On the morning GoToMeeting with Russell, Eric, and Steve. Eric and Russell were talking about tons of ideas on loyalty points and gift cards. Both guys have clients who have offered monies to push this project forwards. We are going to be trying to bring them both together to get the bigger master plan recorded and planned out. We will then build towards that and release things in phases to get it up and functional as soon as possible. See attached for a Word Doc that had a number of concepts and specs for the loyalty points and special account tracking stuff.

For the record... Steve said that yesterday he was able to help out Calvin - The grasshopper helped the master. Steve wanted to get that recorded. It was dealing with PO's, subs, and recording things in bulk backend processes.

Also for the record... Steve is saying that he is hearing Russell say "us" more than "you guys". We are happy to have him more and more on the team.

On the theme... We may want a bulk update to help flip users over more easily.

On news and updates... Steve was recommending that we build some standards for what is showed and what is displayed. Russell was saying, let the people write and build them and then let Russell virtually approve and get them up live. We are trying to go more to a template type scenario where we can virtually plug and play. What is it? What does it do? How do I use it? Videos, written instructions, screen shots, etc. Help make it as smooth as possible. Russell also wants all of the key players to help populate some of the features, updates, and help files. It will be a great team effort as it keeps going forward.

On barcodes and populating PDF labels with barcodes, we (Bryan and Brandon) did a job the other day that we had to crop (make the barcode height smaller). That way, we could put smaller barcodes on labels.

We talked about seeing adilas at the 10,000 feet level. Basically, what is the short elevator pitch? Steve and I were talking with Russell about how to present our model, what we do, how we do it, and why we do it?

Two good virtues - Being able to stand for something but still being open enough to listen. If you aren't open to change... how can you ever affect or make changes happen.

Labels are really heating up... We can do custom but we may need to build it so that individuals can do their own things and manage things as needed. We need to empower the users to build and create and store their own labels.

Need to take tri-storming approach. Taking smaller steps toward larger vision. More success with taking smaller steps instead of the A-Z approach.

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/developers_notebook_home.cfm?q=fracture this is the future to do list

Currently, the adilas.biz master plan is held in the minds of a few of its founders. It has never been fully funded and written out. We think that would be a great project and could help our existing users, current clients, and even future clients. It would also possibly allow us to get more funding if there was a firm and written plan of what is needed, in the works, and where we are headed.

As of right now, the only written business plan is very general - such as: "We are heading North" (meaning up :))

Working with Steve on some JavaScript to help with a new production build (internal builds) page. Lots of dynamic notation. Steve has been working on main flow and carving out some basic pages. He is then pushing things off to Dustin to help shine it up and make it look pretty. Steve wires it up (round 1.0) and then Dustin takes it to the next level (2.0). Good plan.

Eric popped in and had some questions on how to assign his sub special account tracking things to customers, payee/users, etc. After that, he and Steve were talking about future and upcoming projects. Steve was asking Eric about his backend skill sets vs his frontend design skills. We even got into some project management talks as well as backend database architecture. Eric has quite a few skills that are very marketable. We also talked about internal core projects as well as outside custom projects. Good conversation.

Steve and I were talking, briefly, about our direction for the future and near future. Good stuff. Our goal is to keep working on the system, building new pieces, refining some of the older things, putting a new coat of paint on the application (look and feel stuff), and figuring out the master plan of where we want to go. We have so many ideas out in the developer's notebook area... it would be so cool to gather all of that up and really make a plan.

The master plan could include things such as: database structure stuff (world building), graphical homepages, server structure stuff (universe level), fracture account ideas (things that we have learned and ways to break things into smaller and smaller pieces and settings), API socket access points, custom look and feel stuff, 4 different setting levels (corp/world, player/group, page/section, user settings), as well as additional rounds on balance sheet, elements of time, and subs of subs. This could also include all kinds of system stuff such as watchers, feeders, triggers and other ideas that are out there. That would be really fun, a huge project, but really fun.

Meeting with Mike Rountree, Jim Dougal, Tim Lyons, Gannon, Steve Berkenkotter, and Brandon Moore - Team Herbo

- Looking at options to help do a white label and see what market share they could get to and/or grab

- From seed (starting) clear out to general ledger (full backend/frontend accounting and financials)

- Working with Cory as an adilas rep/consultant

- There are three different things that need to be implemented together

- They have clients in the CBD category - raw material providers, internal manufacturing, packing, distributing, retail, lots of supply chain things, marketing and sales

- They have a distribution category

- They have a retail category

- How do we scope a project? You start on paper. You make a plan, you know the tools that exists, you see what matches, what doesn't, where do you start, and what are the priorities? It comes back to a plan. This could be a flow chart, diagrams, whitepapers, other documentation. It really helps if you have someone who knows Adilas and what tools are available and what tools can flex and change by default. That really helps.

- Some of the tools are different corporations (different worlds), multiple locations within your worlds, what key players (12 main players) play into that model, etc. Steve was also talking about parent/child inventory relationships. Lots of mixing and blending between the things.

- Builds, transfers, phases, locations, sub locations, etc.

- White labeling allows for custom pages and custom code - We have white label theme levels (multi or group level) as well as custom black box code (per corporation or per world). We can customize almost anything. This includes show, hide, look and feel, logic, toggle switches, flow process, requirements, validation, reporting, ect. We use the phrase you dream it up, we'll help you wire it up.

- Cory is great consultant that really knows Adilas. At some point, you will need someone on your teams that really plays the other part of the puzzle. You have to know the client and the solution. Then you mix them together to get results.

- Bring up questions... they aren't good or bad, they are just questions. Get them out there and then see what is needed (easy, medium, more complex)

- Herbo will create some diagrams of what they need and how they want things to play (processes) - Here is the world and here is how the players need to interact

- Training and content - Who owns what, who builds what, who does what? Also, what about passing training and content back and forth? Adilas is willing to provide any thing that we have through database exports, Excel, CSV, XML, JSON.

- Tim had some great questions on the backend stack and server climate. We recommended that he get with Wayne Andersen to get all of the details. Tim has a vast knowledge of backend operations and servers.

- Herbo will be working on some flow charts, processes, etc. They will have a virtual meeting of the minds and making any plans that are possible.

- On the Adilas side, Steve will be working with Cory to help with any deeper consulting info. Steve is a master planner and knows the system front to back and what is possible.

On 6/27/19, Brandon and Shannon were working on some content for the adilas user's guide. As part of that, they went over a PDF document that was created back in 2011. See attached for the full document. Below is the basic text from the PDF flyer. This is the virtual road map of what happened and why... fun story!

SUBJECT: Start-Up History of the "adilas.biz" Business Platform Quick Overview

Adilas, LLC was officially created in January of 2008. The original partners were Stephen Berkenkotter, Brandon Moore, and a corporation called Morning Star Automotive, Inc. The Morning Star Corporation has since been dissolved (2010) in order to more fully focus on the adilas platform. The actual project began in 2001 as a custom write-up system for Morning Star. Originally, the application was created for the used vehicle and trailer dealership industry.

In 2006, the application went through some major changes when Stephen (Steve) came up with the concepts for adilas. At that point, it started to change from servicing just the dealership industry into a more general or open business model. By the end of 2008 adilas was servicing a number of new clients (besides dealerships) with the following business types: self storage, modular homes, construction, manufacturing, professional services, and retail. As of 2011, adilas has added other businesses such as: virtual finance companies, real estate companies, transportation, GPS tracking, computer services, alternative healthcare providers, fasteners (nuts and bolts), catering, consulting, personal accounts, home-based businesses, etc.

The application or platform is set up for future growth and is very scaleable. It is currently geared towards small to medium-sized businesses. The application is in a constant state of improvement. This includes adding and upgrading features and tools, building reports, and automating existing functionality. Each new tool and/or feature is developed and tested locally before being deployed to live servers. All new tools and features are assigned to a permission on a per user and per corporation basis. This makes it so that only persons and/or businesses that need the new tools turn them on and use them. All unassigned permissions and features are dynamically hidden until assigned. The existing core of the application has been developed and tested over a number of years and is currently on its seventh full version.

