Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Minnov8 Gang 159 – Social Chatter

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Marty Wetherall

Social media ‘chatter’ seems to be growing exponentially and the services capitalizing upon it are being launched, or accelerated, by the week. Marty Wetherall, Director of Innovation at Fallon and co-founder of Fanchatter, joins us to talk about what’s happening with his startup and about the growth of social chatter overall.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson
Music: Mario Tomic & the song “Blue Note” from the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:02:50 — 36.9MB)

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Discussed during the show:

Upcoming Events:

Minnov8 Gang 140 – Heaven is no Apple Store

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The passing of Apple’s co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs, overshadowed all other stories of the past week…even Apple’s own introduction of the iPhone 4S. Still, there were numerous things to talk about since the acceleration in technology innovation continues unabated.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, Phil Wilson and Julio Ojeda Zapata
Music: “Even Meaner” by “Mean Gene Kelton & the Diehards“ via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:02:02 — 36.4MB)

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Discussed during the show:

Upcoming Events:

Minnov8 Gang 118 – The Cloud gets Sainthood

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Watching the tech headlines each week continually points to an accelerating trend: the ‘cloud’ is delivering an ever-increasing set of applications and services. Add to that an explosion in mobile devices and a continuing growth in mobile wireless (and Wifi) bandwidth, and you have a perfect storm of technologies and enablers driving innovation.

This week we talk with Rob Weber, VP and co-founder of the St. Cloud-based W3i. Rob spearheaded the setup of Minnesota’s premiere tech showcase event, Minnedemo, which will be held in St. Cloud on Tuesday, April 12th. He details the startups who will show their value propositions and it’s looking to be a very, very strong lineup!

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: W.C. Clark is the artist & the song is “Cold Blooded Lover” via the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 39:22 — 23.0MB)

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Discussed during the show:

  • Minnedemo presenters:
    • Field Nation – Cloud for IT Support Professionals (Mynul Kahn)
    • Locate My Deal – iPhone app which helps you find and share the best deal near you! (Joseph Rueter)
    • FeedLogic – On-farm feed system technology (Drew Ryder)
    • Logix Learning – Computer programming science, technology, engineering math (STEM) curriculum for high schools (Carter Tatge)
    • SocialSamba – Social networking for scripted characters (Matt Shilts)
    • Fliptoast – Satisfy your social cravings by bringing Facebook to your desktop! (Shivani Khanna)
    • JamParty – Don’t just play, make your own music on PC and console (Chad Koehler)
    • LiveEdit – Content management system (Eric Brown)
    • People Driven Performance – Software as a Service enterprise communication platform that engages employees and accelerates strategy execution (Denny Dotson and Lou Dickmeyer)
    • riteTIME – Capture labor data for payroll and job costing in a single system (Bruce Hagberg)
  • Amazon Cloud Drive

Upcoming Events:

Minnov8 Gang 107 – Is the MacAppStore Good or Bad?

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App stores are all the rage: Apple started the concept with the iPhone App Store, made sure it worked on the iPod Touch and later expanded it to include the iPad, and is now driving that concept further with the new introduction of the MacAppStore. Google has Android market, Microsoft their Windows Phone Marketplace (ironically it’s down, throwing off an “Error.aspx?diagnosticCode=B03/5LZ7” as I write this post);  Blackberry’s AppWorld; and so on.

While the Gang could discuss the “why” and “what it means for developers” at length with each other when it comes to the newest entrant in the app store shift the Mac App Store, our frequent contributor, Julio Ojeda Zapata, was kind enough to recommend and invite in this episode’s guest, Michael Wray.

Michael is the president of Mariner Software, a very impressive, two decade old Mac, PC, iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad software firm here in Minneapolis. Besides the groundbreaking Mac apps they’re known for, this company had apps early on in the iPhone App Store and five (with one pending approval as you’ll hear about on the podcast) in the Mac App Store. Listen to what Michael has to say about his experiences with this new model of software distribution.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson with Julio Ojeda Zapata.
Music: Guitar Jack is the artist and the song is, “Roadhouse.“
Music made possible by the podsafe Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:07:00 — 38.9MB)

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Discussed during the show:

Minnedemo Screams Diverse Developer Community

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The folks at Minne* put on another solid showcase of Minnesota innovation at the latest Minnedemo on Thursday night. Ben Edwards, Luke Francl and the latest addition to the team, Adrienne Peirce, kicked off the event with the promise of  “a Minnedemo in the spring and another couple Minnedemos” this year. There was even talk of moving beyond the friendly confines of the Twin Cities and staging an event in St. Cloud. For my part, I would have loved to hear more about the goals of both Minnedemo and Minne*. While I and many familiar faces in the room know what they are, I hate to see anyone miss an opportunity to really showcase the noble efforts of the organization.

