Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Minnov8 Gang 118 – The Cloud gets Sainthood

By

Watching the tech headlines each week continually points to an accelerating trend: the ‘cloud’ is delivering an ever-increasing set of applications and services. Add to that an explosion in mobile devices and a continuing growth in mobile wireless (and Wifi) bandwidth, and you have a perfect storm of technologies and enablers driving innovation.

This week we talk with Rob Weber, VP and co-founder of the St. Cloud-based W3i. Rob spearheaded the setup of Minnesota’s premiere tech showcase event, Minnedemo, which will be held in St. Cloud on Tuesday, April 12th. He details the startups who will show their value propositions and it’s looking to be a very, very strong lineup!

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: W.C. Clark is the artist & the song is “Cold Blooded Lover” via the podsafe Music Alley.

m8-spacer

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 39:22 — 23.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

m8-spacer

Discussed during the show:

  • Minnedemo presenters:
    • Field Nation – Cloud for IT Support Professionals (Mynul Kahn)
    • Locate My Deal – iPhone app which helps you find and share the best deal near you! (Joseph Rueter)
    • FeedLogic – On-farm feed system technology (Drew Ryder)
    • Logix Learning – Computer programming science, technology, engineering math (STEM) curriculum for high schools (Carter Tatge)
    • SocialSamba – Social networking for scripted characters (Matt Shilts)
    • Fliptoast – Satisfy your social cravings by bringing Facebook to your desktop! (Shivani Khanna)
    • JamParty – Don’t just play, make your own music on PC and console (Chad Koehler)
    • LiveEdit – Content management system (Eric Brown)
    • People Driven Performance – Software as a Service enterprise communication platform that engages employees and accelerates strategy execution (Denny Dotson and Lou Dickmeyer)
    • riteTIME – Capture labor data for payroll and job costing in a single system (Bruce Hagberg)
  • Amazon Cloud Drive

Upcoming Events:

Minnov8 Gang 117 – Journalism’s Troubles

By

You probably pay attention to the news but where does yours come from? Is it packaged up in newsprint whose ink rubs off on your springtime khaki slacks, or do you get all of yours online?  Are you willing to pay for news and information or are you already paying?

It probably comes as no surprise that traditional media continues to downtrend dramatically. What you might not be aware of are emergent models of new media like Patch and the local site Lakeville.Patch.com. Run by our guest Derrick Williams in the Lakeville community, this AOL company is disrupting community newspapers and could transform major dailies as well.

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

m8-spacer

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 53:10 — 31.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

m8-spacer

Discussed during the show:

Upcoming Events:

Minnov8 Gang 116 – Pulling an All-Nighter

By

The Overnight Website Challenge, an all night event organized by interactive development firm The Nerdery, sees dozens of volunteers form teams of ten web pros that show up not knowing what nonprofit they’ll serve, pro bono, for 24 hours. In the first three years of The Nerdery’s nonprofit nerdathon, volunteers have freely given over a million dollars worth of professional web development services to 39 nonprofit organizations. The Nerdery considers this a good start, but as long as there are good nonprofits with bad (or no) websites we will rally our staff and community to deliver nerdy deeds done dirt-cheap.

Senator Al Franken provided some levity and encouraging remarks

We talk with Mark Hurlburt, VP of Marketing at The Nerdery (wait…marketing nerds? Isn’t that an oxymoron?) and he tells us all about the event. We then chat with Tim Elliott’s team (Full Court WordPress) client non-profit executive director, Ann Kaner-Roth, about her organization Project 515.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off this week).

We were delighted to meet and talk with Senator Al Franken (though his remarks were not recorded by us because yours truly forgot to hit the record button on my recorder!) and he kicked off the event with some encouraging words about the importance of the event and the collective energy of the volunteers. He also interspersed it with some humorous remarks which shows he hasn’t lost his comedic touch.

m8-spacer

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 28:14 — 16.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

m8-spacer

Minnov8 Gang 115 – Mobile March Marchers Marching

By

Due to the overwhelming success of the Mobile March Twin Cities event this past Saturday with 250 attendees—and the surprisingly excellent previous evening’s Mobile 3D event—very strong evidence now exists that Minnesota has both world-class mobile developers and business users embracing mobile development and mobile use. (Note: photo on the right was modified from this TwitPic taken at the event by Stewy1000).

That old black and white photo above of the woman holding some sort of portable videophone is from this surprisingly prescient Modern Mechanix article from 1956 that starts out with this:

“ON SOME night in the future a young man walking along Market Street in San Francisco may suddenly think of a friend in Rome. Reaching into his pocket, he will pull out a watch-size disc with a set of buttons on one side. He will punch ten times. Turning the device over, he will hear his friend’s voice and see his face on a tiny screen, in color and 3-D. At the same moment his friend in Rome will see and hear him.“

We can now laugh at how quaint this seems coming from a 1956 perspective, but when you think of the collision of technologies available to us today (e.g., GPS; fast wireless networks; Wifi; voice apps w/video; tools to develop and create apps) and the huge numbers of people rapidly acquiring mobile devices that are ‘always on and always connected’, you can understand why so many ‘marchers’ were marching forward at Mobile March. See the full 1956 Modern Mechanix article, scanned and on their blog, here.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: David Bennett Cohen is the artist & the song is “Blues for a Summer’s Dream” via the podsafe Music Alley.

m8-spacer

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 36:24 — 20.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

m8-spacer

Discussed during the show:

Minnov8 Gang 114 – Racing Toward Our Mobile Future

By

If you pay any attention to technology news you know that we’re racing toward a mobile future that is already changing how we interact with one another, figure out where to eat, how to get the best deal and, in short, how to effectively be connected to the world.

