November 29, 2012 by Jeff Slobotski
As the Silicon Prairie startup community develops, one of the ways collaboration and connections occur is through consistent opportunities to engage with one another. A strong community, moreover, is lead by a group of actors who are passionate around building our cities and region into something greater, and they take steps to make that happen. Actions by three individuals in the wake of our Thinc Iowa 2012 event in October … read more
November 22, 2012 by Danny Schreiber
For the second year, we asked founders, investors, executives and other participants in the Silicon Prairie startup community one question: What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving holiday? We limited answers to 50 words and though our focus on Silicon Prairie News is to cover startups, we left the focus of their answers up to them. Some thanked their clients – "my clients … who trust our vision" … read more
October 28, 2012 by Guest Contributor
San Francisco (Guest post by Philip Rosedale.) I recently posted on the Coffee & Power blog about Silicon Valley's amazing lead in startups, and our analysis of why it is both so strong and growing. The summary is that Silicon Valley has more tech people per capita (and per square mile) than anywhere else in the world, making it a very safe place for startups and software development, and also that when you run into tech people in San Francisco, they tend to be unusually open and helpful. The new version of Coffee & Power … read more
October 28, 2012 by Guest Contributor
Des Moines Reports of our economic demise have been greatly exaggerated | History can be a crafty fox. It’s misleading because it likes phases and doesn’t often spend time looking back at how silly its old hairstyles once were. In the 1970s, history was wearing bell-bottoms and snorting coke at Studio 54. It opted for hammer pants and a boombox on its shoulder in the 1980s. Today it hasn’t shaved for two months and sports a tank top and skinny jeans as if those hammer pants never happened. The idea that the Midwest in the Twentieth century is divided into a rising phase before 1950 and a falling phase after is an easy arc to get your mind … read more
October 16, 2012 by Geoff Wood
Des Moines Some observers of college sports will tell you that athletes improve the most between their freshman and sophomore year. While I'm no coach, I believe that theory has to do with the idea that the initial year sets your baseline. After seeing how your particular skills and ability fit into the new environment, you take that first offseason to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. You make adjustments. And, in that second season, you enjoy the largest … read more
October 5, 2012 by Guest Contributor
Omaha (Guest post by Heath Mello.) As local and state governments continue to wrestle with a wide range of ongoing policy challenges, one issue continues to stand out as an opportunity to help solve many problems with a simple stroke of the keyboard: releasing usable government data. Transparency in government continues to be an ongoing issue facing not just the state government, but also city and county governments. Yes, budgets are sent to the Nebraska Auditor of Public Accounts every year and some Nebraska cities and counties provide more budgetary information on their websites to give the public more detail of where their tax dollars are currently being spent. However, why isn't that information in a usable-data format like Microsoft Excel? As part of my interim study … read more
September 21, 2012 by Michael Stacy
… and, yes, we got a good chuckle out of it, just as many other Prairie people seem to have. As "The Office" opened its ninth and final season last night, viewers of the sitcom were brought up to speed with a rundown of how the show's characters spent their summers. As you can see in the video above (cued up to about 30 seconds before the Silicon Prairie mention), Ryan Howard … read more
August 18, 2012 by Guest Contributor
Lincoln (Guest post by Bart Dillashaw.) The topic of Form D filings has come up a few times in recent weeks in conversations with clients and in a few blog posts by folks like Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson of Foundry Group, so I thought this might be a topic worth providing a little more background about. This may get a little deeper into legal nuances than the average post, but I'm a lawyer, so indulge me. There is a basic premise underlying the laws and regulations covering the purchase and sale of interests in companies that states that you should not sell these interests, or securities, without telling the truth about your business and disclosing all of the risks involved with investing in your company. In order to ensure that appropriate disclosure is provided, these … read more
Through August 22, help us decide the winners of our inaugural Silicon Prairie Awards, which will recognize 12
companies and individuals. You can vote once per day per category.
Winners will be announced live on stage at
our August 30 event.