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What is Prairie Moves?

Published Tuesdays and Thursdays, Prairie Moves keeps our readers informed about career moves, media coverage, product development, and more from the companies and individuals we cover on Silicon Prairie News.

If you or your company would like to submit one of the items below for our next Prairie Moves post, please email editor@siliconprairienews.com. And if you have suggestions on how we could improve these posts or any of our coverage, please contact danny@siliconprairienews.com.

Career Moves

• Hasani Hunter, formerly with Ninth Division (Omaha), has joined a Prairie Ventures’ company (Omaha) as CTO – ninthdivision.com
• Jarad Bernstein, formerly with Catchfire Media (Des Moines), joined Drake University (Des Moines) as Director of Public Relations and Media Management
• Caleb Kucera joined 8/7 Central (Des Moines) – eightsevencentral.com
• Ryan Velgersdyk joined Blend Interactive (Sioux Falls) as an Interactive Designer

New Tech

• Nashville-based Texter Marketing Group launched textercoupons.com with assistance from Silicon Prairie companies – web development by Cylosoft (Ames, Iowa), video development from Luminary (Des Moines) and SMS connectivity from Catchwind (Des Moines)

New Creative

• David Day | Associates (Omaha) created a new website for SilverStone Group, silverstonegroup.com – necreative.typepad.com
• Flying Hippo Web Technologies (Des Moines) launched a new website for Waukee School District, waukee.k12.ia.us

Product/Business Development

• Dwolla (Des Moines) released Proxi, a feature allowing users to convert Dwolla-enabled devices into movable Spots to take payments without additional hardware, like NFC or dongles – dwolla.org/blog – and rolled out the ability to send money to a cell phone number – dwolla.org/blog
• Pongr (Boston-based, Des Moines office) rolled out Brand Spotting on Facebook – blog.pongr.com
• Image Made and DownsDesign (both of Omaha) merged to form Grain & Mortar (Omaha), a strategy, branding and design company – grainandmortar.com
• What Cheer’s Bumble (Omaha) wins Twilio contest – blog.programmableweb.com and SPN post
• Bloom (Omaha) had its national launch – SPN post
• Zaarly (San Francisco-based, Kansas City office) launched the Zaarly U program targeted towards college campuses – marketwire.com

Media Mentions

• Nebraska Angel Investment Tax Credit Act – Omaha World-Herald: “Angel investors share mixed feelings on new tax credit“
• Archrival (Lincoln, Neb.) – FWA: “The Art of the Flight“
• Kansas City – Venture Beat: Mobile Beat: “Guess Which Cities Produce the Most Andriod Apps“
• Kansas City – Wall Street Journal: “Where the Action Is” and SPN post
• Vault Coworking (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) – Business380: “New co-working sites aim to foster innovation“
• Innovative Software Engineering (Coraville, Iowa) – Press Citizen: “Software company opens facility“
• Christian Renaund of StartupCity Des Moines, Ben Milne of Dwolla, Tony Muse of VineMe, Brian Donaghy of Appcore and Geoff Wood of Silicon Prairie News – Des Moines Register: “Hot in D.M.: The startup scene“
• Tony Muse of VineMe (Des Moines) – Hard Hats High Heels: “VineMe: Timeline for the World“
• Nate Allen of Vicinity Games (Kansas City) – GameMarx: “GameMarx EP51 – Origami Tips with Vicinity Games“
• T8 Webware (Cedar Falls, Iowa) – American Banker “Little Bank Takes on Big Online Tech Project, with Help“
• Syncbak (Marion, Iowa) – TV Technology: “Protecting Local Broadcast Streaming“
• David Gion of Canvis (Des Moines) – Business Record: “David Gion: President, Canvis LLC“
• Dwolla (Des Moines) – TechCrunch: “Dwolla Launches ‘Proxi’ For Proximity-Based Mobile Payments“, Des Moines Register: “Dwolla goes even higher tech using GPS feature” and The Next Web: “Dwolla’s Proxi does near-field mobile payments, no NFC chip required” – SPN post and photos/video of meetup
• Ben Milne of Dwolla (Des Moines), Nick Seguin of Kauffman Foundation (Kansas City) and Jeff Slobotski of Silicon Prairie News – Fox Small Business: “How to Become a Growth Company in a Small Market“
• Zaarly (San Francisco-based, Kansas City office) – CNBC: “Investors Warn of Tech Startup Funding Frenzy“
• Bo Fishback of Zaarly (San Francisco-based, Kansas City office) – 52 Cups of Coffee: “Cup 46“
• Eric Koester of Zaarly (San Francisco-based, Kansas City office) – FounderLY: “Eric Koester — Zaarly 1 of 2” and “Eric Koester — Zaarly 2 of 2“
• MindMixer (Omaha) – Information Policy: “Should Government Crowdsourcing Websites be Developed In-House?” and Arizone Daily Sun: “Planners seek traffic fixes via web forum“

Misc.

• Think Big Partners and bizperc (Kansas City) announced Entrepreneur Corner at First Fridays – thinkbigkansascity.blogspot.com
• Joe Sparano of Oxide Design (Omaha) joined the AIGA Nebraska board of directors as the Director of Community Outreach – news.oxidedesign.com
• On Rock Paper Ink, Steve Gordon of RDQLUS Creative (Omaha) authored a guest post: “Indie: Leaving the Nest to Fly Solo“
• On ABA Banking Journal, Wade Arnold of T8 Webware (Cedar Falls, Iowa) authored a guest post: “Top bank website myths“
• Ben Milne of Dwolla (Des Moines) is set to keynote the Innovation Expo in Sioux Falls – argusleader.com
• Des Moines Business Record finds increased interest in entrepreneurial education – Business Record: “Students see benefits to entrepreneurial studies” and SPN post
• Applications for the first regional PIPELINE Class are now open – twitter.com