Ovative/Services leverages Ovative/Group’s current core practices with leading retailers, brands and media companies in developing and evolving their core digital businesses, engaging with their digitally connected customers and optimizing the impact of emerging technologies. With its business extension into marketing services, O/G adds the integration and implementation of an enterprise’s marketing spending for a more complete eco-system in digital, mobile and social.

With marketing technologies, O/S offers a differentiated approach that combines its network of venture-capital firms for discovery of the best trend-forward solutions, with Ovative/Group’s access to the current leading technologies deployed by its retail clients.

In addition, O/S integrates proprietary solutions that connect digital customer interactions to offline purchase behavior enabling retailers to measure and optimize digital media’s influence on in-store sales

For more information on Ovative/Services, contact Steve Baxter at steve.baxter@ovative.com

“Everyone says small businesses are dynamic, market-shaking, job creators. But new evidence suggests that’s not true.”

We recommend reading this article carefully. As you’ll see in the following key excerpt, the most entrepreneurial and fastest-growing new companies are great job creators. At O/G, we are finding the B-to-B customers of our digital marketing innovation clients to be leading this same charge. Often they are buying the digital products and services in our portfolio of clients to help them manage costs so they can afford to create more jobs.

Key excerpt:

“The paper’s authors argue that Washington policymakers and academic economists need to focus on the minority of entrepreneurial and growing small firms, as opposed to small firms, full stop. So how to separate the Zuckerbergs from the gas-station owners? Often they separate themselves. Companies that seek venture capital funding, for instance, tend to innovate and create jobs. Thus, a tax break for a company in receipt of VC funding might get more bang for its buck than a tax break for all firms with fewer than 20 employees.

Even easier, Washington could ensure that it subsidizes growing firms, not just small firms. “Often subsidies targeted at increasing innovative risk taking and overcoming financing constraints are focused on small businesses,” the academics write. “We believe that these targets are better reached through lowering the costs of expansion, so they are taken up by the much smaller share of small businesses aspiring to grow and innovate.” The (admittedly obvious) takeaway? Give tax breaks or other incentives to firms hiring new employees if you want to juice employment at small companies.”

Today, TechCocktail hosts 35 events globally each year and its media reach via TechCocktail.com, Twitter and Facebook is growing.

TechCocktail and Ovative/Group selected 11 local startups for the mixer event. Each of these companies demo’d their solutions in the middle of venue floor, which was the new CoCo co-working space occupying the 17,000 square-foot former trading floor of the Minneapolis Grain Exchange. Most of the selected startups were B-to-B digital marketing technology companies, good evidence that this category is seeing a lot of innovation in Minnesota.

Dale also contributed a chapter in the book produced by the conference, titled Connected Universe, Unlimited Opportunities.

Dale’s chapter is titled:

“How Mobile Can Turn Retailers Into Media Companies” – Dale Nitschke, CEO, Ovative Group

If you’d like to receive a copy of Dale’s essay, please contact kim.garretson@ovative.com

MOJO is a group of business leaders including attorneys, advisors, investors, and entrepreneurs working together to promote and formally represent entrepreneurship and innovation efforts in the state of Minnesota.

The advocacy group looked to Minnesota’s historic agricultural and populist structure as inspiration for the open format co-op structure. MOJO’s Co-Founders Brad Lehrman and Ernest Grumbles expect a co-op structure to promote the “energy, self-reliance, community-building and risk-taking that are at the core of MOJO.” Unlike a non-profit organization, the co-op status provides and retains MOJO’s level structure by staffing its board of directs with group members.

Prior to MOJO’s co-op status the group operated as an informal group focusing on entrepreneur innovation in Minnesota. According to Lehrman and Grumbles the group’s creation has been well received, “We have seen a lot of progress in our state since our inception, and we are excited to continue assembling the resources and assets available in our great stat to keep MOJO rising.”

For more information see TC Business Magazine or  download the MOJO press release press release.

Ovative/Group clients CommonDeeds and CrashPlan participated in U. of Missouri – Columbia’s student run advertising organization Adzou during the 2011 spring semester. The partnership between Ovative/Group and the U. of Missouri gave students access to high level projects in a real company environments while being instructed and guided in a senior level classroom. Simultaneously CrashPlan and CommonDeeds accessed a unique market opportunity by working with an innovative group of young students to advertise to a similar demographic.

