Minnov8 Gang Podcast

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 10

October 18, 2008 By Steve Borsch

In our continuing quest to bring you Minnesota thought leaders on ‘net and web innovation, we invited none other than Pete Birkeland, CFO & Investment Manager with the angel network RAIN Source Capital, to be on this show to talk about funding and his perspectives.

RAIN Source Capital is a multi-state network of RAIN funds that works with angel investors who are interested in supporting growing companies. RAIN Source® helps bring together like-minded angel investors to form individual RAIN funds – and then provides these funds with additional capital, a process for due diligence, legal templates, management support, access to deal flow and other resources. RAIN funds share expertise, deals and experience between and among RAIN Source Capital’s multi-state network of RAIN funds, to support growing companies throughout the area. RAIN funds range in size from seven to 61 members, who have pooled anywhere from $500,000 to $2 million. RAIN Source Capital is based in St. Paul, MN.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, Garrick Van Buren

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 41:13 — 23.8MB)

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In today’s show, a few things were mentioned:

+ Annual RAIN Conference

+ A couple of companies RAIN has funded: Ntractive and Flyspy

+ Angelsoft: The hosted software RAIN uses that’s geared for VC’s and angel investors

+ Recent VC moves with startups:

– Sequoia Capital’s meeting with their funded companies and the presentation. Good recap here.

– Paul Graham from YCombinator on Why to Startup in a Bad Economy

– Uncov’s funny post Paul Graham, Just Shut Your Face Already

+ Upcoming events: Richard Stallman at the UofMN (with a gathering at Bullwinkle’s saloon afterwards (map)); Social Media Breakfast on Oct 31st; Visi’s VISION 2008 Conference with keynote speaker, Robert Stephens head of Geek Squad.

Minnov8 Gang Podcast Update

October 11, 2008 By Steve Borsch

Due to a shift in my travel schedule (and I’m the one with the audio gear and setup), I was forced to postpone our next Gang episode until next Saturday.

One of the keys to building an audience for any sort of show is consistency. If you know it’s posted on Saturday and you’re going out to cut the lawn and like to listen to it, then not having it appear in iTunes is a drag. I know…it’s happened to me several times when I’ve subscribed to a podcast series.

I apologize for the hiccup and we’ll back on track next week.

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 8

September 27, 2008 By Steve Borsch

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Graeme Thickins, Garrick Van Buren, Phil Wilson

Scattered geographically once again, the Gang comes together for another show where we chat about:

+ Our potential economic meltdown and what it means for internet and web startups and companies

+ What’s up with Best Buy? We chat about how this behemoth retailer has now suddenly burst onto the scene with a whole range of internet-centric initiatives (see Minnov8 posts here and here)

+ Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 Expo keynote where he denigrates developers seemingly focused on trivial applications like throwing sheep

+ The “Unsummit” going on as an alternative for those unable to get in to the MIMA Summit (it’s sold out).

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 33:26 — 19.4MB)

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Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 7

September 20, 2008 By Steve Borsch

We were absolutely delighted this week to have three very special guests who joined the Gang for a discussion about ‘net and web innovation in Minnesota:

– Katharine Grayson: Staff Writer for the Twin Cities Business Journal. Katharine covers the internet and web technology beat for the paper, but she’s also expanded into other technologies (e.g., MSP solar array funding, biotech) giving her unique perspectives.

– Julio Ojeda-Zapata: Reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, blogger, and author (his new book, “Twitter Means Business: How Microblogging Can Help or Hurt Your Company” will be on bookshelves soon). Julio can be reached at jojeda@pioneerpress.com. Get more of his perspective on personal tech at twincities.com/techtestdrive and yourtechweblog.com. You can also follow him at twitter.com/jojeda.

– Jon Gordon: Future Tense, a show which you’ve undoubtedly heard broadcast during Minnesota Public Radio’s Morning Edition program. The show is both produced and hosted by Jon Gordon, a Minnesota Public Radio reporter based in Silicon Valley. Follow Jon at twitter.com/jongordon.

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

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:04:41 — 37.6MB)

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Show Notes:

+ Julio’s post on Minnesota Public Radio’s new, free iPhone app (get it here) done by Codemorphic

+ Discussion on broadband where Minnesota’s Ultra High Speed Broadband task force came up (latest minutes are here in this PDF) and Jon mentioned a show he’d done (here) and his interview with a cybersecurity firm called Packet Clearing House.

+ As you listen, you may notice at times the audio is a bit “hot” and I apologize for that — there’s a bit more distortion than normal and I couldn’t minimize it enough in post-production. We tried a new, high quality ‘bridge’ recording platform (HiDefConferencing) — instead of using a single Gang-member hosted Skype conference call — and while it allowed our guests to easily call in with a combination of Skype, landlines or mobile phones, it was more challenging to control levels. I’ll have it figured out by next time.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:04:41 — 37.6MB)

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Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 6

September 13, 2008 By Steve Borsch

We covered a lot of ground this week even though there were only three of us who could make the call.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Graeme Thickins, Phil Wilson

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 50:53 — 29.4MB)

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Mentioned in this weeks show are:

+ Why Broadband Matters: A MN Senate Full Committee Meeting on September 16th at 10am. “The Committee will receive testimony regarding the consumer benefits of broadband service in areas such as education, job opportunities, telemedicine, and access to government resources.” If you have an opinion or care about broadband in Minnesota, you should be there and/or testify.

