Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

U of MN Paying Professors $500 to Review Open Textbooks

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The University of Minnesota launched an online catalog of open-source books last month and it’s just been revealed that the University will pay its professors $500 each time they post an evaluation of one of those books, according to this article on Inside HigherEd. Minnesota professors who have already adopted open-source texts will also receive $500, with all of the money coming from donor funds.

This is a brilliant move on the part of the University, especially when you consider the accelerating cost of a higher education as well as the increasing demand to for students to have textbooks they can view on multiple digital devices. With this payment motivator for professors, the University is clearly working to align the incentives of professors with those of a concerted effort on the part of higher education institutions to move toward an open textbook and open courseware.

Below is an infographic from OnlineSchools.org that will give you a glimpse in to the drivers behind the open textbook and open source books movement.

…  [Read More…]

Minnesota: A Great Place to Be for SaaS Companies

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I had the pleasure of attending a workshop event held this past Saturday at the awesome CoCo coworking space at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange. It was called SaaSCamp 2012. Note the year is part of that title, because it fully intends to be a recurring event. If you’re part of an early-stage software-as-a-service business, or planning one, and you missed this workshop — well, you missed a great one, and I would make sure you get to the next one when it happens!

The event was conceived and conducted completely by Lief Larson, CEO and founder of Workface Inc., with assistance from a couple of his team members. Workface is a growing startup in Minneapolis that itself developed a SaaS offering it now markets widely, which it calls a “customer engagement platform.” I was extremely impressed with the breadth and depth of the content Lief pulled together for this event. It included a extensive look at market data for SaaS in the U.S. and globally, monetization strategies and practices, selling to the enterprise, negotiating contracts, increasing adoption and retention of your app, marketing your app, creating a channel to sell your app, financing and funding a SaaS business, training your SaaS customer, and ongoing monitoring of your SaaS business. On top of all this, Lief related some really excellent stories throughout the workshop about his journey in funding and building Workface.

I had a chance to follow up with Lief afterwards to get some further perspective on the story behind SaaSCamp… 

Q: Lief, why did you decide to do the event? 

Lief:  I’ve had a great group of mentors who have helped me during my entrepreneurial journey and I try to pay it forward by helping other young businesses and entrepreneurs to find success.  A few of my “mentees” are building applications that are software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings and asked that I consider putting on an event.  That’s why I created SaaSCamp 2012 — to bring together like-minded people working on SaaS.  I think the event is already bigger than me, and I’m hoping the community will take it and run with it. …  [Read More…]

The War for Talent: Are Minnesota Tech Companies and Startups Ready?

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Question: What do Google, Facebook, Groupon and Amazon have in common?

Answer: All have formally or through their employees been recruiting in Minnesota in the past year. There are at least another half dozen well funded Silicon Valley startups doing the same.

(hold on… I am waiting for that to sink in for a moment)

With IT unemployment less than 2%, companies of all sizes from the Fortune 500 to the smallest of startups are recognizing that recruiting in Minnesota has been challenging.

For some the challenge has been a nuisance but not an impossible task.

For others… not having appropriate staff levels is costing business.

To set the stage a little bit, it is important to know that for many in IT, the “Great Recession” was a non-event. …  [Read More…]

“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

Improving Data Integrity for Analysis

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The Minneapolis firm Colectica recently completed a project resulting from their third SBIR grant through the National Institute of Health (NIH). Focused on corralling the endless supply of unstructured data through Open Standards like those standards developed by the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI), they have found their niche with research organizations responsible for securely analyzing data within the social, behavioral, and economic sciences.

Colectica was spun out of Algenta Technologies, a software company that delivered a variety of services that included DNS Hosting, custom development projects, and a series of contracts with the University of Minnesota Computer Science Department. The experience and capital allowed the founders the ability to pursue their interests in data integrity.

Dan Smith

Co-founder Dan Smith describes their platform as “enabling organizations to document the complete life cycle of data. This includes recording why and how the data were created, by whom, for what purposes, where it can be accessed, its representation, and what each piece of data is comparable to. This fine grained description of data, the concepts captured, and the data processes are all recorded using Open Standards from ISO/IEC and research consortiums”.

