The president of MIMA, Tim Brunelle, and his team have put together an amazing 10th annual MIMA Summit event. MIMA, as the oldest and largest interactive marketing association in the U.S., with more than 1300 members, never fails to disappoint in drawing excellent, in-demand speakers to its annual event. I had the pleasure of running into Tim chatting with one of those speakers, Ed Boches, who was a founder of the famed Mullen agency in Boston, and is now its chief innovation officer. Tomorrow, Ed will team with a colleague of his, Dave Armano, EVP-global innovation & integration at Edelman Digital, to do a talk they call “Group Therapy for Would-Be Innovators.” It is sure to be a highlight of the event, and I will be there!
#Minnedemo Turns Up the Heat in Downtown Minneapolis
Several hundred tech lovers crammed into Schulze Hall at the University of St. Thomas last night and challenged the air conditioning on another day of near-record highs in the state, for the latest edition of the quasi-quarterly Minnedemo event. Luckily, there was plenty of cold beer — thank you, sponsors — and a damn nice appetizer buffet as well. Nothing brings out a crowd more than free beer and food… oh, and a chance to sit in a large, crowded auditorium and listen to startup pitches for half the evening, while you overhear others in the lobby having fun and drinking beer. I decided to join the outliers after only one demo, exiting the auditorium for what I thought would be a just a while — but then I never made it back in. Oh, well, I’d heard enough startup pitches in recent days and weeks to make my head explode, anyway (including some of those on the evening’s agenda), so opting for schmoozing in the lobby seemed like the sane thing to do.
And it did prove to be a better bet for me, and for several of the folks I did said schmoozing with. Wow, there were so many great conversations and introductions brokered, my head was spinning. Or was that the beer? No matter, a good tech time was had by all. And you can read all about those startups that pitched in the auditorium here. A brief stop at the after-party (on the outdoor patio on the second-floor of nearby Brit’s Pub) put a nice capper for me on a very pleasant — warm! — evening, blabbing with so many of the key players in our awesome Minnesota startup community. Thank you, Minnedemo organizers and sponsors, for another great get-together!
Tech Cocktail Mixes It Up In Minneapolis
We were really honored to have Tech Cocktail in town last night hosting its first startup and entrepreneurial mixer in Minnesota. The event was held at CoCo Minneapolis (on the floor of the historic Grain Exchange in downtown Minneapolis). I’m here to tell you it was a blockbuster success! More than 200 people were in attendance.
I’ve been *so* wanting these folks to come to our town, and was delighted to represent Minnov8 at the event, along with my colleague Steve Borsch. Tech Cocktail’s events have the stated purpose of “helping connect, amplify, and showcase the local technology scene” — and it’s now held such events in more than 20 cities, founder Frank Gruber told me. The local sponsors who made this one happen were W3i and Ovative Group — kudos to them! 
(And a special shout-out to our friend Kim Garretson.)
It was a really fun evening, with a group of technologists, investors, bloggers, and entrepreneurs as diverse as I’ve seen at a local tech event, mingling and learning about a great group of local startups that were selected by the TechCocktail folks to show their stuff:
Best Attendance – Take attendance, manage event schedules, and update membership rosters online.
BookBottles – Reserve VIP service at the hottest clubs in the world.
ByME – A digital community that is powered through user connections and location to provide an easier way to navigate and interact.
Fantools (Four51) – Connects businesses and customers so businesses can deliver relevant deals to active consumers.
fitparel – Find correct size apparel no matter the brand – just enter a brand that fits you, and they will recommend other brands.
Proliphiq and Shopntella (Echidna Inc.) – Proliphiq delivers credible people, topics, and content to you, while Shopntella lets you shop with the wisdom of crowds.
My Gluten Free Deals – Deep discounts at gluten free-friendly restaurants and on gluten free products.
ServerCyde – Build web apps for most platforms, in the least amount of time, with only one language and zero server configuration
TelemetryWeb – Their AgSphere tool helps manufacturers of agriculture technology build solutions that harvest data from the farm.
Toovio Software – A real-time decision-making solution that is focused on centralized orchestration of each customer marketing interaction across every channel.