+ Apple and the controversy over the rejection of an iPhone application from the app store called “Podcaster” (You can see a video of Podcaster, and/or order the application, here).

+ Graeme’s recap of Techcrunch 50 and Demo 2008. In particular, he brings up Best Buy’s Giftag launch (If you’d like to watch a video of the Best Buy Giftag launch at Demo, click “Continue Reading” below) as well as Grokit.

+ The Minnesota Cup showcased the winners and finalists last Thursday evening.

+ A mention of open source Moodle and the launch of Flowgram.

+ Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal article here

+ More info is here on the Demo site

+ Read/Write Web’s coverage here

+ CNet’s article here.

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 5

September 6, 2008 By Steve Borsch

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, Garrick Van Buren, Phil Wilson

As we recorded this show, I realized what incredible geeks we are to be inside on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon (and one of the few left this year!), but glad these other guys are willing to carve out an hour to talk tech in Minnesota. Hope you enjoy it!

Mentioned in this weeks show are:

+ Selling ‘cloud’ apps. With our talk last time of Software as a service (SaaS), we continue it with a discussion about selling these applications and the challenges of doing so

+ Social Publishing: With Drupal and WordPress positioning themselves less as ‘content management systems’ and instead more of ‘social publishing systems’ (and even forum software is moving away from purely threaded discussions to more groupware oriented systems), what do we see as the result of this trend?

+ The implications of Google Chrome

+ Screencasting tools like: Camtasia and Adobe Captivate for the PC; iShowU, Screenflow and DVKitchen for the Mac

+ Also, a brief mention of the Cluetrain Manifesto, still an important read for today’s networked world.

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 50:40 — 29.3MB)

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Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 4

August 30, 2008 By Steve Borsch

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

These shows, usually between 45-60 minutes in length, seem to just fly by without being able to get too in depth with any given topic. As such, we hope you find the show notes handy as you explore on your own.

Mentioned in this weeks show are:

+ Lawson’s Harry Debes: SaaS Industry Will Collapse in Two Years

+ Ellison: No Money In SaaS – Google Is The Risk

+ Go2Web20.net: a site directory for viewing Web 2.0 offerings

+ Mostly Trivial with Johnee Bee (and our recent post)

+ Next Minnedemo being planned…stay tuned

+ Next Twin Cities Social Media Breakfast about to be announced

+ What do YOU want to see Minnov8 turn in to as a community site better able to serve your needs? Let us know by sending us a note here.

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 46:40 — 26.9MB)

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Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 3

August 23, 2008 By Steve Borsch

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, Garrick Van Buren, Phil Wilson

After vacations and business travel this summer, we carve out time on a Saturday morning for another Minnov8 Gang podcast with Episode 3.

In it we talk about several Minnesota startups and companies (including our own, with some admittedly self-serving comments!):

– PartnerUp Being Acquired by Deluxe Check

– Former HighJump CTO, Steve Kickert’s new company Riverock and his first product launch OnePlace

– Watching for new companies in stealth mode like BeWiki

– DoApp, Cullect, ComicTwit, Localtone Radio

– Social Media Breakfast, Twin Cities group

– Julio Ojeda-Zapata of the Pioneer Press (personal blog; TwinCities.com) is writing a book being released shortly, “twitter means business: how microblogging can help or hurt your business” (book jacket here)

– Minnesota Ultra-High_Speed Broadband Task Force (Minnov8 posts about this initiative here and here).

Thanks for listening!

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 58:23 — 34.0MB)

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Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 2

June 28, 2008 By Steve Borsch

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

Our second podcast where we discuss:

– Qwest laying fiber in Eden Prairie

– Jon Gordon of public radio’s Future Tense is coming to Minnesota, asked via Twitter for independent coffee shops with Wifi, and Minnov8’s Garrick Van Buren put up this invite-only Google map so the community could input them for Jon’s upcoming visit

– Discussed Minnesota Cup; Techcrunch’s Elevator Pitches site; PunditWatch at hubdub; Internet Broadcasting (and the editing of Tim Russert’s Wikipedia page and subsequent firing of an employee over those edits) and this coming Monday’s article on them by the Pioneer Press which will be here; Mashable’s post on Twitter; FriendFeed; Loren Feldman’s teasing of Shel Israel with the “Shel puppet”.

Our intention with this podcast is to talk about relevant innovations occurring in Minnesota and/or those that directly impact our State….and like good geeks we’ll undoubtedly go off on tech tangents periodically.

We’ll be recording one each week (releasing on Saturdays or Sundays) but will be a bit sporadic throughout this summer and recording them in earnest this Fall, with periodic guests appearing on the show. Look for Episode 3 the weekend of July 26th (due to vacations).