Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Minnov8 Gang 63: A Conversation on Cloud Computing

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Talk about cloud computing is on the lips of people from startups to enterprise to the government, and Minnesota has a world-class thought leader right here in our midst. The Minnov8 Gang chatted with George Reese about his perspectives, books, upcoming events, and what he thinks about software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service and how API’s fit in to this whole shebang.

Hosts: This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music by Midnight Music Quartet and the tune is, “Sweet Lorraine”.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:00:22 — 34.8MB)

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About George Reese (@GeorgeReese):  George Reese is the founder of two Minneapolis-based companies, enStratus Networks LLC (maker of high-end cloud infrastructure management tools) and Valtira LLC (maker of the Valtira Online Marketing Platform). Over the past 15 years, George has authored a number of technology books, including MySQL Pocket Reference, Database Programming with JDBC and Java, Java Database Best Practices, and Cloud Application Architectures.

Throughout the Internet era, George has spent his career building enterprise tools for developers and delivering solutions to the marketing domain. He was an influential force in the evolution of online gaming through the creation of a number of Open Source MUD libraries and he created the first JDBC driver in 1996—the Open Source mSQL-JDBC. Most recently, George has been involved in the development of systems to support the deployment of transactional web applications in the cloud.

George holds a BA in Philosophy from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois. He currently lives in Minnesota with his wife Monique and his daughters Kyra and Lindsey.

Discussed during the show notes:


Activ8: Event Management for Small Business

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Activ8 is a new Twin Cities-based event/class registration service targeted to the small business’ that has a limited (or no) no web presence but those who offer services in the areas of dance, karate, gymnastics, or fitness studios are perfect potential users as are individual instructors in fitness, music, yoga, or tutoring.

One of the great things about the internet is how it’s so perfectly geared to make the inefficient more efficient. The creator of Activ8, Marc Kermish, is an athlete who saw a lot of inefficiencies in event management with athletics service providers (and many others) and has delivered a web application that can dramatically simplify the entire event management process.

Activ8 enables the posting of any sort of event, class, or gathering that requires a participant to purchase a ticket. The event organizer can post their event, class or gathering, collect participant information and payments via credit card, and then communicate with their participants throughout their event planning process. Activ8 does not charge the event organizer for the use of its service but instead, takes a small fee from every participant transaction.

After I was initially contacted about Activ8, and knowing that the event management space is fairly crowded, I poked around the site and app to look for potential competitive advantages Marc might have and was pleased to have two which leapt out at me. …  [Read More…]

Your Customers are Watching You

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While many internet and web technology sites and blogs have published their 2010 predictions (including Minnov8), this post serves as a warning and a wake-up call to Minnesota companies that the power you once held — not just in communication, marketing and public relations surrounding your products, services and company — but that power is quickly shifting to your customers in new ways that you need to understand and strategically prepare for or suffer the consequences beginning now.

The acceleration in mobile internet use — and the devices exploding in number to access it — is enabling the masses to understand what you’re doing as an organization, comment to one another on your activities but (and perhaps most disturbingly to those of you with previously publicly unavailable or difficult to obtain data) it is enabling customers to examine your products, your company’s record on the environment, your labor practices (onshore and offshore) and much more.

How can your customers do that? …  [Read More…]

Minnov8 Gang 62: Our 2010 Predictions

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Predicting 2010 technology is always a crapshoot, but there are enough clear trends that we weigh in with our predictions for this upcoming year and cover these key categories: Mobile; the Apple tablet; Curation of content/self publishing; Cloud computing; and some wildass predictions about Minnesota tech in 2010.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickin, Phil Wilson and Julio Ojeda Zapata.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 59:44 — 34.7MB)

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Discussed during the show:

Opening music by DanielReal2K and their song “Twilight” and closing music from 46Bliss and their song “8 O’Clock Train – PKP Express Remix”. Both from Music Alley, purveyor of podsafe tunes.

 

Twin Cities Firm Joins Ranks of Public Cloud Computing Providers

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Though the likes of cloud industry leaders Amazon Web Services and Rackpace may not yet have noticed, a Minnesota company has been quietly trying to do them one better. VISI, Minnesota’s largest data center services and managed hosting provider, formally announced on December 17 a public beta of its ReliaCloud cloud computing service, whereby any business can now apply to try it out — whether it’s located here in Minnesota or anywhere.

The first offering, dubbed “Cloud Servers,” allows business users to establish an account online. They can then quickly and easily set up one or more computer servers that run in one of  VISI’s data centers and are accessible to them and their users “in the cloud” — meaning via any Internet browser anywhere in the world.  Customers of the service thereby avoid the expense and work of having to purchase and maintain their own computers servers at their own site.  “It’s a pay-as-you-go model,” said Gary Elfert, director of marketing at VISI, which is headquartered in Eden Prairie and has its original data center in downtown St. Paul. The pricing model for these Cloud Servers is by the hour, starting at 5 cents.

