Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Minnov8 Gang 356 – Light Up the Night

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flarean-mainOur guest host this week is our good friend Julio Ojeda-Zapata. Besides enjoying his guest-hosting on the podcast, we were particularly interested in an article he wrote on Flarean, a St. Paul-based startup (see St. Paul tech startup’s mission is to light the way – literally ).

This post title about “light up the night” is a bit of a misnomer since they’ve been out testing stuff at night since they’re in stealth startup mode. Flarean’s vision is, “…to have every street, every home in America and the world connected by beautiful products that save lives and inform people about public safety.” It’s a big vision with a strong purpose and some cool technology to back it up.

Joining us as our guest this week is the founder and CEO of Flarean, Jason Barnett. Find out what they do, how he started it, his team, and where they’re headed next (and it’s much more than lights at night!).

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Phil Wilson and Julio Ojeda-Zapata
Photo credit of downtown St. Paul: Tony Webster via VisualHunt.com / CC BY

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:00:02 — 35.8MB)

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This Week’s Guest… Jason Barnett

jason-barnettKnown as an Innovator, Leader, and Disruptor, Jason Barnett – Founder and CEO of Flarean takes pride in founding companies that will change the world and improve people’s lives.

His background in the arts, technology, media and social organizing along with his expertise in forging new paths and opportunities have previously lead to the founding of TheUpTake.org, a nonprofit online video news gathering and broadcasting organization.

His passion for finding and building new concepts lead him to establish Flarean.

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Minnov8 Gang 355 – Greg Swan on SXSW, Dark Social & More

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greg-swan-emoji_mainOur guest this week is Greg Swan, VP of PR and Emerging Media at Space 150. At this top agency Greg leads a team devoted to influencing consumer behavior online, creating authentic engagement and uncovering the “what’s next” in emerging media that will impact brands in the near future. He is a nationally recognized thought-leader whose teams have helped some of the world’s largest companies build brands, launch new products, and change audience mindsets. (More about Greg below).

We talk to Greg about his experience at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival that just ended, as well as some of the deeper meanings behind what happened there and the trends in marketing and emerging media. He has much to say on these topics and we covered these, and more, on this show.

Hosts: Steve Borsch and Phil Wilson (Tim Elliott is off this week).
Music: L’inventore del Jazz by Alessandro Pellegrini under a Creative Commons License

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:13:41 — 46.9MB)

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This Week’s Guest: Greg Swan

greg-swan-circlePrior to Space150, Greg spent nearly a decade at global PR firm Weber Shandwick, where his teams helped clients like The Coca-Cola Company, U.S. Army, State Farm, Verizon, and Chevrolet drive award-winning programs tied to measurable results. Previously, he had stints with both advertising and marketing firms, working on brands like Dupont, John Deere, Gorilla Glue, and Naked Juice. Greg was named Social Media Professional of the Year by PR News, and he was listed on both PR Week and Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal’s 40 Under 40.

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Minnov8 Gang 354 – How to Survive the Apocalypse

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survive_mainPeople often joke about how we should be teaching our kids about the zombie and other potential apocalyptic events depicted in books, graphic novels, movies and TV. Thankfully there is an answer: Teach them by playing an incredibly fun board game that geeks and their families will love!

Our guest this week is Seppy Yoon, Chief Designer & Ogre at Fight In A Box who has made just such a game. Hear more from him about it, the nearly ended (and successful!) Kickstarter campaign, along with our usual tech story discussions on this week’s show.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson.
Music: All Hoochie Coochied Up by DJ Ecklectic Mick under a Creative Commons License

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 41:37 — 26.6MB)

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This Week’s Guest

seppy-yoonSeppy Yoon, Chief Designer & Ogre – Fight In A Box (LinkedIn). Currently wrapping up a Kickstarter campaign for his board game “End of the Line”. Check out this post and get involved now…before it’s too late!

Seppy’s escape from corporate america was more grueling than Snake Plissken and New York. He has been writing games longer than is polite to ask. Additionally, meetings with him are strictly prison rules: “Don’t make eye contact unless you’re challenging him.” We try and avoid him entirely keeping him chained to the game forge where he can hammer away at the imaginary people in his head instead of us.

Quotes:

  • “I kill more monsters before 6 am than some people do all day.”
  • “Monsters don’t kill themselves.”
  • “I’m just happy to be here.”
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Minnov8 Gang 353 – A Conversation with Ashe Dryden

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ashe-dryden_mainLike always we cover the top Minnesota and other tech stories from the past week, but we are also pleased to introduce to you this week’s guest: Ashe Dryden. She has been a programmer for over 15 years and has become a diversity advocate and consultant, White House fellow, a prolific writer, and speaker. She is the founder of AlterConf and co-founder of Fund Club.  Ashe is also in the midst of writing two books: The Diverse Team and The Inclusive Event. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Scientific American, Wired, NPR, and more.

We had Ashe on the podcast since AlterConf is coming to Minneapolis April 9th and the three of us felt this effort, and an overall conversation about diversity in tech, is long overdue and awareness needs to grow. Plus, who better than three older white guys to talk about diversity with someone on the forefront of inclusion in the tech industry?  😉

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson.
Music: Kilkenny Blues by Papa Punk under a Creative Commons License

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:00:47 — 35.4MB)

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This Week’s Guest

Ashe Dryden links: website  |  twitter  |  github

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Minnov8 Gang 352 – Facebook Emojis: How does that make you feel?

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fb-reactions-mainOn the darker side, we discuss more about the unfolding FBI vs. Apple controversy and Borsch’s response to a StarTribune editorial in last Sunday’s paper. On the lighter side we talk a bit about the new response-to-a-post emojis at Facebook and we, like many others, either don’t care or want to know more about how Facebook will be using them (hint: Facebook confirmed to Mic in this posting that it will use data gathered when you use the new emojis to alter your News Feed and learn more about what you like).

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson.
Music: Mercy, Mercy, Mercy by VB and the Buzz under a Creative Commons License

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 38:52 — 22.7MB)

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Minnov8 Gang 351 – Encrypt Me

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encrypt-me-mainTHE big story of the week has to be the Apple/FBI dust-up over the court-order demanding Apple decrypt the iPhone 5c of the San Bernadino shooter. The three of us stand by Apple, who is pushing-back to NOT build a tool to decrypt that phone, all while the Dept. of Justice is now shoving to get Apple to comply. It’s complicated, but we talk about that—and a whole lot more—on this week’s show.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson.
Music: Bonaparte’s Retreat by Walker Winn under a Creative Commons License

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 41:22 — 24.1MB)

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Minnov8 Gang 350 – Women Are Better Coders

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woman-coder-mainResearchers have found that code written by women—submitted to the software repository GitHub —was approved at a higher rate than code written by men, but only if the submitter’s gender was not disclosed (download and read the study here (PDF)). We discuss this topic, and alot more, on this week’s podcast.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson.
Music: Basic Jazz Blues by J. Simon van der Walt under a Creative Commons License

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 42:08 — 24.7MB)

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Minnov8 Gang 349 – Thank You Graeme!

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thank-you-graeme_mainIt is with equal measure of sadness and deep appreciation that we say “so long” to Graeme Thickins (LinkedIn; ; Twitter; his blog) as an ongoing host of the Minnov8 Gang podcast. Like many of us the acceleration in his business, involvement as a board member for the wildly successful big data group Minneanalytics, alongside all of his other commitments, have made carving out the time to prepare and record the podcast just too much.

Graeme was one of the co-founders of Minnov8 and has been podcasting with us since we started in June of 2008 (hear that first show, and all of our other hundreds of shows, located here in our podcast archive). Besides podcasting nearly every week (and sometimes from his car, connected to Wifi in the cabin, when up at the lake) Graeme’s also written many posts; liveblogged events Minnov8 covered; interviewed startups, CxO-level company executives, and shot video. But mostly it was his deep and analytical understanding of the venture capital space and startup world that brought a unique perspective to this show.

That…and his energy, wit and willingness to be the butt of our “Photoshop jokes” all too frequently. So no…he’s not actually going to be modeling jammies for Victoria’s Secret, but we couldn’t help ourselves poking fun at him just one more time!  😉

Thank you Graeme.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson.
Music: Transatlantic Metal Blues Collabortion with Tom Adams by A to Z Guitars under a Creative Commons License

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 51:31 — 30.0MB)

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Gang Mentality

gang-mentality2

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Minnov8 Gang 348 – Preserving It In Amber

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amber_mainDinosaurs being resurrected by pulling DNA from a mosquito fossilized in amber for the Jurassic Park movies has been ruled out by scientists. Even so, we chuckled when Phil immediately went there as we discussed a new WordPress and Drupal plugin from Harvard’s Berkman Center called Amber.

Learn more about Amber, and what’s going on with other top tech stories from Minnesota and globally this past week, in this episode.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off).
Music: Organ Grinder’s Swing by DJ Ecklectic Mick under a Creative Commons License

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 46:57 — 27.6MB)

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Steve’s Security Tip of the Week

scared-kidTIP: SECURE YOUR BABY MONITOR! Just-plug-‘em-in baby monitors are one super-simple way that hackers can watch your baby—or eavesdrop on you in your home—with video and audio. Most people just buy them (and webcams too) and plugin them in. No password…or a weak one.

There are people that go online and search for, and are finding, those weak password baby monitors and webcams. It’s one thing to have a creep spying on you. It’s quite another that many of these scumbags are breaking in and some are taunting, scaring and basically terrorizing toddlers and kids. There’s a term for them now too: griefers (taken from online video game harassers). Here’s one example story and here’s another one from a local TV news station.

Stay safe….here’s how.

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Minnov8 Gang 347 – Erase That Drive…With Thermite!

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thermite_mainAs 2016 ramps up we have a few important stories to cover and we do. During the Security Tip of the Week our buddy Tim Elliott chimes in with another method to ensure data is wiped on your solid state drive (SSD) before you sell your computer or drive: thermite!

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off)
Music: Reference to song removed at request by the artist

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 48:36 — 28.2MB)

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Steve’s Security Tip of the Week

SSD-Drive-iconTIP: How to really erase your hard drive…especially if it’s an SSD. Tossing your file into the computer’s trash and emptying it doesn’t delete your data. It just erases the file’s reference information in the disk directory, marking the blocks as free for reuse. Your data is still there, and can be recovered. Wiping an SSD incorrectly can cause such wear as to significantly reduce it’s life.

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