Minnov8 Gang Podcast

Minnov8 Gang 88: Google Waves Goodbye

August 6, 2010 By Steve Borsch

The Gang has Julio Ojeda Zapata on this week to talk about a bunch of stuff…including Google’s killing of Google Wave.

Julio is the Pioneer Press’ consumer-tech reporter and writes a Tech Test Drive column about gadgets, apps and social media (among other things). He is the author of Twitter Means Business, one of the first books about Twitter (and his new one coming out tentatively titled, “iPad Means Business”). See his Posterous geekstream or contact him by e-mail or on Twitter.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: Big George Jackson Blues Band & song “Tell Me” via the podsafe Music Alley.

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:04:18 — 37.8MB)

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Discussed during the show:

Robert Stephens’ LinkedIn page showing he’s “Chief Technology Officer, Best Buy. Founder, The Geek Squad”
Google kills Wave
Rapportive for Gmail
MailPlane
Google.me
FastMall
Webcams.travel
LogMeIn Ignition
ChromeOS
Jolicloud
Quite differing views of the onrush (deluge?) of information—and our access to it via the internet—and what Nicholas Carr & Clay Shirky each think of how we’re dealing with it as humans.

Minnov8 Gang 86: Small Business is Social

July 23, 2010 By Steve Borsch

Friday found the Gang at the Social Media Breakfast/Minneapolis & St. Paul (SMBMSP) for a fabulous panel on small business and social media. It was led by Jason DeRusha (who is employed doing something at WCCO-TV & is at @DeRushaJ) with panelists Julie Warner of WarnersStellian (@WarnersStellian); Aimee Pelletier of DarnKnitAnyway (@darnknitanyway); Naomi Williamson of Sanctuary Restaurant (@SanctuaryRest); and Dan Marshall of Peapods (@PeapodsNatural).

The festivities were kicked off by fun video introductions by “Dream Team” leaders for UnitedWay fundraising and you can see all of the team leaders at Dreamteam2010.org and you, yes you, can get in on the action by corralling your friends and family to signup for one of the four teams. As part of our podcast, we invited Bob Brin (@eBob) from Padilla Speer Beardsley (and specifically Padilla Gorilla) as well Mykl Roventine (@myklroventine) who is a co-organizer of Social Media Breakfast – Minneapolis/St. Paul, co-founder/organizer of Ignite Minneapolis and UnSummit, as well as running the local chapter of TechKaraoke Minneapolis.

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

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 26:28 — 15.4MB)

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Minnov8 Gang 85: Are Angels Crying?

July 17, 2010 By Steve Borsch

After yesterday’s post, “Is Perception the Reality with MN Venture Funding?” we received a lot of email and some comments about the state of angel and venture investing in Minnesota. There is a lot of buzz amongst startups (and wannabees) who feel like this State is risk averse and a place where angels and VCs focus on the ‘easy’ spaces: medtech and healthcare.

Pete Birkeland

Is that true? We talk with Pete Birkeland, CFO at RAIN Source Capital, the largest network of Angel Investment Funds in US. 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.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott & Graeme Thickins (Phil Wilson is off this week).
Music by The Varatones and their song, “Surf Blaster” from Music Alley.

The Podcast

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

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Discussed During the Show:

Apple’s “Antennagate” press conference video; RIM’s (Blackberry) response
Rainsource Rainmakers Conference, September 23-24 with early bird discount good until the end of July and this year is open to everyone
On the podcast our guest Pete Birkland mentioned:
- Crowdpitch and Funding Universe;
- Jon Coudron and his startup MinuteBids;
- Lisa Foote and her startup MixMobi;
- Matt Bauer and his startup PedalBrain;
- Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) releases the signup forms for startups & individuals to get certified (which then leads to angels being able to take the 25% Angel Tax Credit)
- Also mentioned other venture capital models like TechStars and YCombinator
- New York VC Fred Wilson.
Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis/St. Paul (SMBMSP) “Small Business Gets Social” next Friday, July 23, 2010

Minnov8 Gang 84: Seeing Opportunities for Innovation

July 10, 2010 By Steve Borsch

This week’s show theme surrounds seeing opportunities for innovation. We explore many of the events, conferences, and moves made in web and internet technology and also dwell on all the collective energy being expended in Minnesota (e.g., MHTA; MNCup; MOJO MN; Minnedemo/Minnebar; Minnov8; tech.mn). driving toward one thing: sparking innovation in Minnesota. Is it working? What more can be done?

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott & Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off dealing with his woody).
Music by Andre Bisson and the song, “I’m leavin’” from Music Alley.

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 59:22 — 34.5MB)

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Discussed During the Show:

CrowdPitch at Dorsey Ewald Conference Center in St. Paul. A Rain Source Capital/Funding Universe collaboration
WordPress Users Group on Thursday, July 22nd; Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis/St. Paul “Small Business Gets Social” on Friday, July 23rd; and Blandin’s Broadband Conference October 13-14 (Robert Stephens, Best Buy Company Geek Squad leader, is keynoting the event)
Twitter’s business model article in Fortune magazine
Eweek article on a Presidential Memorandum signed by President Obama would nearly double the amount of wireless broadband spectrum
Clearwire wireless broadband coming to Minnesota; Article on mobile broadband; The Railroad and Minnesota Broadband
Apple employee #1, Steve Wozniak, and his Segway polo
Minnesota’s history of innovation arguably began with the explosion of companies in the business of milling grains (specifically wheat) along the Minneapolis riverfront at St. Anthony Falls. See this page at the Mill City Museum website for more and this Wikipedia page for the technologies entrepreneurs saw and the opportunities for innovation they seized. Image above from the Minnesota Historical Society Visual Resource Database located here.
FUN FACTOID: One of the early milling companies, the Washburn-Crosby Company (which later merged with 26 mills to become General Mills) purchased a radio station in 1924 and renamed it WCCO, standing for “Washburn Crosby Company”.

Minnov8 Gang 83: Innovation is Accelerating

June 27, 2010 By Steve Borsch

The Gang covers much of what happened this past week in innovation, specifically surrounding the Minnesota Cup, Unsummit, iPhone 4 introduction and we even discussed an infamous news item, the ICANN authorization of the new “.xxx” top level domain.

Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson (Tim Elliott was off this week).
Music by Al Phlipp and the Woo Team and their song, “Timber Stone” from Music Alley.

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:03:01 — 36.8MB)

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Discussed during the podcast:

+ SMBMSP at Target Center
+ Minnesota Cup Semifinal event and the semifinalists
+ UnSummit
+ 2005 Bush Administration objection to the .xxx top-level domain
+ The Collaborative
+ A fabulous resource for anyone in business in Minnesota (especially startups!), the James J. Hill Library
+ Alvenda funding ($5M from Split Rock: link to PDF)
+ W3i mobile strategy announcement coming. Check their site Monday morning.

Minnov8 Gang Podcast 82: Vicarious WWDC

June 12, 2010 By Tim Elliott

We revisit Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) through Julio Ojeda-Zapata’s experiences talking about the new iPhone 4 and his reliance on the iPad and HTC EVO 4G on his trip. Many other related subjects are explored to their logical conclusions.

Show Hosts: Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson (Steve Borsch was away this week).

Music by AjT “Apple Chunk Guitar” from Music Alley.

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 53:42 — 31.0MB)

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Discussed during the podcast:

iPhone 4 live blogs: Engadget | gdgt
Julio’s impressions of iPhone 4 vs. HTC EVO 4G on Your Tech Weblog
Simplenote app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad
Reeder app for iPhone and iPod Touch
Read It Later
Instapaper
Pulse News Reader app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad
Readability
Safari 5 Extensions blog
Xmarks extension for Firefox, Chrome and Safari
Apple TV Rumors at Engadget
Julio’s “Twitter Means Business” book website
Julio’s latest TWiT appearance

Events:

Social Media Breakfast, Twin Cities
fontconf
Unsummit 2010
MIMA “Crowd Source/User Generated Content with John Winsor” Event

Minnov8 Gang Podcast 81: Is it Incredible?

