Innovation + Job News

Quality Bicycle Products (QBP) Founder Steve Flagg is emphasizing the "and" in the new "Purpose AND Profit" program, which will provide seed grants of up to $5,000 for student green-business ventures at the University of Minnesota.
 
QBP has made a two-year commitment to the Carlson School of Management's Gary S. Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship, which has engaged in similar partnerships in the past.
 
Small seed grants matched with other investment capital might be used for development work or the design of a website or product, explains Holmes Center Director John Stavig. The center also provides legal and accounting advice, and mentoring by alumni, businesses and other volunteers.
 
"It's amazing what the students can do with a small amount of money," says Stavig.
 
Some past Holmes Center startups have gone on to become successful businesses, including NewWater and Bright New Ideas.
 
This round of QBP-backed ventures must combine environmental stewardship, community service or biking advocacy with sustainable business practices--corporate goals that are by no means at odds, Flagg explains.
 
"To have a vision and a purpose and values, you have to be around tomorrow to realize the benefits," says Flagg, whose LEED-certified headquarters in Bloomington sport one of the largest solar installations in Minnesota.
 
Sources: John Stavig, Gary S. Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship; Steve Flagg, Quality Bicycle Products
Writer: Jeremy Stratton

There is good news both nationally and locally for those seeking jobs in information technology and health care.

Monster.com, the country's largest online jobs database, has ranked the Twin Cities (limited to Minneapolis, St. Paul and Bloomington) sixth among 28 major job markets in the country.

Nationally, IT and health care are leading the job growth by occupation. The local market reflects that trend, says Matt Henson, vice president of public relations for Monster. The Twin Cities' top three jobs in order: systems analyst, web developer and registered nurse.

State data confirms Monster's findings. Kyle Uphoff, regional analysis and outreach unit manager for Minnesota's Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), reports a 79 percent increase over the last 12 months in job openings for health care practitioners such as registered nurses and pharmacists. Health care and social services as a whole are up 56 percent.

Computer and IT job openings have risen even faster: 112 percent in the last year, reports Uphoff.

Those two sectors dominate the state's list of expected long-term growth by occupation, representing seven of the top 10 "growing industries." Atop the list is management and technical consulting services, with an expected 62 percent increase from 2009 to 2019. That matches a national trend toward more and more IT contractors and consultants, Monster's Henson notes.

Uphoff calls DEED's long-term projections "fairly conservative," with total overall job growth of only nine percent over 10 years--a "sluggish rate" of less than 1 percent per year.

While the Twin Cities may be hot for IT and health care, "this is not a tide that is going to lift all boats," cautions Uphoff. He notes that some sectors, like construction, may still be shedding jobs, while other recovering sectors will need to undergo substantial change in industry structure and practice before recovering.

For example (gulp): journalism.

Sources: Kyle Uphoff, Department of Employment and Economic Development; Matt Henson, Monster.com
Writer: Jeremy Stratton

The international organization Ashoka has been effecting social change for more than 30 years in over 70 countries. So why did Ashoka's national organization look to the Twin Cities to pilot a new kind of local chapter?

"The Twin Cities is great at sort of homegrown solutions," says Jennifer Aspengren, director of the Ashoka Twin Cities. The chapter was launched in January 2010 with a $99,000 startup grant from The John S. & James L. Knight Foundation, a national partner that is "particularly interested in St. Paul," says Aspengren.

Other factors were Ashoka's Minnesota Changemakers and YouthVenture programs, and that its four active Twin Cities fellows comprise the largest concentration of Ashoka fellows outside of the coasts.

Ashoka fellows are "very, very rare individuals who are making very high-impact systems changes," says Aspengren. They receive $30,000�$50,000 annual stipends, as well as the support of Ashoka's global network of fellow social entrepreneurs and businesses.

Ashoka Fellows Conchy Bretos & Felipe Vergara, both from Miami, will speak at a free Ashoka Solutions Forum on Feb. 8 at the Walker Art Center. The 7 p.m. forum, sponsored by InCommons, Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand, and the Knight Foundation, will focus on three major challenges to growing and expanding a social change initiative: capital, talent, and marketing.

An afternoon session (invite-only) will convene representatives from local businesses including General Mills, Wells Fargo, 3M, and Best Buy.

Private-sector entrepreneurs are an important part of the Ashoka network, says Aspengren, in terms of funding, expertise, and strategic support. "It's the same thing they've been doing in the private sector," she says, "but just trying to push a different question in the public sector."

While Ashoka has local presences in other cities, the Twin Cities chapter is the first to "plant a staff person on the ground," says Aspengren. Its goal is "mapping out how to start building new chapters and integrate Ashoka programs in a new city," she says.