The companies worked with Adzou student teams throughout the spring semester to create advertising campaigns from initial idea phases to revised and finished proposals. Designed to mimic real client/agency interactions as close as possible, the teams worked under many common challenges including time, budget, and resource limitations. Beyond concrete skills, as projects hit roadblocks and changed directions, soft skills employed in a client/agency relationship were sharpened.

Representatives from CommonDeeds and Crashplan were on site in Columbia, Mo. to judge the final ad proposals and meet the students for the first time face to face. The teams’ work surpassed both companies goals and expectations for the projects.

Appealing Media’s founder and CEO, Owen Hanks, looks ahead in mobile with this deal. “Mobile video is clearly a growth market and by joining YuMe we are increasing our offering for the UK market considerably – both to other publishers but also to other platforms such as online and TV,” says Hanks. Continuing to innovate and simplify in the mobile space, Hanks says, “We are committed to simplifying these complex cross platform campaigns for brands across Europe.”

Launched in October 2009, Appealing Media is a pureplay mobile video ad network, representing premium publishers across the mobile web and apps. Its Interactive Video Player ad format won the Grand Prix award at MobiTech Europe in 2010. The company’s clients include ESPN, IPC Media, Bauer Media, and Universal McCann.

YuMe runs the largest premium video ad network in the US, serving ads to publisher sites that are driven by video content. YuMe is focusing on providing advertisers and publishers with the platform to manage advertising campaigns across all screens – PC, mobile and connected TV.

Look to TechCrunch’s article and YuMe’s press release for more information

Feed My Starving Children has been feeding hungry mouths around the world for over two decades, and produces meals with the help of volunteers in locations around the Midwest. Ovative/Group’s volunteer shift of 39 volunteers produced a total of 1.5 pallets, or 11,880 individual meals, which is enough food to feed 33 children for one year. With shifts running 12 a day from morning to night, capacity of about 90 per shift and a warehouse of ingredients, an incredible amount of meals are packaged every day.

Ovative/Group believes in supporting the community and giving back to those in need. A day at Feed My Starving Children marks the beginning of several volunteer activities a year for the staff.

To be competitive in digital Ovative/Group has recruited a unique staff. Employees command a variety of work experience from top five retailers like Target, to leading tech innovation companies like IBM and even founders of previous professional services firms. It’s plain to see that a company is as good as its people, and the knowledge base and experience of Ovative/Group’s roster is as impressive as it is diverse.

As I met the staff I employed the usual ice breaker for new employees of “What do you do here?” only to be met pauses and eventual chuckles with a response along the lines of, “Well what don’t we do?” Truth is, you need a mouthful of words to describe a job role around here. Most of what people do is figure out ingenious ways to connect small technology firms with large corporations who have a need for innovative tech. It’s a very unique company with equally unique solutions combining big, small, online and offline.

Once I finally figured at least some of this out, I have been responsible for day to day work on our marketing, solidifying our presence online. Our marketing work has made the Ovative/Group story easier to grasp by creating more, and clearer channels of communication between us and our prospective clients (and interns.) Beyond that, partner Kim Garretson says he likes to throw his interns into the fire and has had me work on a variety of things for several clients.

A big part of our story is our location, which is as unique as the company – an eclectic, energetic place that is about creative innovation and new tech problem solving.

Housed in a stylishly renovated old building in the warehouse district of Minneapolis, neighboring a literary art collective that includes a publisher, educator and retailer, it’s clear even from the street that Ovative/Group isn’t a standard consulting firm. I mean there is a slash in the name, how cool is that?

The space enables a great office vibe. We have no cubicles, or even designated offices. Between 17 people, three floors and the office’s unique history there are myriad spaces to work, collaborate, meet and keep it real. Without specific employee domains, the office allows everyone to be more approachable and available, enabling the majority of our work that occurs in groups. For me working on my own, I’ve taken residence mostly in the basement, which myself and the other intern have re-painted.

Beyond the variety of work, from a day painting to a week of hiring interviews, to trying to figure out the exact definition of Ovative/Group’s work, I just call it a fun place to work.

-BD