Des Moines When Erin Ginkens opened the current chapter of her career five years ago by leaving a job to launch her own business venture, she did so with what she believed was a pretty good idea of how the story would play out. "I thought that I was going to market a billing program I had written for attorneys," said Ginkens, president of Des Moines-based Entrepreneurial Technologies. "(But) as soon as I got out into the world, my panic about no longer having a paycheck completely took over my desire to market my product." So the plotline she … read more

Des Moines Over the weekend, Dwolla co-founder Ben Milne and Entrepreneurial Technologies' James Armstead created Dollar Thoughts, a website that features user-submitted short statements and allows visitors to vote each statement up or down and share on Facebook or Twitter. With the implementation … read more

Kansas City Google has tabbed Rachel Hack as the point person to help bring its ultra-high speed internet to the Kansas City area, the Kansas City Star and Kansas City Business Journal reported today. Hack (left, photo from linkedin.com) is the president of the Software and Information Technology Association of Kansas (SITAKS), a membership group designed to support Kansas' software, information technology, telecommunications and other high-tech companies, as well as companies with … read more

Ankeny Already well-acquainted with the App Store? Well, now get to know the TapStore. Seeking to sidestep the hassles of creating native mobile apps for each of the different mobile platforms, SquareTap, also dubbed "the TapStore," provides a custom home page for a smart phone’s web browser, giving users a customized, central source for their favorite mobile apps and a directory of the best mobile destinations from around the web. "I think mobile devices are becoming more diverse," … read more

For regular readers of Silicon Prairie News, none of what's discussed in the Aug. 19 Fox Business article "How to Become a Growth Company in a Small Market" is necessarily … read more

Des Moines This isn't the type of Iowa polling story you've grown accustomed to reading recently. Nope, there are no straws here — just the potential for one Iowa entrepreneur to win up to $15,000 in prizes. Online voting for the Dream Big Des Moines small business contest began Tuesday and will continue until Aug. 31. … read more

Iowa City Copious dollars/ From a dearth of characters/ Money grows on tweets Fortunately for John Yates, his recent try at haiku was substantially stronger than our attempt to tell the story of his unusual scholarship in 17 on. Last week, Yates won a full financial award package (valued at $37,240) from the University of Iowa Tippie School of Management for writing the best application tweet. He did so with haiku: "Globally minded/ Innovative and driven/ Tippie can sharpen" … read more

Omaha Earlier today Tom Chapman of the Omaha Chamber popped in the Silicon Prairie News office unannounced. "What's up?" we asked. "I wanted to stop by to share some news with you," Tom told us. This wasn't the first time this scenario had played out, and when it does it usually involves something exciting in the community – an upcoming launch, a new funding or a completed acquisition. Today, it wasn't any of the above. And instead of sharing news with us about one of the … read more