Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Minnov8 Gang 97: R U Kidding about KidBlog?

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Our guest this week is Dan Flies, co-founder (along with visionary and educator Matt Hardy) of Kidblog.org. Kidblog.org is built by teachers, for teachers, so students can get the most out of the blogging process. Kidblog meets the need for a safe and simple blogging platform suitable for elementary and middle school students. Most importantly, Kidblog allows teachers to monitor and control all publishing activity within the classroom blogging community and they’re not kidding around…they have over 20,000 classroom blogs running right now!

Built upon the open source WordPress platform, Kidblog is a highly streamlined, focused and easy to use platform that has been optimized for classroom use and easy management by both students and teachers. To get a glimpse of what Dan and Matt have built in the “back end” that faces teachers, check out the screenshots here and if you have any experience with WordPress’ administrative backend, you’ll certainly be as impressed as the Gang was when we viewed them.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: Bob Kirkpatrick & the song “Been Around Too Long” via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:02:51 — 36.7MB)

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Discussed During the Show:

UofMN Digital Tech Center Events

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For five years I’ve been on the mailing list for the U of MN Digital Technology Center (DTC) and have received notice of their events. Most are too granular for even a geek like me, many require significant background in various computer science areas (I’ve attended some that turned out to be WAY over my head), but a continuing number of these events are general enough that I find myself drawn to them quarter after quarter.

What is the DTC? They say it is, “…a hub of innovation and excellence at the University of Minnesota in the digital technologies serving the industrial, educational, and public needs of the state of Minnesota and the nation. The DTC integrates research, education, and outreach in digital design, computer graphics and visualization, telecommunications, intelligent data storage and retrieval systems, multimedia, datamining, scientific computation, and other digital technologies.“

If you’d like to get on their emailing list you can do so here.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
3:30 p.m. reception
4:00 p.m. seminar
401/402 Walter Library		 Mark Ahlstrom, CEO, WindLogic, “Integrating Renewable Energy into the North American Power Grid: Realities, Challenges and Opportunities”
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
3:30 p.m. reception
4:00 p.m. seminar
401/402 Walter Library		 Frank Schilder, Thomson Reuters, “Automatic Summarization”
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
4:30 p.m. reception
5:00 p.m. seminar
401/402 Walter Library		 John Day, “What Went Wrong? How the Internet Stagnated, or The 30 Years War of the Bellheads and the Bitheads”
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
3:00 p.m.
402 Walter Library		 John Day, “Things They Never Taught You About Naming and Addressing”
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
3:30 p.m. reception
4:00 p.m. seminar
401/402 Walter Library		 Demoz Gebre-Egziabher, Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, College of Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, “Using a Kinetic Model of Human Gait in Personal Navigation Systems”
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
4:30 p.m. reception
5:00 p.m. seminar
401/402 Walter Library		 Vijay Kumar, UPS Foundation Professor, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Pennsylvania, “Autonomous 3-D Flight and Cooperative Control of Multiple Micro Aerial Vehicles”

Minnov8 Gang 96: Tumbling off the Summit?

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Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: Rebel Soul Band & their song “Where You Going?” via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 54:26 — 31.7MB)

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Discussed During the Show:

Liveblogging the MIMA Summit

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The MIMA Summit is a two day event (day one is workshops and day two is the full conference) and the Minnov8 Gang will be liveblogging the event put on by the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA).

On Monday we’ll be liveblogging/covering the MIMA pre-conference workshops. On Tuesday (during the full conference day) we’ll be covering it live and also be selectively bringing in tweets from people we trust since there are only four of us, ten sessions and one of us (Phil Wilson) will be conducting speaker video interviews for most of the day on Tuesday!

Liveblog #1: You can follow the Monday pre-conference workshops liveblog on this page.

Liveblog #2: The Tuesday full conference liveblog is on this page.

Minnov8 Gang 95: Social Media & Family

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The Gang covers the events of this past week and then launches a call to Albert Maruggi of Provident Partners. Albert was on the panel at the Social Media Club’s “Social Media & Family” event this past week and had some interesting perspectives on its use.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off this week).
Music: Kahuna Kawentzmann & their song “Passage to Papeete” via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 35:28 — 20.7MB)

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Discussed During the Show:
+ Mobile Twin Cities
+ Rainmakers Conference
+ Startup Weekend Twin Cities: tech.mn coverage
+ Social Media Club: Social Media + Family event
+ Facebook outage (Facebook’s response; article in the Guardian)
+ One of the many reports from Pew Internet: The Millenials

Making Rain in Bloomington

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Today was the first day of the Rainmaker’s Conference, the 7th Annual event that brings together RAIN Fund members (an angel investment fund), entrepreneurs, investors and sponsors. The intent is networking, education, and exposure to RAIN fund entrepreneurs as well as numerous other startups in order to expose their companies to this key group of people.