Why would anyone be crazy enough to enter a market that is already dominated by notable heavyweights like Amazon?  “Though there are some large players already in the public cloud computing marketplace, it’s still a nascent business, and a rapidly growing one,” said Antonio Piraino, Research Director at Tier 1 Research, in VISI’s press announcement.  “There’s certainly room for a competitive offering such as ReliaCloud.” His firm has projected that cloud computing services will be a $1-billion market in 2011. …  [Read More…]

Minnov8 Gang 61: Mobile & the Groovy Kids

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Today’s show covers mobile developments for certain, but we also talk about several other things like yesterday’s Social Media Breakfast (SMBMSP), venture capital in Minnesota, cloud computing initiatives by Visi, and much more.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music by Straight 8’s and the tune is, “Ann Bowman”

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 56:08 — 32.6MB)

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Discussed during the show:

 

For 2010: Apple iPad, 300,000 iPhone Apps & More

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ipadIf you’ve been paying attention to technology rumors, an Apple tablet (i.e., “iPad”) is at the top of many people’s list for most likely rumor to become reality next year. But when I read that iPad prediction along with the number “300,000” as a base for iPhone applications in 2010 as well as an acceleration in something called “socialityc” applications for fusing traditional business applications with social and collaboration software and analytics — and these predictions had come from the well respected, global technology analyst firm IDC — I sat up and took notice.

Why should you care? You might not if you were unaffected by the recent economic downturn or aren’t experiencing any disruption, new opportunities or benefits from the internet or web, but if you have an interest in technology and the opportunities it will represent in 2010, read on.

In their free “IDC Predictions 2010: Recovery and Transformation” (download the PDF) the firm predicts modest growth in the information technology and telecommunications area (and back to 2008 pre-downturn spending levels), and this report is the broad overview prior to their annual “predictions season”, a time of multiple report releases and webinars which, undoubtedly, drives a lot of their revenue in the first quarter.

There are two broad themes for this set of predictions for 2010: The obvious one is the “recovery” theme and the other a more interesting focus on the “transformation” occurring in technology.  …  [Read More…]

Minnov8 Gang 60: Staying Ahead of the Storm in 2010

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MainThis week’s show is about possibilities with tablets, predictions made by an analyst firm, and a hodge-podge of stuff discussed by the Minnov8 Gang.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: Endlouz and the tune is, “Bad Advice” (Disclaimer: This was NOT chosen as an indictment on the commentary by the Gang!)

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 56:32 — 32.8MB)

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Discussed during the show:

+ Clove (by Spice Apps)
+ Analyst Noise on the Apple Tablet
+ IDC predictions for 2010
+ Minnebar
+ Mary Meeker’s Internet presentation at Web 2.0 Summit (video)
+ Jolicloud, Google Chrome OS
+ Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis/St. Paul (SMBMSP)
+ Don Ball and his new collaboration workspace concept (announcement; pictures; pricing)
+ Overnight Website Challenge (please note the AWESOME faux dot matrix printer feed on the page…nice job nerds!)
+ Chuck Olsen (@Chuckumentary) in Copenhagen and here is TheUptake
+ 91st PGA Tournament at Hazeltine in Chaska and hundreds of Tiger Woods jokes.

Classroom of the Future?

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classroom-futureReinventing education in a time of accelerating change is more important than ever before, especially if you’re at all interested in your kids and our future workforce being technologically savvy and possibly more so than any other workforce in the world.

Normally I wouldn’t do a story on an interesting initiative with a marginally innovative technology perspective, but I’ve been writing for nearly six months for Scholastic, Inc. and their Administrator area online with a blog called “Accelerating Change.” As a consequence, I’ve been deeply involved in K-12 education technology study which has given me a unique perspective and I remain focused on uncovering true innovation or even incremental steps along the way toward true reinvention of education.

The PR gang over at Padilla Spears Beardsley, a group of folks whose quality public relations I’m continually impressed by, sent over some information on a Classroom of the Future initiative and their client, Tierney Bros, whose involvement in this worthwhile endeavor is worthy of note:

“People entering the workforce today are expected to have stronger technology experience and capabilities than ever before. Teachers today face the challenge of keeping pace with the latest technological advances – such as interactive presentation and conferencing technologies – with often limited resources.

For the fourth year in a row, Tierney Brothers is helping prepare the next generation of workers by offering a Tierney Brothers “Classroom of the Future” Technology Grant in both Minnesota and Wisconsin. This unique opportunity gives every school in Minnesota and Wisconsin the chance to receive $15,000 worth of technology, integration and training for their school. Students taught in these classrooms will learn using AV technology similar to systems Tierney Brothers, a leading provider of digital projectors, flat panel displays, systems integration, large format printers, graphic and engineering supplies, and audio and visual communication solutions has integrated into John Deere, Land O’Lakes, Wells Fargo and other businesses.”

Certainly a laudable initiative (especially with our State budget shortfalls) and an obviously smart thing for Tierney Bros to do since they’re in the business of selling this sort of gear in to K-12 education, but I’m doubtful these technologies are truly making classrooms future-ready and instead are putting a shiny new cover on a musty old book.

…  [Read More…]