The adilas platform is web-based and set up on a series of commercially hosted environments with state of the art data centers and 24/7 support techs that monitor all servers and databases. The application is completely "cloud" based and only requires a computer or a device that can access the Internet. All application pages and web service calls are done over a secure socket layer (SSL) with many other security features in place. Daily back-ups are done from within the hosted environments. Current adilas clients may export their own data and save local back-up files at any time. Adilas also performs its own weekly back-ups and then securely stores files offsite. For more information about adilas, please visit - www.adilas.biz

Going back to the beginning…

Morning Star Automotive, Inc., one of the original partners in adilas, was founded in 1989 by Stephen Berkenkotter and his brother David Berkenkotter. It was a used vehicle and trailer dealership. Over the years, they did well over $100,000,000+ (hundred million) in sales. By 2001, Steve and David had been in business for about 12 years and had 5-6 locations in Colorado. Things were going well and they were quite successful. They were managing their used vehicle and new trailer inventories on a spreadsheet that Steve had created. All of their accounting was done on a separate software system called Peachtree Accounting. All sales were done on hand written tickets and then given to the accounting office for data entry. The accounting department entered all sales and inventory items into the PeachTree Software after the fact. The outlying store locations would save all paperwork and invoices and then send a weekly batch via FedEx or UPS to the accounting department. Morning Star's primary headquarters and accounting office was located in Salida, a small mountain town in central Colorado.

Brandon Moore, another original adilas partner, had just graduated from Utah State University in Logan, UT, in December of 2000. He moved with his small family to Salida, CO in the summer of 2001. He originally moved to Salida to be a professional raft guide and kayak instructor on the Arkansas River that ran through the Salida area. As the summer progressed, work was slim and Brandon was scrambling to make ends meet and to keep he and his family afloat. He found a job listing in the newspaper doing data entry work for Morning Star in August of 2001. Brandon interviewed with Steve and his head accounting person for the data entry job. They offered him the job and he offered to help build the Morning Star website.

Brandon had graduated with a BA in Business Information Systems with an emphasis in Office System Management. Prior to that, Brandon had created a couple of small websites in college and worked as a computer instructor for a local technical college. The accounting staff began using Brandon to do data entry work for the parts department.

Soon after starting to work in the accounting department, the company website became part of Brandon's main job. He began gathering information on inventory levels and items for sale. With so many locations and inventory items being sold on a constant basis, it became almost impossible to keep up with the changes. To make matters worse, the company was constantly transferring a large floppy disk (100 MB zip disk) from store to store to make sure that each location had updated information. The process took about two weeks to make a full circle and then it would go around again. Each time a store would get the disk; they would update their files, add any new items, and send it via FedEx or UPS to the next location. This was a never ending loop with time being one of the biggest variables. Talk about a money pit and literally chasing your tail…

The first step in changing this process was to create a centralized location for the data. One of the sales managers in the Salida office would keep the inventory file relatively up to date by making phone calls and trying to record the data. Every couple of days, Brandon would post the file online with a date to let the other managers know how current the file was. Having the data centrally located sped up the time frame from a two week cycle to just a day or two and totally cut out the next day FexEx charges. Even with these changes, work and efforts were being duplicated. Different salespersons were selling items without others knowing about it and new web page files were being made for items that had already been sold. It became very frustrating as a salesperson would have a good deal on the table just to find out that the item was already committed and/or sold. Deals also went the other way. A customer would ask for something and according to the spreadsheet, it didn't exist, even if it was physically available at another location. Eventually, the need was great enough to drive both Steve and Brandon to come up with a plan to create a dynamic web driven application to track the main big ticket items called stock/units (vehicles, trailers, and toppers).

Brandon went back to Utah on a family vacation and was able to take a dynamic webpage class from the technical college where he previously worked. After the class, he returned to Salida and began working on his very first database web driven mini-application. Its only functions were to track the stock/units (big ticket items), stock items in/out, and mark them as sold (basic inventory tracking). Once completed, the timeline for doing a transaction went from the two days between updates to each salesperson making real-time connections and totally eliminating the old spreadsheet of inventory items. At that point, a number of concepts that are built into adilas started to form. These concepts are enter once, use many, and empower the users at the point of action.

Once the first mini-application was complete, Brandon terminated his full-time employment with Morning Star and became a sub contractor and independent web developer. He started working from home and started his own web-based business and began seeking new clients. Morning Star was still one of his biggest clients, but he no longer worked full-time for them.

As things progressed, more and more options, tools, and features were added to the system. It wasn't long before the operations side (sales) was walking circles around the accounting department. Communications improved, sales went up, and the sales staff loved their new tools. Meanwhile, the accounting department was getting buried and management was looking to add new locations because of improved sales.