Ironic that it was raining like mad all day? Yep. My key takeaway? There is A LOT of very interesting and exciting investment and entrepreneurial activity going on in Minnesota! There were well over 200 people in attendance, substantially more than last year and a great turnout.

Opened by Steve Mercil, CEO of RAIN Source® Capital (the largest network of Angel Investment Funds in US), and keynoted by Richard Sudek, an angel investor, former entrepreneur and academic, there was ample opportunity to connect with local and regional startups at tabletops in the lobby. I happened to run in to Lief Larson of Workface (who was showing BusinessCard2 with some new and interesting value added capabilities); Aaron Weber (co-founder of W3i) and his to-be-launched startup Inveni on Tuesday out at Techcrunch Disrupt (and it is HOT so go watch the video); Lisa Foote with MixMobi who has garnered key investments already for their mobile platform; and Jerry Grabowski of Redliner (see Minnov8’s story here) among others.

Two panels rounded out the day: one on Angel Investing in 2010 & Beyond and the second Funding Universe’s Crowd Pitch…a company showcase where six startups pitch their business plans followed by screening sessions and voting on whether they’re worthy of investment. Crowdsourcing at its best (the winner won’t be announced for another hour or so).

Graeme Thickins pulled aside Pete Birkeland, CFO at RAIN Source Capital to chat about the event. Pete is part of a team that manages 23 funds in 6 six states with $40 million under management and is a guy who has worked in this area for 10 years on both the entrepreneurial and investor side.

Podcast (m8-audio): Download (Duration: 3:47 — 4.4MB)

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Minnov8 Gang 94: Microsites with ClickWrite

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Our guest on this show’s “Startup Spotlight” is Alex Huff, founder of LoudClick (which we profiled here) and now ClickWrite, the latter a, “…microsite platform creating a coordinated network of websites. The network consists of a corporate (brand) website integrated with local or targeted microsites. ClickWrite creates individual, unique microsites – with unique URLs – all coordinated from a central administration interface. This structure offers amazing flexibility and SEO benefits.“

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is traveling this week).
Music: H-Beam & their song “Tank” via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 54:29 — 31.7MB)

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Discussed During the Show:
+ MN Blogger Conference
+ The Collaborative event
+ Graeme’s liveblog archive of his coverage of DEMO
+ Julio Ojeda Zapata’s tumblog with posts about the MN Blogger Conference and this one with a video of his great Skype use to bring in two guests from California for the event
+ UPCOMING: Startup Weekend; Rainmakers Conference, MIMA Summit (Minnov8 will be covering this even extensively).
+ Podcast download link (if the player below doesn’t appear)

EarthClean Takes the MN Cup!

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Last night, EarthClean, a Minneapolis-based start-up that makes an environmentally friendly fire retardant, was named “Minnesota’s Top Breakthrough Business Idea” and honored for its innovative business concept. Area business leaders and investors selected EarthClean as the 6th Annual Minnesota Cup winner, awarding it $20,000 as Clean Tech & Renewable Energy Division winner and an additional $20,000 as grand prize recipient.

Founded in March 2009, EarthClean develops innovative, game-changing technologies and high performing products that are safe for plants, animals, fish and people. The start-up’s first product, TetraKO®, is a biodegradable and non-toxic water additive that helps firefighters knock down and suppress fires far more effectively than currently available suppressants. The product is pumped through standard fire equipment and adheres to any surface, in any attitude, of its targeted structure. Exposed to heat, TetraKO immediately attacks the fire tetrahedron (the chemical chain reaction of fuel, oxygen and heat) resulting in a dense, white steam that is cooler than the fire itself, thus further suffocating the blaze. The result is exceedingly fast and thorough extinguishment with far less fire destruction and water damage, and reduced risk for fire fighter professionals.

Congratulations to the EarthClean team! If you have a moment, check out this video on the fire retardant at WCCO.com and head on over to the MN Cup website and view the press release which is here.

Minnov8 Gang 93: MIMA Summit Success

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Our guest this week is Tim Brunelle, CEO of the agency HelloViking. Tim is a writer, with 17 year’s experience at agencies such as TBWA/Chiat/Day, McKinney, Ogilvy, Mullen, Heater Easdon and Carmichael Lynch–where he was most recently an Executive Creative Director and the Head of Interactive. He is also the President of the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association and has been an adjunct professor for the past three years at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He only infrequently appears in crystal balls and does so only in his capacity as MIMA president.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: 2MorroW EvR AfteR & their song “Kamikaze Luv” via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:06:30 — 38.9MB)

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Discussed During the Show:

Minnov8 Gang 92: Can I Get Your Card?

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The Gang reviews the big tech stories of the week and then brings on our guest, Lief Larson, CEO of Workface, Inc. (& BusinessCard2). We hear about Lief’s background, a bit about his extensive serial entrepreneurial activities, and what led to the recent acquisition of Card.ly (see this post for more).

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: The Brymers & their song “Do You Think” via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 50:03 — 29.1MB)

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Discussed During the Show: