Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Minnov8 Gang 125 – Keeping It Straight

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The Gang returns with two guests this week. First up is blogger and curator Patrick Rhone talking about his new book, “Keeping It Straight.” Then we welcome back Don Ball from  CoCo MSP to talk about the new Minneapolis coworking and collaborative space coming this July. We also kick around some of the news of the week including the Groupon IPO, local/social deal sites and our inevitable Apple speculation before next week’s WWDC.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: “Heartbreak Road” by Lazy Poker via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 50:49 — 29.7MB)

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Discussed during the show:

Minnov8 Gang 124 – No Rain in This Cloud

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Minnov8 Gang podcast image of Mike Sowada, CEO of VisiThe Gang has on Mike Sowada, CEO of VISI. Mike has been a leader in technology management for over 20 years, co-founding Digital North, a leading provider of business-class hosting solutions, as well as a career as a leader at DKS Systems, Net Perceptions, Inc., The Musicland Group, and as he embarked on his career starting off at Andersen Consulting. He also was named “2009 Entrepreneur of the Year” for his contributions and leadership in the area of Internet technologies. This is a guy who knows what he’s talking about when it comes to cloud computing!

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Graeme Thickins (Phil Wilson is off this week hosting a panel discussion at the fabulous Social Media Breakfast, Minneapolis/St. Paul (SMBMSP)).
Music: “Angel of Mercy” by Guitar Jack via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 55:46 — 32.6MB)

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Discussed during the show:

Minnov8 Gang 123 – The ‘Table Stakes’ are Rising

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The Minnov8 Gang around a poker table with the caption, "The Tables Stakes Are Rising"

With all of the hoopla surrounding Microsoft buying Skype, Facebook hiring a PR firm to plant negative stories about Google, and the Google I/O conference releasing a lot of new opportunities with their platform technologies, it’s pretty clear that the ‘table stakes’ to be in the internet/web game are rising…quickly.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: “Straight To The Light” by Alex is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0).

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 45:22 — 26.6MB)

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Discussed during the show:

Upcoming Events:

Minnov8 Gang 122 – Crashing is Not an Option

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MinneBar was in full swing at Best Buy’s Headquarters and the Gang was delighted to have a chance to talk with Matthew Dornquast, CEO of Code 42 Software (makers of the worldwide acclaimed backup service, CrashPlan) about his firm, its background and growth and, revealed publicly for the first time to Minnov8, their merger with mobile software group Recursive Awesome about to be announced publicly.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: LA Big Daddy is the artist & the song is “Him Number 100” via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 45:03 — 26.0MB)

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Note: The Minnov8 Gang would like to express our appreciation for the incredible work of Ben Edwards and Luke Francl of minne* for setting up the country’s largest barcamp, MinneBar, and for their tireless efforts on behalf of the startup community. Additional thanks go to the sponsors of this great event without whom it wouldn’t have happened.

One person that deserves significant praise for his nurturing of the startup community in Minnesota—and who has been willing to make available the best possible venue one could hope for with an event like MinneBar or others held at Best Buy’s headquarters—is Best Buy CTO, Robert Stephens.

Minnov8 Gang 121 – Starting the Startup

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Without question startups need world-class legal counsel. From choosing what kind of legal entity to use (e.g., S-corp; LLC; LLP) to funding with private equity or debt while also protecting the intellectual property value of the business, it’s always a challenge to find legal representation with a combination of tech-savvy, cutting-edge awareness and trust.

New Counsel, PLC are business attorneys serving the needs of entrepreneurs and companies that market technology or rely on it for strategic advantage. They cater to the needs of the technology industry through broad and deep experience, their diligence, and what they term their “competitive fees”. Many of you know them as a firm likely to be a sponsor of Minnesota technology events like Minnedemo, Mobile March and many others.

We’re pleased to have one of the principals of New Counsel on this week’s show, John Roberts, who brings with him an incredible background in high technology counsel. We discuss the startup scene in Minnesota, what they offer and more.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: Katie Webster is the artist & the song is “C.Q. Boogie” via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 48:42 — 28.2MB)

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Discussed during the show:

Upcoming Events:

Minnov8 Gang 120 – Is the Cloud our Idol?

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Now that Amazon’s cloud computing infrastructure had a catastrophic failure this week and Apple was revealed to be storing location data on iPhones and iPads (see: Apple collecting, sharing iPhone users’ precise locations and our Sen Al Franken asking Steve Jobs what’s up), how can we bet our businesses on the cloud and trust that companies aren’t stomping on our privacy? Or is neither one of these any big deal?

At the same time the cloud is stumbling toward its future like a toddler trying to walk in daddy’s shoes, there is no question that toddler is going to grow in to an adult and is doing so very rapidly. One area accelerating is in education and finding ways to leverage the cloud (and an explosion in internet connectivity globally) in new and exciting ways. One such organization is Sophia and our show guest is Taylor Pettis, Manager of marketing communications at Sophia Learning. Taylor talks about their non and for profit adventure, how they’re redefining education, and leveraging the ‘net for crowdsourced course development in fundamentally new and innovative ways.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil “Philly Idol” Wilson.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 47:52 — 27.9MB)

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Discussed during the show:

Upcoming Events:

Minnov8 Gang 119 – A Chat with MAK

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The Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA) Spring Conference was quite a success and the Gang was pleased to have a chance to sit down and chat with the association’s new president and CEO, Margaret Anderson Kelliher (@MAKMinnesota). Ms. Anderson Kelliher brings tremendous political and personal connections to the job, but the role of technology leadership at MHTA was an area we wanted to explore with her in order to learn about her vision and what she was up to with the association. We were delighted with what we heard.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 42:03 — 24.2MB)

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Discussed during the show:
+ Kidblog
+ The Works
+ MAKE Magazine
+ Sophia.org and KhanAcademy
+ Implex who did this MHTA live stream via their brand QwikCast.tv
+ Destineer and MacSoft
+ Daren Cotter’s CotterWeb

Minnov8 Gang 118 – The Cloud gets Sainthood

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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.

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The Podcast

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

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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

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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.

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The Podcast

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

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Discussed during the show:

Upcoming Events: