Moves Closer to Being Named One of The PepsiCo 10

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Local mobile marketing start up MixMobi emerges from hundreds of entries to  join 40 other emerging technology firms in advancing to the the semi-final round of brand giant PepsiCo’s PepsiCo10. MixMobi’s CEO, Lisa Foote noted, “Pepsi’s brands (Quaker, Gatorade, Frito Lay and Pepsi) are global, multi-channel brands that can benefit from MixMobi’s approach to mobile marketing.”

Billed as “an open call and partnership between PepsiCo and up to 10 of the most promising start-ups in media, communications and technology” PepsiCo is quick to point out this is not a contest. “it is an open Request For Proposals (RFP).” and “the 10 entrepreneurs chosen will be mentored by a team of venture capitalists, media experts and PepsiCo brand marketers during pilot programs of their submitted technologies and innovations.” While there is no ‘prize’ on the line, Foote noted the benefits of being part of the PepsiCo10, “To be associated in a technology demonstration with a brand like Quaker or Gatorade is very valuable to a startup. The trade off between revenue and exposure works in this case. ”

The next step for MixMobi as well as all of the semi-finalists is to submit a three minute video answering some basic questions and a running through a demo of the product or service. The finalists will be announced by weeks end with the final 20 heading to the two-day PepsiCo10 Summit to present to PepsiCo brand marketers, agency partners, venture capitalists and angel investors in attendance. The chosen ten will partner with a PepsiCo brand for a pilot execution of their solutions.

According to Foote the ideal outcome would be “To have MixMobi-powered technology support PepsiCo brands like Frito Lay or Pepsi beverages in multiple geographies in several different languages, across a variety of mobile platforms and carriers, as well as through diverse digital channels (ex: Facebook, Twitter, text messaging and Augmented Reality) would be an ideal demonstration of MixMobi’s robust, internationalization-ready platform.”