Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Minnov8 Gang 123 – The ‘Table Stakes’ are Rising

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The Minnov8 Gang around a poker table with the caption, "The Tables Stakes Are Rising"

With all of the hoopla surrounding Microsoft buying Skype, Facebook hiring a PR firm to plant negative stories about Google, and the Google I/O conference releasing a lot of new opportunities with their platform technologies, it’s pretty clear that the ‘table stakes’ to be in the internet/web game are rising…quickly.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: “Straight To The Light” by Alex is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0).

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 45:22 — 26.6MB)

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Discussed during the show:

Upcoming Events:

Minnov8 Gang 120 – Is the Cloud our Idol?

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Now that Amazon’s cloud computing infrastructure had a catastrophic failure this week and Apple was revealed to be storing location data on iPhones and iPads (see: Apple collecting, sharing iPhone users’ precise locations and our Sen Al Franken asking Steve Jobs what’s up), how can we bet our businesses on the cloud and trust that companies aren’t stomping on our privacy? Or is neither one of these any big deal?

At the same time the cloud is stumbling toward its future like a toddler trying to walk in daddy’s shoes, there is no question that toddler is going to grow in to an adult and is doing so very rapidly. One area accelerating is in education and finding ways to leverage the cloud (and an explosion in internet connectivity globally) in new and exciting ways. One such organization is Sophia and our show guest is Taylor Pettis, Manager of marketing communications at Sophia Learning. Taylor talks about their non and for profit adventure, how they’re redefining education, and leveraging the ‘net for crowdsourced course development in fundamentally new and innovative ways.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil “Philly Idol” Wilson.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 47:52 — 27.9MB)

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Discussed during the show:

Upcoming Events:

Minnov8 Gang 113 – Facetime Fever Flabbergasts?

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If you own a tablet (e.g., iPad, Xoom) or are considering one, this is the show to listen to now. We cover Graeme’s trip to DEMO and then immediately move in to a discussion of the iPad2 launch. Probing deeper in to some of the intrinsic value of the iPad and Android-based devices (e.g., pent-up demand to publish to these devices) with guest host Julio Ojeda-Zapata, we have a lively discussion about these and other mobile devices.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Graeme Thickins and Tim Elliott (Phil is off this week).
Guest Host: Julio Ojeda-Zapata
Music by: Charlie Crowe and the song, “Vegas Hard Rock Shuffle” from the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 57:45 — 33.6MB)

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Minnov8 Gang 105 – 2011 Tech Predictions

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The Gang once again discusses our predictions for the new year. If you listened to last year’s show, you’ll know that Phil predicted we’d see parachute pants make a comeback, but alas they did not and Phil still has to wear much tighter and more restrictive trousers than he’d prefer.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson
Music: Opening version of the New Year’s Eve favorite Auld Lang Syne was performed by J.E.L.L.i., and the closing version of the song was performed by Mario Ajero. Both made possible by the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 52:26 — 30.4MB)

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Minnov8 Gang 104 – We Are All Virtual Now

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Joining us on this week’s show (a longer-than-usual one but we’re off next week returning 12/31/10) is Julio Ojeda Zapata to discuss his new book “iPad means business.” It documents how the touch-screen device is becoming a lifesaver anywhere people need to get a job done. The book tells the stories of tablet-wielding workers, companies, students and teachers. Joining us mid-show is Don Ball, co-founder of CoCoMSP, partner in PolymerStudios, and a guy who is a thought leader about coworking. We talk about the event he attended in San Francisco on this topic and more. Rounding out the show is our call to the mobile phone of Lisa Grimm (@lulugrimm) Digital Public Relations Specialist at Mall of America (@MallofAmerica), who was outside the mall with her colleagues (photo) running the Twitter-followers-only Big Secret Parking Party.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson
Music: Dom Duff & the song “March Azur” via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:15:47 — 44.1MB)

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Minnov8 Gang 103 – Surfin’ the Cloud

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The Gang talks Dell buying Compellent; Google Zeitgeist; and much more. Our guest this week is none other than the CTO of Visi, Jason Baker, who talks about becoming the first Tier III design certified commercial data center in Minnesota as well as what’s coming soon with ReliaCloud.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson
Music: Kahuna Kawentzmann & the song “Late Bird” via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:04:15 — 37.4MB)

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Minnov8 Gang 87: More Buzz About Mobile

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Though the Gang discusses several topics this week (in the midst of the typical summer doldrums for new releases) the buzz covered is mostly about mobile. There are some interesting strategic moves being made by Best Buy with Clearwire—coming to the Twin Cities this Fall—as well as updates to Android mobile with Froyo and more.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: Clintone and the song “Full Circle” via the podsafe music network Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 58:32 — 34.0MB)

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CloudCamp MSP Liveblog

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The Minnov8 Gang is liveblogging CloudCampMSP here.

CloudCamp is an unconference where early adopters of Cloud Computing technologies exchange ideas. With the rapid change occurring in the industry, we need a place where we can meet to share our experiences, challenges and solutions.

At CloudCamp, you are encouraged to share your thoughts in several open discussions, as we strive for the advancement of Cloud Computing. End users, IT professionals and vendors are all encouraged to participate.

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.