West Des Moines Often, startups are fueled by passion. For Deb Gore Ohrn, the decision to end her 18-year career at Meredith Corporation for an 18-month old startup was in following her heart. "It was just like, 'Oh my God, I need to be working with (Goodsmiths),' " Gore Ohrn said in a phone interview Tuesday. That feeling was mutual. On top of her expertise and relationships in the world of crafters and makers – her resume includes six years as editor in chief/marketing director of the Better Homes and Gardens Crafts Group – Goodsmiths CEO James Eliason said her enthusiasm … read more

Ames Historically, if farmers wanted to check their crops for insects or disease, it was a tedious, inaccurate process. They would carry a couple of guidebooks, hundreds of pages each, to try and identify what they saw, recording observations with handwritten notes and sketches of the field. After completing a crop scouting internship in rural Iowa, Michael Koenig (left) decided to change that. "Crop scouting is kind of cumbersome, and just not fun," Koenig said, "we wanted to make the process a little easier to manage." ScoutPro … read more

Omaha Vince Wesselmann (or Vince Twelve as he's known online), owner of xii games and creator of several freeware adventures, has partnered with Wadjet Eye Games of New York to release today his first commercial game, Resonance. An independent retro-adventure, Resonance offers a look into a near-future world where a particle scientist has discovered a new technology. "Like atomic energy, it could be great or it could be really bad," Wesselmann … read more