Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

“Your Inner Neandertal” DNA Day Talk

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Do you know why some people are 1 to 4% Neandertal? During her talk Lynn Fellman will explain how your Uncle Ned and maybe you have an “Inner Neander” during her art and science talk on April 28th. Lynn’s presentation is one of many talks at Twin City libraries to celebrate National DNA Days.

The discovery of modern day humans with some neandertal DNA came as a surprise to many in the scientific community (especially when you consider that most depictions of neandertals show them as very ugly and that “mixing DNA” meant modern-looking humans back then were having sex with these knuckle-draggers!).

It came as a surprise to me too, not because some other people have this DNA within them, but because I have had my DNA profile created by 23andMe and recently discovered that my genetics contain an estimated 2.5% neandertal DNA. Maybe that’s why I have a thick protruding forehead and think about living in a cave!  😉

“Your Inner Neandertal” is a 30 minute presentation showing how art can uniquely express science concepts and why some of us may find a little “Neander” in our genes. With examples from “At the Crossroads” video and her very cool DNA Portrait traveling show, Lynn will explain how some genes may be a surprising and generous gift from our ancient and now extinct cousins (and this I gotta hear).

Saturday, April 28th at 11 am
Minneapolis Downtown Hennepin Library
This keynote talk for Minneapolis DNA Days
is free and open to the public. Please register (go here).
For more information, parking and directions (go here).

More DNA Days events at area libraries (info here) will cover topics like genetic testing and screening, capturing family health history and tools for collecting the information.

To learn more about multimedia artist Lynn Fellman, someone focused on “illuminating the human genome through art, design and narrative,” check our her site at: FellmanStudio.com

Minnebar 2012: Tech Geek-Out!

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Minnesota’s annual barcamp un-conference, aka Minnebar, returned for a seventh consecutive year on Saturday, April 7, and it was a blockbuster! Held again at Best Buy’s corporate headquarters in Richfield, the event attracted some 1300, the most in its history.

It just keeps getting bigger and bigger — and better!  A pre-party the night before was a new, fun twist this year, held at Vic’s, across the river from Downtown Minneapolis.  On Saturday, some 60 breakout sessions provided a wide array of learning and sharing experiences, along with awesome hallway discussions that were in full swing all day long — from 8:00 am all the way through the closing reception well after 6:00 pm.

Kudos to organizers Ben Edwards, Luke Francl, and Adrienne Peirce of Minnestar.org, and their many volunteers who work so hard to make this event successful. And thanks to all the great sponsors: Code42 Software, Fredrikson & Byron, 8th Bridge, W3i, ipHouse, August Ash, Bloom Health, Barcamp Tour, Split Rock Partners, ChowGirls, and Ech03.

It seems I say this every year, but it’s true (I’ve attended the last six annual events in their entirety):  the level of energy and enthusiasm about Minnesota Tech was more than I’ve ever experienced!  You can just sense the growth and excitement in our tech community. And, if you’re like me, you keep meeting so many more new and amazing people — technology and business professionals who are contributing to great new startups here in Minnesota, as well as to the broader technology industry in our state.  It was a pleasure to behold.  I had so many excellent conversations, trust me — there isn’t enough room in this blog post to tell you about them all <haha>.

But I can show you pics I shot Friday night and all day Saturday, which I posted on Instagram. Here’s a selection of those pics that I put into a Minnebar 2012 Flickr set.

Minnesota Cup Entry Starts Today

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The 8th annual Minnesota Cup has officially launched!

This is Minnesota’s premiere entrepreneural event and past ones have seen stiff competition in every category since there are so many great startups here in our State. To familiarize yourself with this year’s competition, please find several resources below in the embedded document (we compiled the press release, “fast facts” and a good article on the MN Cup for you to review in one place which, if you want, you can also download using the download button in the toolbar below).

Use the “Full Screen” button for the best way to view this embedded doc:

SaaS Camp 2012

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Lief Larson, CEO of Workface, will be holding a single-day event called SaaS Camp 2012.  This inaugural (but hopefully annual) event is focused on education and networking within the developing SaaS community here in Minnesota.

Why this ‘camp’ and why now? Over the last few years, Lief has said he’s had the incredible opportunity to travel to, attend, and speak at numerous SaaS-specific events. Most of what he has learned has been locked away in his head as tacit knowledge. Since “the cloud” and software as services online has become so hot, Lief has been asked by several companies to share some of this information. Like all of us, Lief’s weekday priorities to Workface means that a weekend event would probably be the best forum for the SaaS community.

Lief Larson, CEO of Workface

SaaS Camp 2012 is being tightly packed into a single session-intense Saturday and has been created for SaaS practitioners and businesses embarking on SaaS models.  It will be held at CoCo MSP in the Minneapolis Grain Exchange on Saturday, April 21st, from 9am-4pm.

Thirteen major areas of SaaS will be covered, ranging from pricing models to channel development.  The price is $199, which is being used to cover the facilities costs, catering/lunch, and materials.  It will be limited attendance because Lief is hoping to keep it manageable and more intimate.  Registration info available at: http://saasclass.com/events or http://saascamp2012.eventbrite.com.