The data life cycle starts with a study concept, which is tranformed through data collection and other standardized processes, before it is analyzed. This complete data workflow, which is underlying the Colectica platform, serves as a foundation for data analysis. The data that moves through this life cycle is stored in a repository, which is essentially a version control system for metadata and relationships.

…  [Read More…]

Minnov8 Gang 154 – iPad, iLearn

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Tablets, and specifically the iPad, are being adopted quickly in education.  A leading K-12 education publication, T.H.E. Journal, wrote this article about the top trends in education in 2012: “…education technology will see an increased focus on individualization–from personalized learning environments to digital textbooks designed to connect students to the resources that work best for them. And with a growing number of students using handheld devices to access these learning tools, trend watchers can expect to see big pushes for faster innovation to tie everything together.”

Dr. Lisa Snyder

So does this mean we give tablets to kids and education is magically transformed? Hardly. Fortunately we have one of the thought leaders in this space in our backyard. Her name is Dr. Lisa Snyder, she is the new Lakeville MN School Superintendent, and we were pleased to have her on the show to talk about their new iLearn initiative, whether or not it’s magic, how tablets and tech fit in to it, and her perspectives on the challenges adopting new ways of teaching and learning.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson
Music: Dave Hole & the song “Keep Your Motor Running” from the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:12:49 — 42.3MB)

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Discussed during the show:

Upcoming Events:

Mobile Text Message “Cramming” Scam

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Sick with the flu all weekend I’d gone to bed early Sunday night (1/15/12) only to be awakened by two back-to-back text messages arriving on my iPhone. Having been in the internet/web industry since its beginning in the mid-1990s, I instantly recognized the potential for charges from this spammer so I sat up, grabbed my iPad, and started poking around to see if either the shortcode (the “318-50”) or the toll-free 866-861-1606 number was an active scam.

I was stunned to learn it is a scam. Not only that, based upon the sheer volume of complaints I found shows that this is rampant, apparently is seeing little-to-no preemptive action on the part of the wireless carriers, and many, many mobile users are being charged monthly fees. This fraud is commonly known as cramming.

I am writing this post for the express purpose of bringing this issue to your attention and that of Lori Swanson, our State Attorney General, in order to get some action and protect consumers. If *I* can get scammed (and I am VERY cautious, careful and savvy about online scams and still don’t know how my number was discovered). I can only guess how pervasive this is in Minnesota and that it appears the carriers are likely complicit in perpetuating these cramming scams due to conflicts of interest and their subsequent inaction.

THE SCAM
This is a mobile SMS (text message) scam which automatically subscribes the user to a monthly plan, in my case a $9.99 one as you can see from the screenshot to your right. What’s curious is that many people on several complaint forums I discovered recommended replying “STOP” to cancel since that would be an explicit opt-out. In my case I didn’t respond (never do to spam) and instead called AT&T Customer Service.

The charges were applied anyway which, I now know, is a common cramming practice. AT&T removed the charge and I explicitly requested they place a “subscription block” under my parental controls for all phones on my family plan. This part of the adventure burned up 45 minutes of my time.

During my short investigation last night for another 30 minutes, I came across these links to other people who have been victims of cramming from this same provider and have had similar charges:

…and so on and so on. But wait until you see how this cramming is potentially worth tens of millions of dollars per year for the scammers!

…  [Read More…]

Student Led Technology Conference

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Inver Grove Heights Community Schools has an upcoming event that seems so delightful that I had to bring it to you. It’s likely you know of someone who would really enjoy being enlightened about technology by a bunch of students, or perhaps you’d like to attend too and see how these kids have learned to use all the technology this district uses (you can get a sense in this highlights video).

A guy from the Inver Grove Heights Community Schools Office of Communications, Johnny Germscheid, reached out to us here at Minnov8 to tell us about the event. Its focus is about technology, education and breaking down the communication barrier between children and adults. I’m guessing there will be a lot of learning occurring on both sides (student-as-teacher and adult-as-student).