Source: Jennifer Aspengren, Ashoka Twin Cities
Writer: Jeremy Strattton

You don't always want to bore your Facebook friends with work-related updates, just like you don't always want to share personal details with your LinkedIn colleagues. Some video gamers have another layer of identity to manage: their online gaming personality.

A Minneapolis startup is developing a social network called Evolve that's built specifically for PC gamers. Echobit has raised $270,000 in angel funding and it hopes to find another $750,000 in funding by summer. The site is currently in a closed beta testing mode. (Sign-up here if you want to try it out.)

"To a slightly younger set we would describe it as Fight Club for gamers, sort of a discreet social network that helps gamers find each other," says co-founder Adam Sellke. And to an older set? "We just say, essentially, it's a knitting circle, but a lot cooler."

Most multiplayer, online games for PCs have social aspects built in already. You can chat with other players or receive updates on their play. The problem is that all of these networks are siloed by game or publisher. Unless you happen to be playing the same game as a friend, you have no idea what they're doing.

Evolve is different in that it's game-agnostic--it doesn't matter what game you or your friends are playing. A pop-up dashboard that can be toggled on and off the screen lets you chat with, and see updates from, all of your gaming friends, regardless whether they're playing the same game at the moment.

Why might that be useful? Maybe you're playing Counter-Strike but you notice a friend is playing World of Warcraft. Maybe you decide to hop over to that game instead, or perhaps you ping him a chat message telling them to join you in your game.

The founders demonstrated the software at this month's MinneDemo event. See the video below via TECHdotMN:



Source: Adam Sellke, Echobit
Writer: Dan Haugen

Social media has given researchers of every stripe a mountain of new data to explore.

As tweets and status updates work their way into studies across the University of Minnesota campus, from computer science to environmental studies, a group of researchers have recognized a need for more cross-department pollination.

This week they'll hold the first monthly gathering of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Group in Social Computing. Organizers have put the call out to researchers across the university who are exploring social media and its impact on society.

"This is our first rattling of the bushes to see who shows up and it should be pretty interesting," says Nora Paul, director of the SJMC Minnesota Journalism Center.

So far, potential participants include students, staff, and faculty from the English department, computer science, journalism, writing studies, public health, mathematics, environmental studies, youth development, and Spanish/Portuguese studies.

The kick-off event will consist of a round of introductions. Participants are asked to bring a single PowerPoint slide and a short description of their work related to social media. After that, monthly meetings will likely revolve around a speaker from outside the University.

The group is particularly aimed at graduate students, but Paul says they want to have the events open to the community as well, with a goal of spurring collaboration not just across departments but also with people outside the University.

The meet-and-greet kick-off event is 4-6pm Thursday, Jan. 27, in the Digital Technology Center Auditorium, room 402 in Walter Library.

Source: Nora Paul, SJMC Minnesota Journalism Center
Writer: Dan Haugen

A public-private partnership plans to launch a new web portal this summer aimed at better connecting Minnesota startup companies and angel investors.

The Minnesota Angel Network is the result of two years of planning by the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota and several partner organizations, all stemming from a recent report that identified a need for better "full-spectrum" funding opportunities for growing companies in Minnesota.

The network won't be funding companies, nor will it be making recommendations about what companies deserve investment. Instead, it'll be a clearinghouse of standardized information about startups seeking money.

"Although there are investors throughout the state that are looking for deals, there's no single resource or single access point where they can find quality deals. They can only find the ones that are in their own network," says Todd Leonard, director of the Minnesota Angel Network.

The goal is to standardize a process to help entrepreneurs prepare and organize all of the information that investors are going to expect from them. They'll enter summaries and business plans into a standardized format, and then have them reviewed by mentors to make sure all the pieces are in place.

Once a startup's information is ready, it will be added to the network. Certified investors will then be able to anonymously view summaries of any company in the system. Confidential or proprietary information about a company can be stored in the system and only revealed to specific investors with permission.

While the project is being initiated and hosted by the BioBusiness Alliance, it's meant to serve startups and investors in all industries, not just bioscience. The site is currently being beta tested and is scheduled to be up and running by the middle of this year, likely in July.

Source: Todd Leonard, Minnesota Angel Network
Writer: Dan Haugen

Sen. Amy Klobuchar outlined a national innovation agenda last week at an Innovation Summit at the University of Minnesota.

Klobuchar shared the stage at the Mayo Auditorium with Carlson Companies' chairman Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Medtronic CEO William Hawkins, and University research vice president Tim Mulcahy, among others.

"Innovation has always been a catalyzing force in the American economy," Klobuchar said.  "In recent years, however, the country has fallen behind in its efforts to research, develop, and compete in the global economy. We are resting on our laurels at a time when other countries, including China and India, are moving full-steam ahead."

Her strategy to help America regain its innovation edge consists of a series of targeted tax breaks and regulatory reforms, as well as a longer-term focus on improving science, technology, engineering, and math education.

Klobuchar has been collaborating on the legislation with U.S. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, who also spoke at the event. Warner said too much brain power was wasted building a "financial house of cards," and that the country needs fewer financial engineers and more "real engineers."

Other speakers noted Minnesota's struggle converting basic research into commercial products, as well as efforts for the University of Minnesota to work more closely with private companies in the state.

Klobuchar is on the Senate Commerce Committee and chairs the Subcommittee on Innovation, Competitiveness, and Export Promotion.

Source: Sen. Amy Klobuchar Innovation Summit
Writer: Dan Haugen

Pentair expects water reuse systems like the one it installed at Target Field to be big business in certain fast-growing global markets.

Pentair CEO Randy Hogan spoke at a clean technology and renewable energy conference last week in New York, where he said the company forecasts that water reuse systems will become an $8.4 billion market by 2016.

Marketing drove the decision to install the water reuse system at Target Field, but in parts of India, China, and Latin America where clean water can be in short supply, economics will be the driver of demand.

Hogan compared on-site water treatment to wireless technology. Many newly developed countries skipped over wired infrastructure and focused instead on building wireless phone and internet infrastructure. Pentair predicts a similar trend is going to emerge around water supplies.

"They're going to go pipeless," Hogan said.

The economics of Target Field's water reuse system were good, says Hogan, but the math is far more compelling in places where population growth is outstripping (or already has outstripped) the supply of clean water.

The company is installing a graywater reuse system at a Ritz Carlton in Bangalore, India, that will be used for irrigation and sanitation. Meanwhile, Brazil is planning to incorporate water-reuse systems in seven new stadiums for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics. Hogan says Pentair hopes to win at least a few of those contracts.

Hogan also said Pentair doubled the number of new products it introduced in 2010, and it hopes to do the same in 2011. R&D grew to account for about 2.3 percent of the company's spending last year, and Hogan says they're on track to eventually increase that amount to 4 percent.

Source: Randy Hogan, Pentair
Writer: Dan Haugen

What would cause a person to pour their life savings into converting their suburban home into a jungle-themed tropical birdhouse?

That would be the entrepreneurial drive.

Rainforest Cafe founder Steven Schussler gave a pep talk to the Twin Cities entrepreneurial community last week, speaking at a MOJO/Minnesota event in downtown Minneapolis. His talk centered around stories and anecdotes that appear in his recent book, It's a Jungle in There: Inspiring Lessons, Hard-Won Insights, and Other Acts of Entrepreneurial Daring.

"Life has been very interesting to me," said the New York native, who's been in Minnesota for 27 years and now considers it home.

The three and a half years Schussler spent trying to sell investors on the Rainforest Cafe were both financially and emotionally draining. Unable to convey his vision in words, Schussler began building the concept in his St. Louis Park home.

First he painted the walls black. Then he covered them with greenery. His tropical bird collection grew from a few to a few dozen. He added a couple tortoises. Then a full-scale waterfall, which required punching a hole in the roof. Then lights and mechanical displays. Then generators in the back yard to keep his house from blacking out the entire neighborhood. All while neighbors, then eventually he himself, began to question his sanity.

Luck and persistence paid off, and Schussler eventually found his angel investor. The Rainforest Cafe opened in the Mall of America on Oct. 4, 1994, and expanded to 45 locations on three continents over the next seven years. Schussler sold the business in 2000 for $75 million.

Today, Schussler spends his time working as a creative consultant for the retail, restaurant, and entertainment industries. He employs eight full-time people at his creative laboratory in Golden Valley, where they've developed new restaurants and attractions for Disney World, among other partners.

Source: Steven Schussler, Schussler Creative
Writer: Dan Haugen

When the economy fell apart two years ago, tens of thousands of architects nationwide lost their jobs as the planning and financing of new projects ground to a halt.

Apartments have recently emerged as a source of hope for builders. Now, another bit of information to fuel tepid optimism: a local architecture firm tells us they've been adding employees again.

BWBR Architects in St. Paul hired about a dozen new employees in 2010 as maintenance and small remodeling projects started to trickle in again.

"We typically are not doing developer buildings where somebody builds the building and then flips it to someone else within three, four, five years. The clients of our buildings own their buildings and own them for 50 or 75 or 100 years," says Peter Smith, BWBR's vice president.

As a result of that longer-term focus, Smith says their clients are typically more interested in maintaining the quality of their buildings, and that means small but regular remodeling projects over the course of a building's life. He says BWBR has managed to maintain longer-term relationships with its clients.

Another fortunate factor: "We don't do retail. We don't do housing. Those things tend to have been hit much more severely over the last two years," says Smith. Instead, much of BWBR's work involves projects that require a higher level of sophistication, such as health care facilities, science and research buildings, and correctional facilities.

Completed projects include Maple Grove Hospital, the 3M Innovation Center, the Elmer L. Andersen Health and Human Services Building, and Lawson Commons. The 89-year-old firm is based in the Lawson Commons building in downtown St. Paul. It started 2010 with just under 100 employees and now has 111.

Source: Peter Smith, BWBR Architects
Writer: Dan Haugen

An effort to develop a regional entrepreneurship action plan for the Twin Cities continues this week with a pair of information-gathering forums.

JumpStart Community Advisors, a Cleveland-based nonprofit, is coordinating the grant-funded effort, with support from local industry and economic development groups.

Mike Mozenter, the group's president, says they've had an advantage in the Twin Cities because the region had already started work with the Brookings Institute on a metropolitan business plan. JumpStart's program will compliment the Brookings planning and focus on identifying ways to better support entrepreneurs in the region.

The JumpStart process, which kicked off in the fall, is expected to take two years to complete. Currently it's in phase one: research and planning. The team has been interviewing local entrepreneurs, investors, and economic development officials about gaps and opportunities for creating and launching new companies in the region.

A pair of community leader meetings Wednesday and Thursday are aimed at gathering more ideas and information about how the region can better serve innovators and entrepreneurs. Mozenter says they plan to conduct an online survey as well, to help gather the input of as many people as possible. Then they'll help write a business plan aimed at capitalizing on the opportunities.

Phase two consists of a year of fundraising to turn the business plan into reality, and the third phase involves JumpStart supporting the region in getting it operational.

"I think one of the preliminary conclusions is that the region has a lot of opportunity, and people there recognize that," says Mozenter. "It's a matter of putting a vehicle in place that helps bring those together and supports those [opportunities]."

This week's community gatherings are free to attend, however, all seats were already reserved for Thursday's event. RSVP for Wednesday's event here.

Source: Mike Mozenter, JumpStart Community Advisors
Writer: Dan Haugen

The financial meltdown grounded his last venture, but serial entrepreneur David-Elias Rachie is back on the runway with a new startup, Adestinn, which will launch its services in June.

Adestinn is an employee vacation savings match program. It works similar to some retirement benefits programs, in which employers match a portion of their employee's contributions. Only in this case, employees are saving money for hotels, resorts, or vacation rentals for their next getaway.

Two years ago, Rachie was working on a modular, green building system that would allow hotel chains to quickly and efficiently construct medium-sized, limited-service hotels. Ten contracts were in place when the financial markets crashed, and suddenly no one was building or financing new hotels.

"It would have been a slam dunk at any other point in history up until that point," says Rachie.

Rachie knew the hospitality space well by this point, but he also knew his hotel construction startup would have to wait. So he started brainstorming and pitching ideas to an investor.

The question became: "How do you fill rooms?" says Rachie. "If you can do that without being a Priceline or Hotwire [discount websites known for squeezing lower and lower rates out of hotels], then hotels will love you."

The Adestinn idea piqued the interest of local investor Rob Furst, who has since funded the company. His $1 million investment in Adestinn is among those to qualify under Minnesota's new angel investor tax credit program.

Employees who participate can spend the funds at approved destinations in 30 different markets. In addition to major chains, Adestinn was seeking to add popular independent hotels with an online contest through its Facebook page.

Employers have to match at least 50 cents on the dollar in order to offer the benefit. Rachie says the cost is relatively small compared to what employers already spend on paid vacation time.

So far: 71 companies with 1.7 million employees are on board with the program. Rachie expects the number of employees offered the benefit in 2012 will be at least 5 million. Adestinn has 10 full-time employees in downtown Minneapolis and is preparing to open a call center, likely in the Fargo area.

"I almost didn't start this, because I had everybody saying you'll never get employers to do that in this environment, with 10 percent unemployment," says Rachie. "But I'm an entrepreneur, and you have to ignore a lot. What I've learned is that the biggest objections are the ones you should probably ignore the most."

