Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.
Rob Bearden, CEO of Hortonworks, says the software portion of the market will by $24 billion by 2017 and $50 billion by 2020. And Hadoop will be processing "half of all big data" by 2020. "It will create even more value than early ERP." And he must have said Hortonworks is "an enterprise-viable platform" twelve times… 🙂
In his opening remarks, Paul Walborsky, CEO at Gigaom, says "Big Data has legs — it's here to stay." Derrick Harris says, "Every year I say I'm excited — this year I mean it." Actual applications! [@BigDataWild likes that… 🙂 ]
Joe Weinman, emcee (shown), note that Structure Data is, ironically, actually more about *unstructured* data.
And I'm looking forward to reporting on this high-level gathering: the Gigaom Structure Data conference. It's billed thusly: "The industry's leading denizens share their views on big data and its impact on the information economy."
That's right: big minds sharing deep thoughts on a humongously hyped topic — what could be more fun than that? But it won't be just big companies represented at this fine event, there'll be lots of smaller ones, too — including my favorite kind: #startups. And you 
know what they say: pretty much every tech startup today is a data startup of one sort or another — or will be. That's what happens when a topic is hyped as breathlessly as Big Data is — it permeates damn near everthing. Even your mother has asked you about it.
So, why am I going? Well, first of all, I've had a media pass to a Gigaom event before, and was impressed by the quality of their events. And this one gave me a chance to visit my son and his wife, who recently took up residence in Manhattan, where I haven't been in years. (I like my conferences mostly in California and Colorado, thank you very much.) That, plus the fact that I've been focusing a lot of my attention in data and analytics of late, right here in Minnesota. We have a large contingent of big data professionals in the state — mostly big-company types at our 20 Fortune 500s, of course, but some very interesting startups as well. I've become quite involved with a wonderful professional meetup-type group called Minneanalaytics.org over the past couple of years. Get this: our database now numbers 3700 data professionals across 600 organizations! (Follow Minneanalytics on Twitter.) It's a great group of people — lots of energy and smarts around the burgeoning, rapidly growing field of Big Data. I'm on the organizing commitee and have assisted with several Minneanalytics events, which have attracted up to 900 attendees. I'm specifically involved in engaging more of the startup community with the organization, and I also help manage the organization's social media presence.
My involvement in Minneanalytics and helping with content curation and community engagement got me to thinking beyond just our Twitter and email list communications, however. What might be another way I could help spread the love — and the need to keep up on the latest — around this thing crazy, hot topic of Big Data?
As a huge user of the Flipboard app since day-one of the iPad in 2010, it hit me: why not launch a Flipboard magazine on the topic? I hadn't done one before. I noted there were others who had already started Big Data magazines, but they were way geeky. I thought there might be room for one with a little different focus: on real-world uses for Big Data — how the technologies were being applied in ways that even everyday people could understand, in a wide variety of fields, professions, and vertical markets. I figured there was more than enough to content to begin — and I was right. 
So one day, on a lark, I launched my first Flipboard magazine, Big Data in the Wild (shown at right). I subtitled it "Real-world examples of how big data is making big impact." Fast forward: in just four months, it has more than 4600 subscribers and almost 89,000 page flips. Flipboard features it regularly on its Daily Picks, and Mike McCue, Flipboard's CEO, has even told me "great magazine!" So, I'm committed now! (As the magazine got establshed, I asked a colleague, Dan Atkins, one of the cofounders of Minneanalytics, to be a contributor to it.)
But after I recently committed to making the trip to the Big Apple, I started thinking… hmmm, being a magazine publisher now — haha, I mean a content curator — how could I, as a longtime reporter and blogger at tech conferences, not cover this event for my own magazine? It was just too much of a crazy notion not to do it. So, here's what I'll be doing this week: publishing blog posts during and after the event and, you got it, flipping those posts into my magazine.
But wait, there's more! How can a magazine exist without a Twitter account? That would be just cruel. So, a week or two ago, I started @BigDataWild on Twitter, and have since built up a nice little, well focused following of professionals, which continues to grow. Naturally, I'll be tweeting links that will — yep! — take people to the magazine!! …to the posts I'll be writing about the event. Now how recursive is that? But who am I not to create more data! Post, publish, link, flip, tweet, link back — feed the stream!