Students in grades K-12 will be teaching adults how to use iPads, iPods, and other devices and software programs. Conference highlights include:

  • Produce and publish an eBook using rich multimedia content.
  • Create a digital scrapbook to capture family memories.
  • Design a webpage or blog to share your story on the web.
  • Find out how to set up and manage your own social networking profile.
  • Collaborate electronically to edit documents in a more efficient manner.
  • Compose original songs to add flavor to your movies.
  • Learn how to get the most out of that new iPad.

This is the second year Inver Grove Heights Community Schools has offered this Student Led Technology Conference. Turns out the Inver Grove Heights school district (ISD 199) was nationally recognized in Washington DC by the Consortium of School Networking (CoSN) this winter for this innovative concept.

The conference is free and open to anyone in the metro, or our entire State for that matter. To check out details about the conference, which takes place on Saturday, February 25th from 8:30am until Noon, visit the event mini-site here.

UnitedHealth Group’s Booth at CES

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The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is in full swing and UnitedHealth Group (UHG), along with its UnitedHealthcare health benefits and Optum health services businesses, is at CES this year because, as they say on their dedicated “CES Health” innovation showcase website, “…we’re increasingly invested in how the intersection of health and technology is empowering people to take greater control of their everyday health. By giving people the tools to better understand their health and health care, we’re helping them live healthier, happier lives. In short, our innovations are all part of a digital ecosystem we’ve created for health. See these innovations on display in booth #2833 in the North Hall at CES.”

Nick Martin, vice president of innovation and R&D at UnitedHealth Group, gave a quick tour of the booth and some of the innovations within (listed here, by the way):

One thing has surprised both our tech peers in Minnesota as well as we here at Minnov8: Who knew UHG was so active delivering tech innovations? Some of these include: UHC.tv; OptumizeMe (an iPhone/Android app); and Optum’s NowClinic, a virtual Doctor visit/prescribing platform with a corresponding smartphone app.

Might be that these “innovations” are targeted directly at corporate customers and to their respective employees who are under a UHG health plan. It’s interesting that each of their branding, user interfaces and integrations seem to be in separate silos, with no overall direction discernable from their presentation online. Still, it’s good to see a Minnesota employer innovating in the internet and web space.

Workface Adds Status

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At Minnov8, like most social media-savvy folks, we leverage all the social connection capabilities we can for Facebook, Twitter, and other sharing options. It’s an absolute requirement if your organization is online and you want to be “in the game” with today’s always-on and always-connected workforce.

As a fanboy of Workface (disclaimer: was at one-time a services vendor to them too), I pay attention to pings from the CEO, Lief Larson. He just alerted me to their announcement of the first version of the Workface “Chat Live” status button which is rolling out now.

Huh? You’re doing a post about a “status button” Borsch? Yes, but only because I’m personally connected to organizations who are using the Workface toolbar within their sites and would find this instantly useful. These companies are connecting their folks directly to prospects and customers with a toolbar that makes anyone in customer-facing roles like inside sales, support, community management and other functions immediately available to a site visitor in the Workface toolbar.

Brainerd Savings Sam Horn has her Workface status set for "Online! Chat Now". (click for larger view)

Even though that Workface toolbar can be resident at the bottom of a website at all times, some organizations load it only on specific website pages (e.g., a sales or support page). The problem has been that people are usually listed on one or more company pages, like this first-to-deploy Workface customer did on their team page at Brainerd Savings & Loan. This Status button means that wherever a person is listed on their website anywhere their status can be available to a visitor at the click of a mouse.

This Workface Status button alerts visitors to your website whether or not you’re online. If you’re connected to the internet, it says, “Online! Chat now”. When a visitor clicks on it, they can go directly into live text, audio, or video chat communications with you. It can easily be deployed for one person, or the whole company. When you’re no longer connected to the Internet, the button automatically changes to say, “Send a Message” and then your website visitor can drop you a message.

The entire Workface team is eating-their-own-dog-food and using the new Workface Status button. Check it out at Workface and consider signing up for their service.