Source: David-Elias Rachie, Adestinn
Writer: Dan Haugen

Peapods, like a lot of its customers, is experiencing a growth spurt.

The natural toy and baby care store moved into a new, bigger space last week in the St. Anthony Park neighborhood of St. Paul.

Co-owner Dan Marshall says when the store's Snelling Avenue lease ran up, they wanted to buy a building instead of rent, in part so that they could make their retail space as environmentally sound as possible.

They settled on a former hardware store at 2290 Como Ave. The 3,000-square-foot store is about 50 percent larger than its previous Snelling Avenue location. It also moves them from a busy commercial corridor to a cozier feeling neighborhood, which they hope will appeal to customers.

"We were really drawn to the idea of being part of a community of small businesses and giving people more than one reason to come to the neighborhood and shop with us," says Marshall.

Peapods, which has eight employees, is known for carrying products like wood toys, cloth diapers and organic clothing. Marshall says they avoid selling things like mass-market plastic toys and instead focus on more environmentally friendly items.

Marshall is also known for his active role in the Handmade Toy Alliance, which is seeking to reform the testing and regulations for small, independent toy retailers and manufacturers.

The new store opened on January 6. Marshall says official grand opening events will be planned after they finish setting up and settling in.

Source: Dan Marshall, Peapods Natural Toys & Baby Care
Writer: Dan Haugen

A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on, according to an old proverb. And that was before Twitter and other social networks wired the world.

That's the challenge a St. Paul nonprofit media project is grappling with: how to help the facts around important environmental topics catch up with all of the misinformation that can spread so easily and quickly online these days.

Dialogue Earth is a collaboration between the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment and the Foundation for Environmental Research. This week it announced the completion of a pilot project involving a crowdsourced video contest.

The mission is to find ways to inject timely, trustworthy information into the public debate on environmental issues, without advocating for any particular action or solution.

Its recent video project demonstrates one way in which that goal might be accomplished. Dialogue Earth sponsored a video contest in which all entries had to incorporate information from a list of 12 objective facts about ocean acidification. The other rule: videos couldn't make any specific call to action.

"The only thing we're advocates for is getting good information out," says Dialogue Earth founder Kent Cavender-Bares.

First, participants made short pitches for their ideas. Seven concepts were chosen, after which participants were invited to create 90-second videos based on one of the winning concepts.

The result: a collection of creative, factual videos, ranging from a cartoon starring a snail reggae band to a black-and-white public service announcement parody. The idea is to build a collection of videos that can educate, rather than polarize.

"In order for media to be consumed, we feel that if it's science-based, ultimately it's got to be trustworthy. We also realize it's got to be engaging," says Cavender-Bares.

It also needs to be relevant. The next phase will involve finding ways to produce videos more quickly so that they can be released while a topic is still timely. This contest lasted six weeks, an aeon in Internet attention span.

Dialogue Earth is also preparing to launch a social media/public opinion analysis tool in early 2011 called Pulse, which will seek to track what environmental topics people are talking about. That data could then be used to plan topics for future videos.

Source: Kent Cavender-Bares, Dialogue Earth
Writer: Dan Haugen

Minnesota has an economic opportunity ahead of it in designing, developing and implementing less harmful chemical products.

That's the message of the Minnesota Green Chemistry Forum, which hosted a conference January 7 at the University of Minnesota covering topics from public health to environmental marketing.

Green chemistry is a term to describe the production of non-toxic or less toxic chemical products. Examples include plastics made with plant material instead of petroleum compounds.

"Green chemistry is the way forward," said Sen. Al Franken, one of several policy-making officials who spoke at the conference. He said Minnesota companies are already proving that we can create safer, healthier products without sacrificing quality.

One example: Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day, whose CEO Kevin Rutherford spoke earlier in the afternoon about the company's environmental philosophy.

"We really like to uncomplicate things," Rutherford said.

The company employs about 50 people in downtown Minneapolis, and it's managed to grow despite the economy, and the fact that it makes a premium-priced product.

Environmental marketing consultant Georgean Adams, a former 3M employee, spoke about the challenges of green marketing, including confusion about definitions and standards. Worldwide, more than 370 green-marketing logos are currently in use.

Bethany Drake, an environmental scientist with Green Seal, spoke about how its certification requirements evolve. It's designed so that no more than 20 percent of products in a certain category can qualify. So as certain green practices become industry standards, the bar is raised.

Members of the Minnesota Green Chemistry Forum include: Activeion, Aveda Corporation, Eureka Recycling, Segetis, and Tennant Company.

Source: Minnesota Green Chemistry Forum
Writer: Dan Haugen