Because of the load and stress, the accounting department began to ask for reports with specific dates, data, and totals. Prior to that point, the accounting department had had nothing to do with the inventory tracking system other than the fact that they could login and look at individual stock/units and their histories. A very distinct line was in place and operations could not touch and/or see any of the accounting pieces or functions. Each department only dealt with or played in their department and minimal crossover took place.

As the accounting department slowly began to ask for more and more reports, new tools and new features, the two departments slowly began to interact better. Communications, procedures, and flow started to develop. The commonality became the system. As a matter of fact, they even made the system be the "bad guy" to help spell out the rules and say "No" when needed. If management didn't like what the sales staff was doing, they had Brandon open and close virtual doors to accommodate the correct flow process. More and more permissions where developed to accommodate needs on both sides of the transaction. Real time problems and solutions were beginning to be addressed as they happened.

The operational interface began to lightly feed the accounting department certain values and date sensitive reports. Managers and operations folks began to see numbers and reporting that they had never seen before. A cause and effect cycle began to emerge. This may not seem very big, but it was the start of a huge paradigm shift for the entire company. Managers began watching expenses and taking pride in running a tight store and location. Inventory levels were being tracked, purchases made accordingly and accounting was getting their numbers. Things were starting to flow more smoothly. The entire development process was as follows: 1. Find a specific need 2. Figure out what pieces came from where 3. Take a step in that direction by releasing a new tool, feature, or report. The natural consequence of the user actions would then present the next logical step and management would be able to see where they wanted to go. In a way, the horse began leading the cart instead of the other way around.

The next phase of growth was changing from one corporation into multiple corporations. As the dealership grew, they took on different businesses and acquired others. Steve went to Brandon and asked for the exact same web application for some of his other companies. Each new system needed to be independent so as not to mix numbers and items between corporations. All that needed to be changed were names, locations, tax settings, colors, logos, permissions, and a few other minor tweaks. After adding a number of independent systems, Brandon told Steve that it was getting too hard to keep up with all of the different systems. A single update or change had to be tested in multiple places in order to make sure that it worked with all systems. Users were getting multiple logins to be able to work in different corporations (no cross over existed between the systems). An additional load was added because certain users needed certain functionality in one corporation but not in the other corporations. The current system permissions and roles began to morph into user-specific custom code and began to split the application. More functionality was added but upkeep and maintenance became much harder.

Brandon proposed that they pull back and try to put everything under one roof and build with growth and expansion in mind. This new system could include: multiple permissions that could be assigned to different users by corporation, any number of different corporations, unlimited locations within a corporation, and each corporation could have their own settings and virtual sandbox to play in. To top that off, a bridge or interface could be built to allow a user to switch or cross over between corporations without having to login under that corporation. The entire system would be built on a one-to-many relationship model. Steve liked these ideas and began to think on a more global scale. All of the existing systems continued with minimal enhancements for a number of months.

At this time, Brandon was very involved in a business he had started to teach people how to do snowboarding freestyle tricks and moves through an interactive CD-ROM. Most of his time was devoted to building his own business. He was spending very little time working for Morning Star other than minor special requests. Brandon was looking to have someone take over the work he had been doing for Morning Star as their web developer.

Morning Star needed help with Brandon heading out the door so they hired a new computer guy. Brandon agreed to stay on long enough to train the new guy until he could take over. This required Brandon to dive back into what was going on at Morning Star. About this same time, Steve was dreaming up the concept of creating a "super system" – a web application that could track all of the data for different businesses. He could see the potential of selling this web application as a service to businesses with a reoccurring revenue stream. Steve grabbed the bull by the horns and set up several meetings with Brandon and the new computer guy to share his dream and vision.

It was Steve's idea to begin pulling the operation side and accounting side together like the cogs of a zipper being zipped up until each piece fit in perfectly with the other pieces. Some of the functionality was already in place in a very loose sort of way. Steve had many business ventures (besides his dealerships) in real estate, transportation, small investments, etc. Steve was also in the process of finishing his degree with a dual major in business management and accounting from the University of Phoenix out of Denver. Because of his business knowledge, his entrepreneurial spirit, and experience, he knew that a large gap existed between operations and accounting.

