Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

It Was Cloud Week in Minneapolis, and All the Cool Kids (and Old Guys!) Were There

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[Note: This post first appeared earlier today on the CloudAve blog.]

What a gorgeous spring week it was in Minnesota last week: clear, sunny, even sneaking into the ’70s.  sunbehindcloud The only “clouds” in sight were the proponents and would-be adopters of the latest, new hotness in enterprise computing.  Two events, on Wednesday and Saturday, attracted a wide array of these IT professionals, some 350 all told, who were hungry to learn more about… well, “the orange that’s the new pink,” as Larry Ellison would say. It was beyond impressive that so many people would give up being outdoors last week after the winter we’ve had in these parts!  Goes to show how deep our IT roots run in this state. Geeks are everywhere here and, doggone it, we’re proud of it!  We still have many old-school enterprise IT folks who remember the days of time-sharing on mainframes, and way more than our per-capita share of Fortune 500 headquarters in this state, all with huge (well, getting leaner) IT departments. But, along with all that, Minnesota has a seemingly endless supply of boot-strapped Internet and software startup developers — folks that are finding they love what cloud computing is doing for them.

So, it was an eclectic bunch that gathered at these two Minnesota cloud events, and I was there to take it all in…. …  [Read More…]

Control Over Your TV: A Comcast Executive Conversation

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guy-in-tv

Our post, “Internet Providers Want Control Over Your TV” sparked concern within the ranks of regional Comcast leadership, especially when this cross-posting of that article on MinnPost appeared. It caused them to take action to correct what they viewed as factual errors within the article.

While those (arguably) factual errors are corrected in the comments below the original post here and discussed within this article, Comcast’s “internet control” problem remains and I gained an unintended clarity about it from a conversation with a Comcast executive.

On Friday April 10th, I talked for an hour with David Diers, VP of Advanced Services for Comcast Twin Cities (he’s been involved in rollouts, for example, of Comcast’s Digital Voice, the 50/5 DOCSIS 3 service which I have at my office, and is now involved in accelerating the deployment of Comcast’s business services). Should mention that the setting up of this call was done by Tim Elliott (Disclosure: Tim is one of the Minnov8 team and involved with social media marketing for a firm engaged with Comcast and a friend of mine) so I went into this call with an open mind.

After letting the call sink in I realized that Mr. Diers regurgitation of the company positions and line were so well scrubbed (e.g., the comment here is mostly a cut-n-paste from Comcast press releases and FAQ’s) that the essence of the post in question was deflected and the overall issue remains: Comcast is attempting to control their internet pipe into your home or business and protect their cableTV franchise to your detriment, and arguably in a way that is already stifling innovation.

…  [Read More…]

What’s All This About ‘Moving to the Cloud’? One Minnesota Entrepreneur Can Tell You How

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If you’re in an IT professional or follow developments at all in this field, you’ve undoubtedly been noticing an almost endless amount of media coverage and online discussion lately about “cloud computing”  — one example being a front page story in The Wall Street Journal yesterday.  But, even if you’re just an Internet consumer, you too are hearing your share of the hype.  After all, many consumer Internet applications are also now accessed “in the cloud,” as opposed to being software you install on your own computer — Google’s Gmail probably being the best example.

georgereese-headshot Well, one local entrepreneur, George Reese, is right smack in the middle of all this buzz, and is in a position to help clear up a lot of the confusion about it — especially for enterprises looking to take advantage of the economic benefits of this form of computing.  georgereese-book-200w1 His new book on the subject is scheduled to be released by O’Reilly on April 10.  It’s entitled “Cloud Application Architectures: Building Applications and Infrastructure in the Cloud.” (And here’s the Amazon link.)  George is a Minneapolis-based technologist and startup founder.  I’ve known him since late 2006 and thought it would be interesting to get his thoughts on this very hot topic, and hear the story behind his book.  This is an interview I conducted with George earlier this week, which first appeared on the cloud computing site Cloud Ave. …  [Read More…]

JPMorgan Internet Investment Guide

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Nothing But NetFor Minnesotans interested in starting up or expanding within the internet space in these challenging economic times, solid financial sector analysis is often difficult to obtain. For anyone who has pitched their idea, concept or business plan, it’s clear how important it is to put oneself in the shoes of investors, venture capitalists and banks providing the capital you require, and a great way to do that is to gain a more solid understanding of the data they’re using to make strategic investment decisions.

In addition, if you’re an investor with any money left in your 200.5k (i.e., half of a 401k) and could stomach some internet investing, then viewing opinions and recommendations on where to invest is key.