Entrepreneur’s Rally at CoCo Minneapolis

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Join the Entrepreneur’s Organization — Minnesota Chapter for an “Entrepreneur’s Rally” on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 at CoCo Minneapolis. Invited by Cem Erdem, founder, President and CEO of Augusoft, Inc. and of Project Skyway to this event, I realized quickly that this year’s event is bigger and better than last year’s and you must attend if you are an entrepreneur!

Details in the embedded PDF below or go directly to the registration page.

Mobile March Grows to Two Days

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Mobile, mobile, mobile. If you had to give advice to some kid you were mentoring regarding an industry they should focus on with their career, anything mobile would be great advice.

We humans are not going to get less mobile (though our waistlines might state otherwise) and new mobile devices, apps, and ways to connect us all will only continue to become better and more prolific. As such, knowing trends in mobile, how to (and what’s involved in) develop mobile apps, and what you should do next are just a few of the things you need to know if you have any interest in the mobile space.

This is the primary reason that you need to make certain you attend MobileMarchTC (and maybe bring along that young person you’ve given advice to!). The agenda just came out and the press release is after the jump which you can read after clicking “(more…)” below.

MobileMarchTC not only looks like a fabulous event, in my estimation you would need to travel to San Francisco or New York to find a mobile event to rival it. Event registration can be found at http://mobilemarchtc.eventbrite.com/.

…  [Read More…]

Google’s Schmidt visits CoCoMSP’s Grain Exchange Site

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screengrab from StarTribune video accompanying their article on Google's Eric Schmidt visiting CoCoMSP's facility in the old Minneapolis Grain Exchange

L-R: Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak; CoCo co-founders Kyle Coolbroth & Don Ball; Google Chairman Eric Schmidt (screengrab from StarTribune video on their website article referenced below)

Google’s chairman, Eric Schmidt, paid a visit to CoCoMSP’s Minneapolis Grain Exchange facility on Wednesday, November 30th after his speaking engagement to a small audience at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

The StarTribune this morning had a print newspaper Business section front page article by Steve Alexander called, “Face of Google Faces Minneapolis” and the online version in that link has a short video that will give you a good sense of what transpired during his visit to CoCo. It’s well worth a read and the video is short and well done AND it’s a lot easier to see who’s who at the facility (vs. the “Where’s Kyle and Don?” photo in the printed newspaper looking at Schmidt, captured with a sadly goofy look on his face).

The article states, in part:

Later Wednesday, Schmidt appeared with Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak at the small business incubator CoCo Minneapolis, based in the former Minneapolis Grain Exchange, and visited with several local technology entrepreneurs.

Schmidt praised the incubator concept, in which entrepreneurs meet to share office space and ideas, and the city’s role in helping promote it.

Schmidt said it is a better alternative to people working alone out of their homes.

“Distance-working is a disaster,” Schmidt said. “People want to work in a group. People are social.”

Don Ball will be on the Minnov8 Gang podcast which will be recorded Friday morning at 8am CST at the CoCoMSP facility and posted by early afternoon. We’ll talk with Don about what’s new in co-working and, especially, about what transpired during this momentous visit.

Minnov8 Gang 146 – Is Fire *Your* Tablet?

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The Gang shows up for the Social Media Breakfast held at Thomson Reuters to talk the new Kindle Fire, tablets and tablet publishing, and mobile. We didn’t have enough time to be exhaustive in our discussion, but we cover a lot of ground in a short time.

Joining us on the ‘cast is our frequent guest host, Julio Ojeda-Zapata, as well as Albert Maruggi of Provident Partners (the moderator for the panel discussion on mobile social media). Toward the end Lisa Grimm joins us to chime in on mobile social media and what she’s up to at Mall of America.

The panel, hosted by Albert, included Liz Giel, Digital Strategist at Fallon; Kevin Hunt, Corporate Social Media Manager at General Mills; and Breon Nagy, Marketer at Code42 Software.

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

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 33:54 — 19.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

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A few photos from SMBMSP:

Discussed during the show:

Upcoming Events

Robert Stephens Rocks the #DefragCon Crowd

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The 5th Annual Defrag Conference was held November 8-10. 2011, in Denver, and I was there once again reporting on all the action during this much heralded meeting of the Internet’s big minds.  One of the highlights this time for me was the keynote on the final day by Robert Stephens, CTO of Best Buy and founder of Geek Squad. Robert was a huge hit, as I’d been telling all my Defrag friends for years that he would be. (A selection of the scores of tweets during his talk is shown below — screenshots I grabbed from my Defrag 2011 Live-Blog archive. The hashtag #defragcon was lighting up the web over the three days of the event, and still is with the afterglow. One of my favorite tweets, not shown below, was someone quoting Robert saying, “Everything at Best Buy is an accessory to your mobile phone – including your car.” Hmmm, and maybe even your electric motorcyle, a product category that’s been expected to show up in Best Buy stores, and may finally be coming soon — the first hint: there are actually reviews for one already posted on BestBuy.com — but Robert didn’t touch on this topic.)

In a 10-minute video interview I did with Robert while we were having coffee and rolls before the general session started Thursday morning, we covered a range of topics — including the recent announcement that Best Buy is acquiring managed services provider MindShift for $167 million. I also got a sneak preview of other topics Robert was going to talk about in his opening keynote:

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