Zingstring – An intuitive, web-based interface for non-technical folks (marketers, customer service people, etc) to create pre-programmed conversations that are triggered by keywords in incoming messages, on Twitter, Facebook, SMS, and other messaging platforms.
I shot some pix during the event and posted a Flickr set. Thanks again to Frank Gruber and his great team at Tech Cocktail! We’d love to have you folks back soon — how about twice a year? : – )
Cyberstates 2011 Report Released: Tech Jobs Decline 2%
TechAmerica Foundation today released its 14th annual Cyberstates report detailing national and state trends in high-tech employment, wages, and other key economic factors. Cyberstates 2011: The Definitive State-by-State Analysis of the U.S. High-Tech Industry covers all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
The U.S. high-tech industry lost 115,800 net jobs in 2010, for a total of 5.75 million workers. This two percent decline in tech industry employment was less than half of the 249,500 jobs lost in 2009, which followed several years of sustained growth. Over the longer term of 2007 to 2010 – the span of the economic downturn – the tech industry fared better then the private sector as a whole, with a four percent decline in employment versus a seven percent decline in the private sector.
Recap of Minnesota's tech jobs in 2010 - Click image for a larger view
That said, Minnesota’s high-tech industry lost 2,900 net jobs in 2010. Minnesota remained the 17th largest cyberstate, employing 120,800 tech workers with a total payroll of $9.6 billion in 2008.
These jobs are well compensated at an average wage of $79,200 – 74 percent more than the state’s average private sector wage. Tech industry job losses in Minnesota were led by the computer and peripheral equipment manufacturing sector (-1,100jobs) and electronics components manufacturing sector (-800 jobs).
“The tech industry is vital to Minnesota’s economy, led by electromedical equipment manufacturing,” said Margaret Anderson Kelliher, president & CEO of the Minnesota High Tech Association, a TechAmerica partner organization. “It is a tough job market and these numbers are part of a larger trend across the country. Minnesota will recover with policies that encourage education in science and technology and economic development tools such as the data center sales tax exemption recently approved by the state legislature.”
U of MN Center for Spirituality & Healing’s Mobile App
The U of MN Center for Spirituality and Healing, a world-renowned resource, recently released an iPhone and iPad app called “Wellscapes” (iTunes link).
I’ve known of the Center for quite some time and been interested in what they describes as their mission to, “…enhance health and well-being by educating health professionals, empowering consumers, and fundamentally transforming the delivery of health care through the creation of interdisciplinary academic, research, clinical care, and outreach programs that advance integrative health and healing.”
Mary Jo Kreitzer, PhD RN
No question that new models of integrative healthcare are accelerating and what the Center is exploring is proving to be the right path. But an iOS app?
In order to understand a little more about the Center and to understand more about why they delivered an app, I talked with Dr. Mary Jo Kreitzer, the founder and director of the Center and someone who brings more than 20 years of leadership and expertise to the field of integrative health and medicine.
I started off asking Dr. Kreitzer to give me some background on the Center and we took it from there…
Podcast (m8-audio): Download (Duration: 22:00 — 20.2MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Podcast: Download (Duration: 22:00 — 12.9MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More
Why You Need to Secure Your Devices…NOW
If this story motivates you take action immediately, then this post was worth writing. I’ll explain why it is so critical (and easy, frankly) to backup, secure and ensure that your laptop, smartphone or tablet devices are locked down so you are protected. I’ll also tell you why it is easier than ever—and critical to police recovery efforts—to make certain your devices are able to be tracked.
Last Wednesday evening my daughter was in a good area of St. Paul, parked on a busy street, and hanging out with friends in a popular cafe nearby. Coming out to her car around 10:30pm, she discovered her driver side rear window was smashed in and her backpack—containing her 11″ Macbook Air, iPod nano, two of her college textbooks, her medications and much more—had been stolen.
Ironically, two St. Paul police officers were eating in that same cafe so she immediately filed a report. With thousands of these sorts of thefts each year, it’s probably understandable that TWO DAYS went by with no contact and zero action on the part of the St. Paul Police Department, even after my daughter called numerous times.
But because my daughter smartly installed tracking software on her Macbook Air, as soon as the suspected thief got online with her laptop it began “phoning home” EVERY 8 MINUTES.