If you'll be at Gigaom Structure Data, be sure to say hello. I'd enjoy meeting! You can still register here. And, if you need convincing the agenda is worthwhile, read these two recent posts from Gigaom writers that will give you a flavor of what to expect:
• 5 Things that Will Remake Big Data in the Next 5 years
• Upcoming Gigaom Event: Three Innovators Who Are Shifting the Big Data Landscape
Here's to a really BIG time!
Tonight in Minneapolis, we're honored to have Seth Levine, a partner at top VC firm Foundry Group in Boulder, CO, speaking to a gathering of entrepreneurs and others who support Minnesota's early-stage 
technology and Internet firms. His talk will be based on a popular book written by his colleague, Brad Feld, which was published in late 2012: Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City. Seth, Brad, and their other partners have been actively speaking on this topic in cities around the U.S. and beyond. They are highly in demand to impart their knowledge about the success they've had in Boulder, turning it into one of the most vibrant and successful ecosystems for technology startups. (Brad was also the cofounder of TechStars, the leading accelerator program that had its start in Boulder in 2007.)
I've known Seth since 2007, when I began attending two annual conferences that Foundry Group helped start and nurture, both held in the Denver area — first Defrag, which began that year, and then a sister conference called Glue that began in 2009. I've attended both events every year since then. (Here's a post I did after the first Glue 
conference in 2009, which included audio interviews of both Seth and Brad.)
Ever since I began attending these events (which are both organized by a guy with Minnesota connections, Eric Norlin), I've been encouraging Brad or Seth to come to the Twin Cities sometime to speak. When I learned that Seth earned his undergraduate degree at Macalester College in St. Paul, I was really fired up to get him here, thinking his connections with college friends, etc might help my chances. But, alas, trying to align his schedule with local tech startup events, which are often not announced very far ahead, became a challenge. (The one time I know of that Seth did speak in Minnesota was at an annual Rain Source Capital angel investor conference a few years ago in Bloomington, but that was just a quick in-and-out stop here — and, of all the luck, I had to be out of town that day!)
So, what finally got Seth to town to speak to our local entrepreneurs and founders? The one thing I knew would make the difference: his first investment in a MInnesota tech startup! That was LeadPages, which announced a few months ago a $5 million Series A round, which Foundry Group led, with participation by Arthur Ventures of Fargo and Minneapolis. So, when he and I chatted by phone at that time, I knew he'd be coming to town periodically for board meetings — and that indeed is what brought him here today. Thankfully, Clay Collins, LeadPages founder and CEO, was able to help organize the event tonight, with assistance from TechMN, and invite 100 lucky attendees to snap up tickets, which happened very quickly. So, it's a sold-out event, and I am now really looking forward to the local startup crowd getting to meet Seth! If I can, I'll do a brief video interview of Seth tonight and post it here tomorrow as an update.
I'm very glad to see the "bridge-building" between Boulder and Minneapolis continue!
UPDATE 2/10/14: Well, at the event, I chose not to shoot an interview of Seth, so as to not take his time away from talking to entrepreneurs. But here's a series of edited videos of the entire talk, which TechMN just posted yesterday.
Following on from my previous post earlier today, here are some other cool things I saw of interest during 
the latest CES show in Las Vegas — when I wasn't working, that is (which was 90% of the time):
• Phantom 2 Vision: Your Flying (drone) Camera.
• An American auto entrepreneur’s vision comes to life
• A BitCoin ATM
• AirHDTV … up to 186 channels (press release)
But the big Chinese company DJI, whose product is shown above, wasn't the only drone company at CES. Minnesota-based QFO Labs (a client of mine) also was also there, though with a much smaller presence.
The company showed its "Quad Fighter" product at the Nordic Semiconductor booth (one of its suppliers) in South Hall, and was a big hit there. But the real excitement for QFO happened soon after it arrived back home, when it got a big surprise with its product being shown on national TV: Local toy-drone maker gets plug from U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (by Julio Ojeda-Zapata/St. Paul Pioneer Press).
Were you at CES 2014? What was the coolest thing you saw?
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