Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Minnesota EduTech Startup KidBlog Now Reaching One Million Users

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On Wednesday, I stopped into the EduTech Minnesota conference at the U of M. I wanted to catch up with my friends Matt Hardy and Dan Flies, cofounders of Kidblog.org, and hear about the latest with their startup.

It turns out, of the 10 startups that were selected to present at the event, none even comes close to the level of adoption these guys have achieved to date, which they announced in their presentation at #EduTechMN: 1,000,000 students using the platform, in more than 80,000 classrooms. And all that from a startup that began as just a sideline for Matt to use in his own classroom!

Here’s my interview:

The founders describe their creation this way:  Kidblog is a platform that provides students with an authentic, engaging, and interactive learning experience. It’s designed for elementary and middle school teachers who want to provide each student with his or her own, unique blog. It has simple but powerful tools that allow students to publish posts and participate in discussions within a secure classroom blogging community. Teachers maintain complete control over their students’ blogs. And a teacher can set up a class with no student email addresses. 

Matt likes to say it’s “built by a teacher, for teachers, so students can get the most out of the blogging process.” He also points out that teachers who’ve tried other blogging platforms (perhaps with limited success), such as Blogger, Edublogs, or WordPress.com, “will notice the Kidblog difference immediately.”

Best of luck to this emerging, homegrown Minnesota edutech company!

[This post first appeared yesterday on Tech~Surf~Blog.]

Something Amazing Happened at #EduTechMN Yesterday – Steve Jobs Was in the Room

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[This post was originally published earlier today on Tech~Surf~Blog.]

I felt it. I didn’t know it then, but it may have been at the precise moment Steve was passing. I was sitting in a room of about 100 people, mid-afternoon, listening to a panel of educators at the EduTech MN conference at the University of Minnesota. I was actually finishing a blog post on my MacBook Air, and hadn’t even intended to stay for the panel (the startup pitches were over).

But I was surprisingly drawn in by the discussion. I was blown away by what these people, senior educators, were saying — showing so much passion, speaking from the heart, talking about how kids are learning today. They just lit up as they described how the new tablet and mobile technologies are opening up worlds for these kids like nothing they’d ever seen before. The iPad, the iPod Touch, and all the great software these Apple devices have engendered.

I found myself beaming from ear to ear as I listened to them describe their real-life experiences, with such excitement in their voices.  These aren’t boring educators, I thought!  These are really dedicated, committed people who work on the front lines, whose worlds revolve around how our children learn, and how they can make that process better for them, every single day. And, thanks to technology and a certain company named Apple, they have more and more amazing tools to help them do that. It was a special experience for me, as someone not involved much in the world of education. I’m so glad I stayed.

I sat there and thought to myself — right at that very moment — “Wow, would Steve Jobs be proud to be hearing this right now.”

I like to think he was.

Steve, you didn’t just change technology, media, music, and retailing forever.  You changed education, too — in a big, big way. We thank you. We will greatly miss you.

But we know we’ll see the mark you made on this world for a long, long time to come, in the eyes of children everywhere.

 

[Left to right on the panel: Jesse Thorstad, technology specialist, Fergus Falls school district; Dave Eisenmann, director of instructional tech, Minnetonka school district; Jennifer Sly, MN Historical Society; and Jay Haugen, Superintendent, Farmington school district. The panel was moderated by State Senator Terri Bonoff.]

Tech Cocktail Mixes It Up In Minneapolis

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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%

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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.”

…  [Read More…]

Scalable B2B Platform through Rocware

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The Minnesota-based SaaS company Rocware has recently released an enhanced B2B platform offering, which allows businesses to create, connect, and intuitively maintain their expansive online product catalogs. This platform allows businesses to seamlessly connect to existing and prospective customers through private invitation, technology features found in traditional social media.

This interconnectivity creates an instant conduit for information, which allows businesses to rapidly share updated product images, descriptions, customer specific pricing, purchase order details, and more all in a secured environment. Perhaps more interestingly, these small and midsized businesses can easily exchange messages and fully engage in purchase order and invoice transactions between businesses, without EDI.

The three-member team behind Rocware brings a unique combination of personal experience running product-based businesses, the vision and technical expertise to build a novel solution, and the business knowledge necessary to bring this solution to market. Together their talents represent a complimentary skillset at Rocware. …  [Read More…]

U of MN Center for Spirituality & Healing’s Mobile App

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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)

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English Books for Thai School – Can You Help?

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A few weeks ago I received a contact from the Minnov8 site. The woman who wrote it (Lynn Brown) teaches at a school in Thailand in a program featuring English as a second language. They desperately need books in English for their tiny library and they have no funds for the books or for shipping.

Can you help with books?

I’ve never been to Thailand, but because my wife has put on workshops for Thailand’s Department of Export Promotion three different times, I’ve met many of her contacts from Thailand (and their kids) and they are incredibly delightful people. My bride has also told me so many stories about the country, its people, and how she loves them so much she’d move there, I was very receptive to Lynn’s request to help gather books for her students.

Map of Thailand showing Roi Et (click image for larger view)

The Thailand school Strisuksa (Stree-suk-sah) is located in a province called Roi Et. It is relatively far from Bangkok—which means they are internet-challenged as you’ll read about below—but they have a student group who will be visiting MN in October (arriving late in the week of October 3rd) and will be at Cambridge-Isanti High School in Cambridge, MN . Each student will be allowed 2 pieces of checked luggage. They hope to make the most of that luggage allowance by returning with books for their library.

If you have any ideas (or books!) that might help them gather up English books suitable for 7-9th graders and then upper secondary (10th-12th grade)—and let me know where we can pick them up—that would be terrific! Contact me, Steve Borsch, by email or by phone at 952.232.5040. I will compile a list of those who have helped and publish it here on Minnov8.

Below I go through more information about the school, student learning in English there, and what Minnov8 is doing to help.

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Why You Need to Secure Your Devices…NOW

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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

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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)

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DEMO: Me & My Money

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Our buddy, Graeme Thickins, is once again live-blogging from DEMO Fall. He seems to cover everything and is the best liveblogger I’ve ever followed, mainly because he is so diligent about placing links within his liveblog as well as within his tweets so it’s easy to go see what and whom he’s talking about in his info.

One he made certain to focus on is a new Minnesota-based offering that includes a guy who also gave us a heads-up on their DEMO debut: serial entrepreneur, Alex Huff, who is with this new Minneapolis headquartered startup as Chief Technology Officer. Me&MyMoney launched this week at DEMO and it promises to let you live the life you want and have money left over.

As many of us know when it comes to launching a startup, timing is everything. Borne in a time of incredible global economic flux and uncertainty, Me&MyMoney is certain to get attention, especially when the U.S. Census Bureau releases data like this that, “…in 2010, median household income declined, the poverty rate increased and the percentage without health insurance coverage was not statistically different from the previous year.”

Alongside that historical data is an ongoing bleak jobs outlook, fears of a double-dip recession and deep concerns about the future of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. As such, there is NO question that the masses are ready for a tool they can use to get a handle on where they are financially, where they’re headed, how to get out (and stay out) of debt, and to ensure they have money around in their old age (even more important now that we’re all living longer as well). Me&MyMoney couldn’t ask for more perfect timing, but there’s no question getting the word out and building buzz will be the key to adoption and gaining traction with the millions of potential users for their web application.

In their press release they succinctly lay out their value proposition which is, “Me&MyMoney is not another budgeting tool – it is a transformational approach to forecast where your money and your life are going. It uses diverse data sources, proprietary algorithms, and an easy-to-use web application to give members real, instant insight into their money. Those insights will allow them to create, understand, and execute a projection of their money throughout their lifetime.”

Read the full release after the jump (click “more…”) and then check ’em out…

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