Minnesota, developer, entrepreneur, and tech catalyst, Dan Grigsby, has joined forces with Tom Brice and Pete Schwamb to launch a mobile, social and web application development agency. Drivetrain’s kick off event was held at Pizza Luce in Minneapolis. In a unique approach the launch party went beyond the normal “all about us” agenda, that any launch party should be, to include collecting food for Second Harvest. Kudos to Dan and his team who report they received enough food for a thousand meals for local families in need.

Here’s Dan talking Drivetrain and offering a little insight into 2011. Tis the season for making predictions for next year.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DfQXQLIsX8

Today we received the sad news that after much searching the wreckage of a small plane carrying Luke Bucklin and his sons, Nick, Nate, and Noah was found with no survivors. We, along with the rest of the technology community, friends and family are deeply saddened by this loss and send our prayers and condolences to his wife and family.

Many of us at Minnov8 had the pleasure of meeting Luke and if you had that same pleasure I’m sure, even while grieving his loss, you are grateful for having known him. Professionally, if you are a member of the interactive, web, or technology community and had never met him, you most likely know of him or know those impacted by him…thereby, touching you. Luke’s company, Sierra Bravo and it’s Nerdery were, are, and will continue to be true innovators. As a person, you just have to take a look at the Nerdery Blog to see how deeply employees felt about their leader, boss and friend. As a family man, your heart breaks just glancing at his wife Ginger’s blog. Such a brave woman to actively inform the world about the progress and ultimately sad conclusion of the search for Luke and their sons.

Luke’s humble attitude is exemplified by his comment in a Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal article (photo left); “We like to work on stuff and do a good job but we don’t do much chest-pounding.” Because of that attitude many outside the technology space may never know how they were impacted by Luke…but they were.

The technology and interactive community in the Twin Cities, whether you consider it big, small, active, or not, is a close one. Close enough to feel the loss of someone so important to it’s very existence…whether they met him or not.

The hot 100, the first 100 Days, the top 100, the turn of the century… One hundred always seems to be a bit 0f a big deal. We sometimes become fascinated with 100 of anything. (Kind of odd for a bunch folks who just can’t seem to get behind the metric system, don’t ya think?) Here at Minnov8 we are not immune to a bit of centuplicate fascination. So we’re a bit giddy about our next Minnov8 Gang Podcast.

For the past two plus years my colleagues (Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins) and I have, for the most part, spent some 60-90 minutes each week talking about local tech, web and social media topics impacting Minnesota…and beyond. We’ve been honored to be joined by guests from the local and national interactive and tech world to talk about everything from local start-ups to mobile, apps to entrepreneurs, Google to gizmos and yes, probably too much Apple. It’s been such a blast that we all were taken by surprise when Steve, our fearless leader, noted that our next one is number 100.

A normal podcast on such and auspicious occasion just won’t do. OK, we realize that the 100th Minnov8 Podcast may only really be a big deal to us and our most devoted fans (a very nice guy named Ray) but we’re going to celebrate it…in public…anyway.

So here’s the plan, we’ll record the next Minnov8 Gang podcast, the 100th, on Wednesday, November 10th. We’ll do it somewhere at Chino Latino in Uptown where we can gather together a few guests, including some of our favorites from the past 99 podcasts, while raising a celebratory glass with each other. It’s not going to be a big deal involving steam tables of crab cakes and pot stickers. Nor will it be a white linen affair requiring pre-registration via Eventbrite. Nope, just a nice casual gathering of friends doing what we always do; talk about web and tech innovation in the land of 10,000 lakes. As soon as we confirm the spot, we’ll pass it along. So, Chino Latino it is. Wednesday November 10th at 5:30pm. Feel free to join us if you’d like.

In the meantime, while we scurry about preparing for the fun, please feel free to take a stroll down memory lane and listen to some the past 99 podcasts.

HealthPartners®, a non-profit health care organization serving 1.3 million people in the State of Minnesota, launched VirtuWell™ this week (via BlandinonBroadband’s Ann Treacy and at MSP Business Journal).

Virtuwell is an interactive online diagnostic tool for those simple ailments (e.g., cold & cough; sore throat; ear ache) that can easily be determined by having the patient walk through a decision tree and answer questions. Proven business models like Minute Clinic having perfected this simple and cheap diagnostic process. The acceleration of nurse practitioners and physician assistants taking routine diagnostics off of busy physicians, alongside the efficiency drivers contained within health care reform, means that online medical diagnosis and treatment services like this will help consumers quickly solve some of the most common medical conditions at much lower costs than traditional medical clinics.

What puzzles me is why HealthPartners opted to develop this diagnostic system on their own instead of engaging like another non-profit, Park Nicollet, did with startup Zipnosis (see our post on Zipnosis for more). Minnov8 has interacted with Virtuwell’s external communications person, but after two days haven’t had basic questions answered or response to our queries. We hope that their response to consumers with health issues is better.

Update after the jump… …  [Read More…]