As for the presenters and demos at the event, the evening highlighted applications, services, and hardware that catered to a wide range of interests. From gamers to writers, security to slap shots the evening moved along at a brisk pace leaving plenty of time for socializing and networking out side the presentation space at the St. Thomas’ Schultz Hall.

Some of the standouts included…

Inveni-I’ve followed the development of Aaron Weber’s discovery and recommendation engine for quite some time and it didn’t fail to impress. Entertainment (Movies, TV) is the sweet spot for Inveni right now and offers the ability to share your highly personalized Inveni picks with your network. Now if Aaron could only get Netflix to secure a better class of streaming selections…

Zipnosis-With the promise of a diagnosis in minutes for just $25, Zipnosis was perhaps the most polished demo of the evening. We’ve showcased Zipnosis and are big fans. I also found the theme of the demo, providing low-cost healthcare, interesting. Zipnosis clearly wants to move past the tech and on to the benefits….  [Read More…]

Minnov8 Gang 84: Seeing Opportunities for Innovation

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This week’s show theme surrounds seeing opportunities for innovation. We explore many of the events, conferences, and moves made in web and internet technology and also dwell on all the collective energy being expended in Minnesota (e.g., MHTA; MNCup; MOJO MN; Minnedemo/Minnebar; Minnov8; tech.mn). driving toward one thing: sparking innovation in Minnesota. Is it working? What more can be done?

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott & Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off dealing with his woody).
Music by Andre Bisson and the song, “I’m leavin’” from Music Alley.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 59:22 — 34.5MB)

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Discussed During the Show:

MinneSpark Has $1,000 (Potentially) For You

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MinneSpark is an initiative from the team that brings you MinneDemo and MinneBar

What could you do with $1,000 for your best idea? Could you turn it into a scalable business? Let’s find out!

MinneSpark will award 1 to n grants of $1,000 to Minnesota-based teams who demonstrate to their trustees the ability to take that money and turn it into something real. This is about doing more with less, and building a profitable business from day one.

Winners will get some help along the way in the form of mentoring from the trustees and services from sponsors.

Applications are due by April 30, 2010. Winner(s) will be announced at MinneBar on May 22, 2010. Find the FAQ, application and more here.

Minnov8 Gang 66: Flat Is The New Up?

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Is it true that “Flat Is The New Up?” Not if you’re a company just outside St. Cloud, Sartell-based w3i, which is consistently proving that “Up Is The New Up” every quarter through quite impressive and sustained growth. Our guest on this week’s podcast, co-founder Rob Weber (@robertjweber), tells us how they got started and what they’re up to now.

W3i was marketing apps when apps weren’t even cool and their founding is a great story. In 2000, the three Weber brothers (Ryan, Aaron and Rob) discovered the power of free and launched Freeze.com. Along with their team, they developed applications to satisfy users’ pent up demand for free content while pioneering new revenue models to spread the development and marketing costs across millions of installations — over 250 million to date.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson (and thanks to Phil for tossing out the meme “flat is the new up” on the podcast!)
Music by Josh Woodward and the tune is “Stickybee”. From the podsafe music network Music Alley.

Discussed during the show notes:

 

Podcast: Download (Duration: 53:08 — 30.8MB)

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The Enthusiasm at Minnedemo

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Minnedemo happened last Thursday, May 7th, and the hundreds of people there, the startups and innovators showcasing their wares, was absolutely invigorating. To give you a flavor of the event along with some snippets of a few select interviews by Minnov8, take a peek at this short video:

Hats off to both Luke Francl and Ben Edwards for the outstanding job done setting up Minnedemo and putting on such a great event for the community! The sponsors of the event deserve a resounding “Thank You!” as well since it wouldn’t have been possible without them: Split Rock Partners; New Counsel PLC; LiveFront; IP House; Magnet360; StartupShoppe.

This video was shot and delivered by the talented folks at the award-winning 612Authentic (see their ad in our sidebar…small thanks for all their efforts!). Setup by Gabe Chiefetz, this video was shot by Jed Smentek and as you can see as you watch this one, if you have a need to deliver video that captures the essence of what you’re trying to say, contact 612Authentic.

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 36

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innovation-ideasThe Gang talks about a meetup with entrepreneur, VC, artist and all-around renaissance man, Gary Smaby, and his spearheading of what’s euphemistically dubbed “the collaboratory”, but is officially an Innovation by Design framework to incubate startups, tap into the University brain-trust, and create a culture of innovation within the University of Minnesota (read more in this PDF).

We also talk at length about Minnedemo, the event itself as well as people we met there and reactions we had (Note: we’ll have a video up shortly of a few interviews we did at Minnedemo) and get into a discussion about URL shortening services.

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

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 48:16 — 28.0MB)

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Discussed During the Show Notes: