Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

What’s All This About ‘Moving to the Cloud’? One Minnesota Entrepreneur Can Tell You How

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If you’re in an IT professional or follow developments at all in this field, you’ve undoubtedly been noticing an almost endless amount of media coverage and online discussion lately about “cloud computing”  — one example being a front page story in The Wall Street Journal yesterday.  But, even if you’re just an Internet consumer, you too are hearing your share of the hype.  After all, many consumer Internet applications are also now accessed “in the cloud,” as opposed to being software you install on your own computer — Google’s Gmail probably being the best example.

georgereese-headshot Well, one local entrepreneur, George Reese, is right smack in the middle of all this buzz, and is in a position to help clear up a lot of the confusion about it — especially for enterprises looking to take advantage of the economic benefits of this form of computing.  georgereese-book-200w1 His new book on the subject is scheduled to be released by O’Reilly on April 10.  It’s entitled “Cloud Application Architectures: Building Applications and Infrastructure in the Cloud.” (And here’s the Amazon link.)  George is a Minneapolis-based technologist and startup founder.  I’ve known him since late 2006 and thought it would be interesting to get his thoughts on this very hot topic, and hear the story behind his book.  This is an interview I conducted with George earlier this week, which first appeared on the cloud computing site Cloud Ave. …  [Read More…]

Standouts and Serendipity at SXSW Interactive

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Last week was a busy one for many in the interactive community here in Minnesota. As chronicled by Minnov8, South By Southwest (SXSW), a name long associated with independent and breaking music and has grown to include Film and Interactive, attracted many of Minnesota’s best and brightest for five days of workshops, events, and parties.

From March 13th-17th the Austin Convention Center, as well as the very Streets of Austin, became a hotbed for computer code, social media, and interactive business. And right there in the middle of it stood the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
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Unsummit Leader Interviews

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On March 7th was the Unsummit. Phil Wilson, with Brian Stemmler on camera, interviewed the leaders of the Unsummit. Brian carved out time to do a great job on the video editing of this piece and we bring that to you now:

Zeus Jones & Sierra Bravo Win Phizzpop Final

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Kudos to the teams at Zeus Jones & Sierra Bravo for taking the finals at Phizzpop at South by Southwest (SXSW). Stiff competition from top designers in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Austin (TX) and San Francisco…but they nailed it.

The PhizzPop Design Challenge is a web design and development competition. This year PhizzPop expanded from in-person agency challenges to include an online competition for web professionals.

The PhizzPop Tour stopped in seven cities across the U.S. This is the design event of the year — a prestigious design competition combined with a social gathering for top web professionals, brands, designers and developers. You can learn more at the PhizzPop site here.

Two videos below: the Zeus Jones/Sierra Bravo winning pitch…and an interview Minnov8’s Phil Wilson did with Christian Erickson, partner in Zeus Jones and the guy that was on stage pitching the combined team’s work to win the event.

Unsummit: But First, Real People on Social Media

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As part of Minnov8’s coverage of the Unsummit on Saturday, March 7th, we thought it would be interesting (and more than a bit fun) to ask people on the streets around the Hennepin County Library (site of the Unsummit) how they use social media. Join videographer Brian Stemmler and myself for a little “people on the street” fun. (Please note that no Canadians in bunny ears were harmed in the making of this video.)

Check back here soon for more video interviews and information from the Unsummit.

UnSummit: You Gotta Go…

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unsummitlogoThe UnSummit is tomorrow (Saturday, March 7th) and the Minnov8 Gang will be there (all but Graeme Thickins who was at DEMO and still in California). It’s not too late! You can sign up and go and besides, it’s sunny and 45 degrees today but will be cloudy and overcast (and only 35 degrees) tomorrow. All you’ll do on a Saturday is stay inside and fix stuff or go shopping…what fun is that?

Date & Time

Saturday, March 7
9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Happy hour afterward at moto-i )

Location

The Minneapolis Central Library. Visit the Location page to view/edit directions.

Register now

Go to the Attendees page and add your name and contact info.

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 27

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On this week’s show, Graeme Thickins heads down for a few interviews at the start of the Sierra Bravo’s Overnight Website Challenge.

Host: Graeme Thickins

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 36:03 — 20.8MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

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Sierra Bravo’s Overnight Website Challenge again gathers ten teams of volunteer web pros to create free websites for ten nonprofits. Last time they dropped the F-word (free free free) they had more takers than they could handle.

A handful of Graeme’s photos:

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Meet and Tweet at Twestival!

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logo_twestival-w-dateTwestival moved into Uptown on Thursday night attracting local tweeps looking to help bring clean water to the world. Organized by charity: water, the gathering at Moto-i was part of 200+ city effort world-wide. From Hamburg to Hong Kong, Dubai to Dublin, and Madrid to Minneapolis the organization’s goal was to raise $1 million dollars to aid in its mission to bring clean drinking water to the 1.1 billion people (one in six) who don’t have access to it.

As I entered last Thursday’s event I was pleasantly surprised to see many people I hadn’t seen before at the many social media industry gatherings in the Twin Cities. Wow, real people using Twitter! As I wound my way through the crowd to hang with the tweeps I knew, I noted many laptops open with their users either tweeting or live blogging the event. A video display showed Twitter activity regarding the Minneapolis gathering scrolling up the wall via spy and, in the corner. the hosts of SpaceVidcast hosted their weekly vidcast.

As the sake flowed and the sounds of Air Supply (really…Air Supply…no, really) wafted from the speakers, for the Twitter faithful who weren’t glued to their screens or phones, they mingled and got to meet the people that they had probably only tweeted to on line. There was no shortage of conversation as the 140 character limit used on Twitter had been lifted from the relationships.

As of this writing, the final numbers of money raised at the event were not available. According to Minneapolis Twestival organizer, Andrew Korf (@andrewkorf) nearly $700 in cash was raised at the event with more to come from online donations. On a more global level, charity: water, faced with the need to collect money from around the world and a Monday bank holiday, hopes to have final numbers by Tuesday or Wednesday. (Look for an update here.) According to charity: water Communication and Media representative Nicky Yates, “A million dollar donation would mean clean drinking water for 50,000 people for 20 years.”

Update 2/20/09: According to the Twestival website, $250,000 has been collected so far.

Beyond aiding fundraising efforts, Twestival is another example of what social media can do to raise the awareness of a cause or organization. The planning of Twestival, put together over a 3 month to 3 week period of time, depending on the city, brought new awareness to charity: water on a gobal scale. Yates says, “We’re very excited by this entirely volunteer organized event. There are now more than 50,000 people around the world who are aware of charity: water that weren’t before this event.”