June 5, 2010 By Steve Borsch

We cover a lot of ground in this week’s show but we dwell a bit (and celebrate) Phil Wilson’s leap in to the 21st century with his acquisition of the HTC Evo 4G. Listen in to find out if it is actually incredible or is just a Palm Treo 750-like smartphone for the next decade.

Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music by Satan’s Pilgrims w/tune, “Psych-a-Go-Go” from podsafe Music Alley.

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:03:41 — 37.0MB)

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Discussed during the show:
+ Facebook reacts to the outrage over perceived privacy changes
+ HTC Evo 4G
+ Clearwire
+ RingCentral
+ Skype iPhone updated, 5M downloads, calling over 3G
+ Adobe’s Smokescreen and iPad Publishing
+ GlueCon
+ Mifi
+ Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (& Steve Jobs keynote) Monday, Noon in MN
+ Possible release of Safari 5
+ Pulse for iPad: NYTimes article
+ Quicksilver: Steve’s favorite utility for the Mac
+ UPCOMING EVENTS: fontCONF held at CoCoMSP and Unsummit

Minnov8 Gang 80: Minne-this, Minne-that

May 22, 2010 By Steve Borsch

This week’s show comes to you from Minnebar 2010 held at the headquarters of Best Buy. We talk about Thursday’s MOJO MN event, Friday’s Social Media Breakfast and Saturday’s Minnebar. Huge turnout (no final count but at least 500 were there) and big thanks to Best Buy’s Geek Squad Chief Inspector, Robert Stephens, who made this such a smashing success and, of course, to the herculean efforts of event visionaries and organizers Ben Edwards and Luke Francl.

Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, Phil Wilson, and our guest Erik Blakkestad.

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 26:29 — 16.4MB)

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Minnov8 Gang 79: The Facebookers

May 15, 2010 By Steve Borsch

The Facebook privacy controversy continues to heat up. In fact, as of May 2010, the Better Business Bureau gave Facebook a D rating, stating “We have enough concerns about this company (for example, their offer, customer complaints, advertising, etc.) that we recommend caution in doing business with it.” To bring another perspective in to the podcast, our guest this week is Tom Borgerding, CEO of Campus Media Group, an organization that assists brands with leveraging Facebook and other new media.

Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music by Kahuna Kawentzmann w/tune, “Late Bird” from podsafe Music Alley.
Modified image based on the James Bond 007 knockoff from the 1960s, the Matt Helm movies series starring Dean Martin.

The Podcast

Podcast (m8-audio): Download (Duration: 1:07:49 — 41.2MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:07:49 — 41.2MB)

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Links discussed during the show:

Stillwater company Nibipedia led by Troy Peterson
Internet Broadcasting, the departure of their CEO, David Lebow, partner Mashery
Mentioned by Tom Bergerding: Polyvore
Graeme mentioned Involver
MOJO MN; Minnebar
Visi Open House Friday, May 21st
Open source alternative to Facebook, Diaspora. Just a concept, as of this writing they’ve raised $143k and have over 4k supporter/donators!
Facebook controversy links:
- OpenBook
- New York Times stories compiled here
- Excellent essay by social media researcher Danah Boyd (now w/Microsoft)
- The case for staying with Facebook
Fix your Facebook privacy settings or delete your account altogether
FASCINATING infographic by a developer with the Visual Communication Lab at IBM Research Center for Social Software. The views expressed on it are his own, and do not reflect those of IBM (and read his disclaimers below the graph) BUT make sure you click on the years on the right in succession from 2005 until 2010 so you can visualize the erosion of privacy on Facebook since 2005. If your reaction is not “Holy Sh*t!” I’ll be surprised.

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