Categories
Technology

Welcome to the Conference

Ron Kraemer:  VP and Chief Information & Digital Officer

Notre Dame

  • 1842
  • 12,000 students (2/3 undergrad)
  • Research funding:  100 million+
  • Endowment:  $8-9 Billion (12th largest in country)

Notre Dame’s Innovation Park

  • Opened 2009
  • 55,000 Sq. Ft.
  • 501(c)3
  • Mission:  transform university innovation to viable marketplace ventures
  • Houses faculty, students, alumni, and partners
  • Provides tailored space and services
  • Works closely with Admin, Tech Transfer, Office of Research and Deans

I urge you to please walk the campus!  The basilica and administration building are deliberately located next to each other.  If you have the chance, please check out the grotto, it’s gorgeous especially this close to graduation. ” Touchdown Jesus” artwork on the library is actually a mosaic.  A lot of our artwork is deliberately named with football themes.  There’s a $400 million investment underway around the stadium, including a digital media studio for video and mobile production work.

Mobile

Slide showing difference between 2005 and 2013:  Catholic papal events – first shot from 2005 has one person holding up a phone to take a photo, the second shot from 2013 shows EVERYONE holding up a phone to take a photo.  Pretty dramatic.  Our partnership with Modo Labs has allowed Notre Dame to deliver value to our campus.   In higher ed, our ability to collaborate and share with other institutions has been a huge benefit.  We’re in this game because we want to help our students positively change the world.

“In a digital world, influence no longer emanates from the top of the heap, but from the center of the network.”

 

Categories
Technology

Kurogo Conference Opening Remarks

Presenter:  Stewart Elliot, CEO, Modo Labs

The opening keynote of any conference usually portends the overall content and feel of the event.  A nice breakfast preceded, so for now, at least my stomach is happy.  Let’s see how this goes…

kurogo crowd shot

First items:  The conference app itself was made with Kurogo Publisher, and a thank-you to the sponsors:  Apperian, Double map GreyHeller, Radius Networks.  Also, a shout-out to the folks who travelled the farthest and Mr. Andrew Yu, the man who started the whole thing.  Cal State University was well-represented with five campuses sending reps to the event:  CSUCI, SacState, Fresno, East Bay, and of course CSUN.  Cal State has eight campuses using the platform.   PHSC:  Pasco-Hernando State College from Florida is also here (Dr. Melissa Harts from PHSC is actually sitting next to me as I type this – her presentation later is “What’s the Point?”).

Modo Labs is 5 years old this month!  One of the overall goals of the platform is to enable non-technical users to “do mobile” without having to code, i.e. publishing.  2.3 is out now, and 2.4 is coming in a couple months.  We’re proud to be able to deliver new iterations quickly.

“The Race to 2.0”

Fresno State beat Notre Dame to version 2.0 by 2 hours, so Cal State gets bragging rights as the first to implement 🙂

Modo Labs

Becca is new director, and changed a number of items:  logo, web site, etc.  The Modo Labs “ball” idea has been likened to an 8-ball, a bowling ball, and a party ball.  Modo’s new logo is a building block / chevron.  Modo = “the way of”  Visit the new web site here:  https://www.modolabs.com/

modo logo

We want all universities to bring in students to develop on our platform, whether they have coding skills or not.  We urge our customers to do this.

The New Frontier

Where is the demand coming from, what are customers asking for?  In big demand are micro sites and multi-sites.  We’re helping one of our customers scale up their installation to 400+ different experiences.  In this case, crowd-sourcing becomes very important…how do you get people handle the challenge of managing all this stuff?

Modo Labs

Only independent company in this space, we’re growing 100% year-over-year.  This has allowed us to strongly reinvest in our product.  We also have customers in very large enterprises, hospitals and other verticals.  We recently moved into a new facility that is twice the size, the space itself was designed by Eric Kim.  We’d be happy to host you and your folks if you’d like to come visit us (and play foosball…it’s a big thing in our office).

It’s Just a Pen

Slide featured a Blackboard pen.  When we entered the market, Blackboard was our biggest competitor, with about a 70% market share.  Our product has grown by leaps and bounds, and Blackboard is now about 40%.  Ellucian is really big in this space, too (and experiencing challenges from WorkDay).

Why the pen?  We need to be humble about our product.  Competitors can easily move into this space and change the market in unpredictable ways.

kurogo tech support
The tech guy running the soundboard and video presentations.

 

 

Categories
Technology

…and the 2015 Kurogo Conference Begins!

After an uneventful flight from LAX to O’Hare and a two-hour drive, I arrived at Notre Dame University yesterday afternoon about 4:00 PM local time.  The Kurogo folks put on a nice mixer at the Morrison Inn for attendees last night from 6:00 – 9:00 PM, and I got an opportunity to meet a number of folks from around the US and Canada who are using the platform.  I’m eager to see how people are using and extending it to meet their campus needs!

The facility that we’re using for the event is the Notre Dame Innovation Center, which I’ll post picture for in a future update.  A very cool space, it’s really ideal for meetups, hackathons, and incubator-type activities.  I wish we had one of these at CSUN!  The reception desk of the center has a whole set of “that was easy” Staples-inspired buttons.  If you’re wondering, yes I pressed every one of these 🙂

that was

This conference is a number of “firsts” for me:  first time at Notre Dame, first time at the Kurogo conference, and first time at a mobile-focused conference.  I’ll do my best to capture what’s being presented here, along with a bit of the event’s flavor.

Watch this space!

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