As a consequence, we had webcam photos of the suspect, screenshots of his activities (e.g., Facebook, Wells Fargo banking, and his general surfing) along with a log of the dynamically issued IP address of his DSL connection.
After she told me Friday afternoon (after her third inquiry to St. Paul Police) that she’d been informed that, “…an investigator hasn’t been assigned to the case yet so why don’t you call back on Monday“, I became very upset. As such I started working on this issue when my workday was done on Friday about 4:30pm which, unbeknownst to me, would consume the next five hours and several additional hours the next day.
The results were amazing, disconcerting, but ultimately fulfilling. … [Read More…]
2011 Tekne Award Finalists Announced
At a swanky little affair at the offices of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, the Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA) announced the finalists for the 2011 Tekne Awards. In their 12th year the Teknes “honor companies, innovations and individuals that positively impact Minnesota’s technology-based economy.” While many of Minnesota’s largest tech companies are represented, there is a healthy dose of young companies who get to bask in the warmth of this MHTA honor.
Winners will be chosen at an equally swanky ceremony on November 3rd at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Join the crowd as they choose from the following finalists:
ADVANCED MANUFACTURING AWARD
- CyberOptics Corporation (Golden Valley)
- IKONICS Corporation (Duluth)
- Nova-Tech Engineering (Willmar)
More Fuel for NGIN
TST Media, the creators of the NGIN software platform has scored a round of financing led by El Dorado Ventures. When the ink dried on the agreement last week TST had secured $3.5 million to “grow existing business partnerships, drive software innovations and expand their talent base.”
TST Media CEO and co-founder, Justin Kaufenberg noted the fundraising as “transformational”. He notes that “To a degree, prior growth has been consciously checked in favor of reinvesting in our technology core…that patience and focus has set the stage for us to efficiently deploy these proceeds and exponentially enhance a proven platform and business strategy” In plain speak…TST has got plenty of fuel to power growth to the next level.
That point is further driven home as Kaufenberg commented on El Dorado Ventures. “As a venture partner, El Dorado brings an impressive track record of successfully aiding and nurturing the rapid growth of innovative technology companies.” With TST boasting 100% growth over the past three years and some 200 clients in 50 states and six different countries, Jeff Hinck of El Dorado was happy to note, “In TST Media, we found a company with a best-in-class technology platform. Unlike other players in the space, their NGIN platform has been architected for extendibility and growth.”
Also providing fuel for the local job market, TST Media will be adding more than 20 new positions this year including Software Engineers, UI/UX Designers, Development Operations, Project Managers, Technical Support and Sales.
Local start-up growth, more jobs, a growing platform. Light this candle!
Welcome a New Author: Kurt Roots
Kurt Roots
Help me in welcoming a new Minnov8 author: Kurt Roots.
Kurt started his first company, which was devoted to web analytics, in high school at the age of sixteen. He went on to college and then graduate school where he did research in machine learning and data mining along with completing an MBA. After spending five years at Oracle, he landed at Quantum Retail in Minneapolis, a firm devoted to predictive retail optimization solutions.
He has a penchant for writing code, blogs, and research papers. You can also find him in the trenches at customer sites, understanding what they really want.
Kurt will be covering both startups and entrepreneurs in Minnesota and also organizations innovating in web and internet technologies. Welcome on board Kurt!
An Entrepreneur’s Expert Guidance Group
A top level recruiter I know, Kevin Spanbauer, has teamed with a number of other movers and shakers in Minnesota to form a group called, “Minnesota Emerging Software Advisory (MESA)” This non-profit mentoring organization is comprised of C-level software and information technology veterans with strong local business roots. They have come together to help spark a movement to make Minnesota’s software economy rank among the most vibrant and respected in the nation.
Kevin Spanbauer
What does this mean for you if you’re an entrepreneur or founder? The MESA group members state that they are, “…interested in hearing from entrepreneurs and founders seeking expert guidance, seasoned CEO’s who have an interest in giving back in the form of mentoring, and vendors with a specialty in providing services to the software industry.”
The Minnov8 team is pleased that such a strong resource is available in Minnesota and run by proven leaders who have also begun surrounding themselves with key resources in our state.