He could envision a way that as he did his day-to-day tasks (operations) that they would automatically show up for roll call on the accounting side of the application. Data would be entered once and then passed along until all of its activity was complete. He wanted to track every penny from start to finish. He also came up with the theory of entering pieces on the operations side and then slowly having them become more firm values, solid dates, and eventually final numbers. He used the analogy of water droplets forming into ice crystals. The droplets start fairly loose (sales) and slowly become crystals, then slush, and then finally becoming completely frozen or iced down. This final output would end up being the actual accounting for the organization. Basically, this was the start of tracking a transaction from beginning to end through its life-cycle. Each key date or status change was flagged and dated and all prior steps were locked down according to user permissions. This became a running history of the objects and data as they moved over time.

About this time, Brandon had a small business loan or note that required a significant payment and funds were tight between trying to push his own products and make the note payment. He began to supplement his normal income by helping to train the new guy and diving in on Steve's idea of this business accounting and operations system (accopps). Within a year, the new part-time computer guy had some family problems and was unable to continue. By this point, Brandon had caught the vision from Steve and both were working almost full time on the project.

All of the existing online systems for the other corporations continued with minimal new enhancements as Steve and Brandon developed a brand new system from the ground up. The new system required a major rework and was purposely built with growth and expansion in mind. Every single page was built from scratch to incorporate the new fields and settings. Scripting and database platforms were changed, servers were added, and the goal began to move toward an open business model instead of just a dealership industry business model. Each new development step opened the vision even further. Ideas and concepts that weren't even possible began to become a reality as the process continued. Cogs of the zipper were slowly coming together from the bottom up.

It wasn't long and the new "Morning Star System" was created. All existing companies migrated from older standalone web applications and started to use the new system. Additional companies and corporations were added under the "Morning Star System" name. No marketing was done and all of the new companies were referrals from current system users. Brandon and Steve were working hard to come up with the next steps and still trying to figure out how to keep pulling the zipper cogs closer and closer together. There were no road maps for doing this. They were truly pioneering ideas and concepts with only a vision, brainstorming, and trystorming (planned experiments) to guide them. The deeper they got, the more they started to see that other companies had the same problems and frustrations that they had already worked through. New companies were ready to pay even though the entire application was not yet finished. A definite "need" was forming.

Steve and Brandon knew that the new system would need a name and would need to become its own company and entity. Over a lunch meeting in Salida, Steve proposed the name of "adilas" which is actually the name Salida spelled backwards. Up to that point, the entire application had been created there in the small mountain town of Salida, CO. The name stuck and an acronym was developed – "all data is live and searchable". As time went on and as each new development step was added to the system, the more this acronym became a living part of the application.

Adilas, LLC was officially created in January of 2008 with the first paying customers in June of that year. Shortly after that, the first paying international customers were added. All in all, there were close to 20 corporations using adilas before it even became an actual entity. All of these companies, from the various industries, had asked to be a part of the process. They were all using the service free of charge up to that point. Each company helped tremendously by providing feedback and ideas that were incorporated into the development process.

The feedback and suggestions from their clients became one of adilas' biggest assets (and still is today). The size and depth of the live test bed was another huge asset that they harnessed virtually for free. It would be nearly impossible for a small company to pay for a test bed of that magnitude. It would have cost millions in research, development, and staff salaries alone. Similar to the cream rising to the top analogy, the ideas and suggestions began paving the way to new features and functions. Over the years, hundreds and hundreds of people have chimed in and made a contribution in one way or another. When asked, Brandon said that "Even our most adamant critics have helped formulate our direction and plans. We are very grateful to one and all. The more holes they would find and point out, the more we just keep trying to fix the problems. It has been awesome!" People from all different walks of life from CPA's, attorneys, bankers, accountants, owners, managers, salespersons, data entry folks, entrepreneurs, and friends have all added their suggestions, ideas, and feedback. Literally hundreds of thousands of hours and millions of dollars have been put into this project. In a way it has become somewhat of a community effort or project.

In seven short years, from 2001 to 2008, adilas went from a mini custom write-up system to a multilevel business platform that is capable of bridging the gap between operations and accounting. The adilas guys have continued to pioneer the way and haven't stopped building. They are working on a master plan that includes a new way of doing accounting called "roll call accounting". This deals with tracking objects and data over time. Operations lead the way and the system is set up to catch and show cause and effect relationships of what was done and how the pieces are tied together. Along the way, each step is dated, flagged, and recorded. The entire story is being captured, mapped, and laid out for users to see. The "roll call" then happens when the user asks the objects and data where they were at any given point in time. The objects and data then virtually respond or report back to the user.