In both cases, an analysis of the potential of various sectors of an internet economy — by one of the world’s leading financial institutions, JPMorgan — is reason enough to spend the time necessary go through their “Nothing But Net” report.

Highlights of areas covered within it include:

  • US Sector Outlook
  • Ad Networks on the Rise
  • eCommerce Outlook
  • The Mobile Market
  • Social Networks Primer
  • Cloud Computing Outlook
  • Internet for Social Good

…and much more.

The paper is embedded after the jump along with a download link….  [Read More…]

Upcoming Book on Hottest I.T. Trend: ‘Cloud Computing’

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Whether you’re in the computer business or not, chances are you’re hearing a ton about “computing in the cloud.” It’s widely being hailed as the top information technology (I.T.) buzzword of the year, thanks to applications many of us use every day — no matter what business we’re in — such as Google Mail or other online applications we simply access through a browser. Other examples would be customer relationship management software from Salesforce.com, or freely accessible word-processing software from Google, Zoho, and others. But there are many more types of these applications, and cloud computing can actually refer to both the software and the underlying infrastructure.

George Reese, a local software developer and tech company founder, knows a lot about the topic — so much so that he was recently commissioned to write a book on cloud computing by O’Reilly Media, based in Northern California, one of the most prominent names in computer publishing.  Reese is the founder of two Minneapolis-based companies: a new one called enStratus Networks LLC, a maker of high-end cloud infrastructure management tools, and an established business called Valtira LLC, the maker of an online “marketing platform” of the same name. Over the past 15 years, George has authored several technology books — with such names as MySQL Pocket Reference, Database Programming with JDBC and Java, and Java Database Best Practices. But his upcoming title, Web Architecture and Programming in the Cloud: Transactional Systems for EC2 and Beyond, may become his most popular yet.

…  [Read More…]

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 9

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Based upon feedback we’ve received from you and many other listeners, the Gang is increasing the pace of the show and getting to areas of interest in a tighter show format.

Keep letting us know what you want!

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, Phil Wilson

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 33:55 — 19.6MB)

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In today’s show, a few links mentioned include:

+ Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) Summit

+ The concurrent UnSummit that occurred for those unable to get into the MIMA Summit

+ TechCrunch article on the credit crunch

+ “With credit tight, young companies keep closer eye on cash” by Katharine Grayson, Twin Cities Business Journal

+ RangeBuzz, “...the Iron Range MN online guide to northern MN dining, nightlife, music and area events. RangeBuzz.com makes it easy for you to discover what’s happening on the Iron Range in Northern Minnesota!”

+ Next Social Media Breakfast on October 31st at Deluxe Corp. (watch their site for details to appear).

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 7

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We were absolutely delighted this week to have three very special guests who joined the Gang for a discussion about ‘net and web innovation in Minnesota:

– Katharine Grayson: Staff Writer for the Twin Cities Business Journal. Katharine covers the internet and web technology beat for the paper, but she’s also expanded into other technologies (e.g., MSP solar array funding, biotech) giving her unique perspectives.

– Julio Ojeda-Zapata: Reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, blogger, and author (his new book, “Twitter Means Business: How Microblogging Can Help or Hurt Your Company” will be on bookshelves soon). Julio can be reached at jojeda@pioneerpress.com. Get more of his perspective on personal tech at twincities.com/techtestdrive and yourtechweblog.com. You can also follow him at twitter.com/jojeda.

– Jon Gordon: Future Tense, a show which you’ve undoubtedly heard broadcast during Minnesota Public Radio’s Morning Edition program. The show is both produced and hosted by Jon Gordon, a Minnesota Public Radio reporter based in Silicon Valley. Follow Jon at twitter.com/jongordon.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, Phil Wilson

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:04:41 — 37.6MB)

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Show Notes:

+ Julio’s post on Minnesota Public Radio’s new, free iPhone app (get it here) done by Codemorphic

+ Discussion on broadband where Minnesota’s Ultra High Speed Broadband task force came up (latest minutes are here in this PDF) and Jon mentioned a show he’d done (here) and his interview with a cybersecurity firm called Packet Clearing House.

+ As you listen, you may notice at times the audio is a bit “hot” and I apologize for that — there’s a bit more distortion than normal and I couldn’t minimize it enough in post-production. We tried a new, high quality ‘bridge’ recording platform (HiDefConferencing) — instead of using a single Gang-member hosted Skype conference call — and while it allowed our guests to easily call in with a combination of Skype, landlines or mobile phones, it was more challenging to control levels. I’ll have it figured out by next time.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:04:41 — 37.6MB)

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