Joining us on this episode of the Minnov8 Gang is Justin Grammens, co-Founder at Recursive Awesome, LLC, owner of Localtone, LLC founder of the Mobile Twin Cities User’s Group, and co-founder of Mobile March. Justin covers the startups that will be demonstrating their mobile apps next Friday evening (the night before Saturday’s MobileMarchTC) during the Mobile 3D event.

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

m8-spacer

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 56:22 — 32.7MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

m8-spacer

Discussed during the show:

Upcoming Events:

Minnov8 Gang 113 – Facetime Fever Flabbergasts?

By

If you own a tablet (e.g., iPad, Xoom) or are considering one, this is the show to listen to now. We cover Graeme’s trip to DEMO and then immediately move in to a discussion of the iPad2 launch. Probing deeper in to some of the intrinsic value of the iPad and Android-based devices (e.g., pent-up demand to publish to these devices) with guest host Julio Ojeda-Zapata, we have a lively discussion about these and other mobile devices.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Graeme Thickins and Tim Elliott (Phil is off this week).
Guest Host: Julio Ojeda-Zapata
Music by: Charlie Crowe and the song, “Vegas Hard Rock Shuffle” from the podsafe Music Alley.

m8-spacer

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 57:45 — 33.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

m8-spacer

Discussed during the show:

Workface DEMOs New Platform

By

If you’ve ever gone to a website to research, buy or otherwise engage online with a company, you know how frustrating it is to either have to call them on the phone or click “Live Chat” and wait around until someone becomes free to ‘talk’ with you. That’s all about to change.

Local entrepreneur Lief Larson‘s company Workface today announced it is demonstrating it’s new “Customer-initiated Engagement Platform” at the DEMO Spring 2011 conference. As they state in their press release, “The Workface® Platform lets businesses empower their professionals to digitally engage anonymously, directly, and in real-time with customer prospects on corporate andthird-party web sites, search engines, and mobile devices.”

While I’ve always been enamored by the BusinessCard2 aspect of Workface’ business, it wasn’t until I saw this MAJOR extension and platform wrapped around it that it made complete sense. For any company interested in engaging with the accelerating number of always-on and always-connected prospects or customers, you must find richer and more engaging ways to connect with folks…and this Workface platform is it.

Take a peek at the video below to learn more:

Contour Innovations Made GPS Magic in a Basement

By

Two entrepreneur’s, Mike Lauenstein and Matt Johnson of Contour Innovations, have spent the last two years in stealth mode (building in Mike’s basement offices) inventing a patent pending technology that provides a unique sonar recorder Platform with a wide range of applications for recreational fishermen, research groups, fishing guides, and other geospatial technologies. When we grabbed coffee a few days ago so Mike and Matt could give me an overview, I tossed out ideas and thoughts that were possibilities that were obviously a Phase 2 or 3 for a startup…

…but to my surprise these guys have nailed every single one and then some.

The "CI Device"

The premise and “magic” is this: by building what they call a “CI Device” that connects between any existing depth finder and its transducer to “sniff” and record raw sonar files, they can match those files with their corresponding GPS locations. This data is then uploaded to their servers where it is processed and rendered in various online interactive media and coupled with weather data and other conditions. The processed lake data is accessible by the user’s account and displayed in lake shape files (on smartphones, computers, etc.).

The cool thing? If you’re a guide you can now map a lake, put in your preferred fishing holes and sell the “package” of data. A fisherman could then go to that lake and essentially be guided to great fishing holes by top guides.  …  [Read More…]

Minnov8 Gang 112 – Even Monkeys are Mobile

By

The “always on, always connected” culture is accelerating due to mobile devices and it seems like everyone has a mobile phone, laptop or tablet (which we know is not actually the case…yet). What does being always on and always connected mean for work, education, and socializing when we can find out anything or connect with anyone in an instant? When even monkeys are mobile, how mobile are you with your work, education and socializing?

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: David Bennett Cohen playing “Cookin’ with Cohen” via the podsafe Music Alley.

m8-spacer

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 57:22 — 33.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

m8-spacer

Discussed during the show:

Upcoming Events

Minnov8 Gang – Working on our Twangs

By

The Gang will be on hiatus this week so there won’t be a podcast. Turns out we got a new gig for our hillbilly quartet so we’ll be stoppin’ off for some ribs and then heading out to the Slim Pickins Bar, Grill and Used Car Lot to meet our huge fan base. After that we’ll be hanging out at Phil’s house shining our boots and working on our “twangs” in order to get ready for next week’s show.

As always, thanks for listening!