Clients currently use the system to track inventory, manage customers, showcase their products on the web, sell their items and services in an online point of sale system, run retail store fronts, pay bills, track receivables and payables, do their entire backend accounting processes, do payroll, scan and file documents (paperless office), schedule calendar events, run their business, and much more. New features and tools are released almost weekly and the system is gaining momentum and direction. A future training ground called Adilas University (adilasuniversity.biz) is in the works. This will be a dedicated place for training, video tutorials, step-by-step instruction, newsletters, upcoming events, new feature releases, along with a number of other different topics.

The entire application development process is fully paid for and has been through a number of full working releases. It has had hundreds and hundreds of people from different businesses pushing it to see what and where it will go. The story is still unfolding at an incredible rate. The adilas team is still adding new things every couple of days. With each new release, the vision opens up new doors and more options emerge. When asked, Brandon said, "You should see our tick list of where we want to go with this. I can see better training, faster reports, more automation, new custom settings, user defined preferences, and a more visual-type interface. I'm pretty excited about it!" So, it continues… as long as their users keep asking for the next logical step, they will keep building it better and better! The future looks very bright!

For more information about adilas, please visit - www.adilas.biz - If you would like to learn more about adilas, the system, the tools, the theory, the people, please get a hold of them for a free live demo. They welcome questions and love ideas! Contact them at: sales@adilas.biz or 719.439.1761 and ask for Steve.

--- additional contact info: support@adilas.biz - tech support line: 719.966.7102

--- as a fun side note... this document (text above) was created in 2011. Tons of new chapters have been added since then. Today's date is 6/27/19. And so it continues...

One of our virtues is to keep going day after day. We also keep trying to solve and take the next logical step. We just keep doing this over and over again. That's what we do.

Steve and I were talking about our guys. Dustin is doing great. We are excited to see where he will end up and what we can do to help that process. Steve is really excited about Eric and getting him going on more internal stuff. He has been a great custom developer and a great team player. We keep trying to make a one stop solution. That becomes a challenge. Steve was talking about directing the energy of the guys and putting them into the right spot and best fit.

Some of our 3rd party solutions end up giving us a big black eye. We want the outside help... but it kinda comes at a cost.

Steve was talking about an analogy between an arrow and a target. If we are the bow (our company), what arrows are we going to use and where do we point it.

We then started talking about some of the byproducts that Adilas can and does create. We are seeing needs in oversight, compliance, training, sales, consulting, custom development, etc. Steve was saying that one of the main goals is making your CPA happy (on the accounting side). Oversight could a reoccurring service. Some of the other services are reoccurring but they tend to cycle through different companies. It is reoccurring and a never ending need but it does cycle more.

Make a small goal, then regroup and huddle up and make the next plan. Kind of a return and report type model.

Steve and I would like to offer more guidance and help with system oversight. To fit Steve's analogy, we need to be aiming the arrow instead of being the arrow. We tend to through the rope across the river and then someone else could come back and help carve out the trail a little bit better. Steve and I are kinda like pioneers in some ways. We keep trying to solve the problems that present themselves. Some of these projects may include scouting, research, ideas, demos, prototypes, mock-ups, and eventual plans.

Inspect what we expect.

We started talking about a trail type analogy. We want to build to certain points, some of it is pretty stable and awesome, some of still needs some loving, and some of it still needs to be pioneered and explored. It just keeps going.

We have tons of projects... we need to turn some of those ideas and projects into ice (water, slush, to ice). We need to follow the same analogy as we did for operations and accounting. We have an ideal (straight parallel lines) but in real life, it needs to flex a bit. Once we allow the flex bubbles or flex pods, we then put in some checkpoints. That helps us make sure that things get brought back together. We could then add in permission levels and eventually allow it flow just like a data assembly line for code vs a data assembly line for data, inventory, and financials.

We are seeing that we, internally, need to provide some small goals and checkpoints and then help with the oversight to help them get to the next checkpoint. We are building SaaS (software as a service). Do we really know where that is going? The answer is no, we truly don't know. But we do have a good idea (an ideal or a goal or a direction). That is great and may be good enough for now. This is a paradigm shift for us.

