Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Jonathan Zittrain on Minds for Sale

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One of the thought leading places I follow is the Berkman Center at Harvard University and their podcast/webcast delivery vehicle called MediaBerkman, whose focus is to “…feature conversations with and talks by leading cyber-scholars, entrepreneurs, activists, and policymakers as they explore topics such as the factors that influence knowledge creation and dissemination in the digital age; the character of power as the worlds of governance, business, citizenship and the media meet the internet; and the opportunities, role and limitations of new technologies in learning.”

One of the key players there is Jonathan Zittrain, a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, a co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and a guy who served as its first executive director from 1997-2000. He’s also the author of “The Future of the Internet—and How to Stop It“.

I came across a 1.5 hour talk called “Minds for Sale” on the commercial side of cloud computing that was posted a few days ago and I’ve been listening to it in starts-n-stops whenever I had some time. It’s worth your time to listen to it closely if you are at all involved in commercial cloud computing, a startup in the web hosted space, or are a strategist or business leader in any thought leading capacity for your organization. In it you’ll hear “…why cloud computing is not just for computing anymore and how a new range of projects is making the application of human brainpower as purchasable and fungible as additional server rackspace.”

Listen by hovering over the speaker icon or download the mp3: Minds for Sale

Podcast: Download (62.5MB)

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ReliaCloud & enStratus Form Partnership

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Since we’re a sponsor of the upcoming CloudCamp event on March 2nd — and are huge fans of cloud computing and the innovation occurring with companies in this space — we were delighted to get a heads-up on a new partnership in town that will undoubtedly be quite a powerful combination and a great addition to Minnesota and the region.

ReliaCloud, the new service from Visi that offers small-to-medium-sized enterprises cloud computing servers and storage space, has announced a new partnership with enStratus, a national cloud management platform that delivers governance for enterprise applications in the cloud. As they state in their press release about the “2+2=12” aspects of this alliance, “Together ReliaCloud and enStratus offer companies a seamless, manageable cloud computing service. The two organizations are also joining forces to sponsor 2010 CloudCamp events and an April 7, 2010, webinar to educate information technology professionals about the business advantages of using cloud computing.”

Right here in our backyard we have both a strong cloud computing server infrastructure player (and ReliaCloud will also soon be offering storage as well) and a world-class cloud server management offering (enStratus) that offers such powerful tools that they’re used on the Amazon Web Services, Rackspace and Microsoft Azure platforms.

Curation Station…Sweeping the Nation?

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Ah, the web… a veritable treasure trove of knowledge, an endless stream of news and information. Actually, it’s more of a flood of facts and opinions that would make even Noah a might uncomfortable. How is the average web surfer to keep up if they want to…let alone the media marketer that must keep up because they have to?

Fear not, oh noble marketer. The folks at Uptown (Minneapolis) marketing firm Hello Viking have spawned Curation Station to provide you with a bucket to help you bail the endless deluge of web content into smaller pools. (Minnov8 colleague Tim Elliot gave me a peek at the private beta.)

As you might know, collecting the flood of online information isn’t the problem. News readers, RSS feeds, email newsletters, blog subscriptions, and bookmarking services all help you see every drop of data coming from your favorite online tributaries. The issue has always been separating the clean water from the black or grey water. (Those who have ever spent anytime emptying the water tanks of an RV know what I mean.)

According to it’s creators, “Social media have forever changed the way that brands connect with customers. In a non-stop trail of Tweets, blogs, Facebook pages, YouTube videos and Flickr sites, customers discuss products and services.” They say, “Curation Station was created by marketers for marketers to harness these conversations and share participants’ best insights and experiences.”…  [Read More…]

Visions of Tomorrow, Yesterday

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From Matt Novak's PaleoFuture blog (click on image to see Matt's post)

If you, like I, follow the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) Twitter feed (@MNHS) then you might already have stumbled across an interesting lecture which may also have led you to a delightful St. Paul blog.

Stumble indeed.

It was pure happenstance that I came across a compelling MNHS lecture called, “History of Hip: Yesterday’s Tomorrow” and features historian Brian Horrigan and blogger Matt Novak (the guy with that cool St. Paul blog called “Paleo-Future“). In it they highlighted some of their favorite trends in science fiction of the past while they shared their own thoughts about the future of this genre.

With only three lectures posted (on a WordPress blog in a new category called Minnesota History Lectures), the innovative thing is that MNHS, like many historical societies around the country, are exposing more of their content and compelling attractions digitally and online. Most of the MNHS efforts succeed — like my favorites Family Search and the great images of Minnesota digitized and available through the Collections — but I must admit feeling a profound sense of disappointment that this particular lecture was delivered in video as a 320 x 240 window in M4V format. Perfect for an iPod or iPhone, but unacceptable for how I usually watch long-form video (through my Mac mini on my HDTV).

I downloaded the 513MB file and watched it on my iPhone and now wish I’d known about the lecture in advance (it was that good) and also so I could scrub through it and see portions of it again. There is some great content in it and in particular some of the retro future videos Matt shows in his portion of the lecture in the second half are really fun.

The challenges MNHS faces delivering long lectures of this type (and doing so affordably) isn’t lost on someone like me who has analyzed the economics of video. But so many of us now are streaming video over our computers or connecting our Roku (or next month the Boxee Box) to our HDTV’s, the stepping up of the qualitative delivery of video is an imperative and, I believe, will be “table stakes” to be in the game of delivering long form video content going forward.

All that said, I so appreciate the efforts of MNHS and that more and more of the content they hold is available online. I’d heartily recommend you head over to their site and check out what’s going on there and this lecture in specific and, by the way, Matt Novak is launching a magazine in April, you can help him raise the initial dough by donating, and this retro future magazine ought to be a fun one!

Zipnosis: Healthcare On-the-Go

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Zipnosis is a 2008 Minnesota Cup winner (Student category) and a pre-launch healthcare startup in Minneapolis that is zeroing in on the always-on and always-connected generation with a very interesting and potentially disruptive healthcare business model.

I sat down this week with founder Jon Pearce to discuss Zipnosis and what they were trying to accomplish. “When you’re sick and need to go to a doctor or visit a clinic, you have to take time off work, pay a co-pay, sit in the waiting room, and then just get seen by a nurse,” says Pearce. This occurs even for fairly routine and minor issues such as bacterial infections (e.g., strep throat) or viral ones like the flu, and Pearce has data-backed opinions about the percentages of office visits that are routine like these.

Those are the types of visits that require a considerable time investment for the patient and are low value ones for a clinician, and speeding up that process virtually and online (called a “zip”) is what Zipnosis is making more efficient for both the patient and clinician (minutes for a Doctor to turn around a diagnosis vs. 15-20 minutes of time for that same thing in-office, and undoubtedly 2 hours or so of time for the patient). What if instead you could use your computer or cell phone, answer a series of very structured questions about your symptoms, get fast clinician or doctor feedback and, if needed, a prescription sent to the pharmacy of your choice? …  [Read More…]

Look Mom, We’re On the iPad

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The multi-talented tech giant Julio Ojeda-Zapata was on hand for the debut of the iPad in San Francisco on Wednesday…then he got his hands on one. We can’t help but feel a bit giddy that he loaded up Minnov8 on the “magical” device.

See a recap of Julio’s Twitter coverage and photos here.


Emmy Award Winner Brian Stemmler

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Totally out of the blue I came across the video below tonight, a producer reel done by Brian Stemmler (@bstemmler). I had no idea he’d won an Emmy for his video work.

For those of you who don’t know Brian, he’s a videographer and photographer who has shot many interview videos for Minnov8 — and covered events like the UnSummit — for us and other organizations in town (here is a fun one he did with Minnov8’s Phil Wilson). He’s a great and generous guy that you should know if you need professional level video or photography.

Here’s why this is relevant to a Minnesota ‘net and web innovation story: Brian has thrown himself in to the social media sphere, is leveraging YouTube, and has planted himself all over the ‘net wherever it’s relevant. He’s volunteering for video shoots simply to get himself integrated in to this community (he came here from California) and is doing so effectively. Active on Twitter, Brian has connected himself very well. Great lessons in hustle for all of us.

Take a peek at his producer reel to get a sense of what he does:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYHyrD3aEcQ

‘The New Industrial Revolution’ and Minnesota

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I absolutely love it when my new WIRED magazine shows up in the mail.  Hey, I read as much as the next guy online (on my little 13″ Macbook screen, or my iPhone), but I still love excellence in print — good ol’ ink on dead trees. And WIRED continues to stand out in this category. (Bonus: having a print subscription means I can read the latest issue before others can online.)  The February 2010 edition has another hard-hitting cover story, as only this publication can do, declaring with bold artwork: “The New Industrial Revolution.”  These guys know how to sell magazines!  I especially liked the title of the article, which I saw as I quickly flipped to the table of contents: “Atoms Are the New Bits.” And it’s by none other than editor-in-chief Chris Anderson. This has been a favorite discussion topic of mine with some of my colleagues. Yes, there’s quite a bit more to life, and innovation, than just digital stuff.

In the article, Anderson chronicles the age of “open source, custom-fabricated, DIY product design.” He profiles a fascinating startup called Local Motors of Wareham, Mass., and another one called TechShop of Menlo Park, Calif. (which I first heard of when I met the founder at a DEMO Alumni Reception in Palo Alto in August 2007).

…  [Read More…]

Stratasys Inks Deal with HP

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As a longtime fan of science fiction I have always had a fascination with future technology speculation and why I (and most fans) enjoyed Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was on that show that the replicator (first used on the original 1960’s series) began to deliver much more than food and drink: it could create any inanimate matter, as long as the desired molecular structure was on file in the computer.

Eden Prairie-based Stratasys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSYS), the leading manufacturer of 3D printers and 3D production systems, announced this week that it has signed a definitive agreement with HP for Stratasys to manufacture an HP-branded 3D printer. Used by product designers and architects, Stratasys 3D printers create three-dimensional plastic models directly from 3D digital designs. Though 3D printing is by no means even close to a Star Trek-like replicator, the rapid prototyping capability, marked reductions in cycle times in design and innovation, coupled with the capability to manifest 3D computer aided designs (CAD) in to physical objects is poised for a global expansion that is likely to be quite dramatic.

Though this 3D printing category is in its early stages, Stratasys Chairman and CEO Scott Crump stated in the announcement that, “We believe the time is right for 3D printing to become mainstream. We also believe that HP’s unmatched sales and distribution capabilities and Stratasys FDM technology is the right combination to achieve broader 3D printer usage worldwide. HP has made a similar move in this market before, capturing a dominant position in large-format 2D printers. Together we hope to repeat this success with 3D printers.”

Why is this a particularly interesting category and what is the relevance for Minnov8? …  [Read More…]

Activ8: Event Management for Small Business

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Activ8 is a new Twin Cities-based event/class registration service targeted to the small business’ that has a limited (or no) no web presence but those who offer services in the areas of dance, karate, gymnastics, or fitness studios are perfect potential users as are individual instructors in fitness, music, yoga, or tutoring.

One of the great things about the internet is how it’s so perfectly geared to make the inefficient more efficient. The creator of Activ8, Marc Kermish, is an athlete who saw a lot of inefficiencies in event management with athletics service providers (and many others) and has delivered a web application that can dramatically simplify the entire event management process.

Activ8 enables the posting of any sort of event, class, or gathering that requires a participant to purchase a ticket. The event organizer can post their event, class or gathering, collect participant information and payments via credit card, and then communicate with their participants throughout their event planning process. Activ8 does not charge the event organizer for the use of its service but instead, takes a small fee from every participant transaction.

After I was initially contacted about Activ8, and knowing that the event management space is fairly crowded, I poked around the site and app to look for potential competitive advantages Marc might have and was pleased to have two which leapt out at me. …  [Read More…]