Taking and bringing things back to the trystorming type methodology. We make a plan and then keep trying and trying, knowing that we will have to circle around again and again.

We need a plan (even if it is dusty and/or a little rough). We then take action to get there (small goals and checkpoints). We then look at the results and make the next decision. We allow the flex but still provide some checkpoints. We do tons of mini project management stuff all the time. Maybe keep going with that and keep it going from step to step vs planning the whole voyage. We still need a vision and master plan, but keep it small and turn it into attainable steps. As a side note, if we don't get enough communication between our developers, we may need to shorten up the checkpoints and make it into smaller attainable goals and steps. Checkpoint, direction, checkpoint, direction. That would be awesome.

Such a fun conversation. We got into resource planning and management (y axis) type stuff. We want to softly start reaching out and helping our guys and gals hit their stride. A fox that chases two rabbits catches neither.

We had some more talks on the adilas community funded projects and helping to tie things into the adilas tick list (see attached for an excel file). We would like to use these two things and actually use those documents as part of the project management tools and tool sets. We also talked about pulling in a ranking (priority) and using some of the code that Bryan was working on for voting on and creating an adilas community and what they would like us to do and work on. This will be a little mini project for Steve and I. Let's use what we have and start down this little path. Yee haw!

Shannon jumped on from 11 to 12 and we did a work session on prepping a document for an upcoming meeting. It was somewhat of a business planning agenda of sorts. See attached for what we were working on. We know that we need to do some planning and get a more firm or concrete master plan in writing and make that public knowledge, at least within our own company. Right now, the vision resides in heads of a few of the cofounders. We would like to pull that knowledge out and put it in writing and/or make a plan. Once again, see attached for some questions to help get that process started.

Great little session on the look and feel and where we are headed. See attached. Also, here is a small copy of the verbage for the summary we did today.

-- from the attached file under a question about the look and feel and user interface.

Summary: When we started Adilas we decided that we wanted to get functionality done first, followed by look and feel. We know it is time to bring that pretty, modern look and feel into play. Some of these aspects are already being approached and more are on the horizon. 

We have chosen to let the clients lead with their ideas, suggestions, priorities, and funding. This has directed our development and our growth thus far. We recognize that many people would like us to just spend the money and make everything pretty, but then you still may not make the goal or hit the mark, which is continually changing. We feel it is important to keep following the client's lead and this will still be our main approach. 

Having said that, we are definitely planning on extending more services, continuing to evolve and refine the interface, and keep following what is working. This will include getting a master plan in place. Many people have heard us talk about this concept called "fracture" - which is a name for a future project which will be a configurable, dynamic interface that will only turn on whatever pieces you want to see. Fracture will include countless ideas, lessons learned thus far, ways to improve efficiency, and breaking things into smaller modules and pieces. This will include more efficient navigation, dashboards, and user friendly features. 

It's beyond the scope of this summary to fully explain here but this will be incredibly powerful to be able to configure Adilas to whatever level of complexity or simplicity you want. This is like an iceberg mountain analogy. You still have the whole mountain but you only expose what you want to see - just the iceberg portion on top. It can make it feel easier, simpler, and more manageable. 

The current model is composed of numerous, smaller prototypes that have been linked and wired together. Our eventual goal with fracture is to make all of those prototypes have the same look, feel, and flavor. This will be selecting the best of class from over the years and standardizing it across the platform/system.

Even though we are talking about look and feel, taking a team approach, helps us move forward in every aspect of furthering the application and model. People who work together are able to achieve more and that is how we are trending and changing our operations even further. More good stuff to come.

If you type the word "fracture" into the developer's notebook you will begin to see how big our plans and dreams are for what we want to accomplish when we build to this "fracture" plan.

Cory jumped on to the meeting. We were talking about monies being owed to us and from us to others. Maybe even holding projects for payment before starting. Lots of talks about cash flow and getting the development funded that we are doing. We do a lot, we just don't charge for everything. That is both good and bad. We really need to charge for the services that we provide. We tend to do a ton of stuff for free, but that is costing us big time.

We talked about a menu board project and who was going to do what. We have developers who can handle the backend, but they don't have the frontend or design skills to really make it look nice. We have to mix and blend who is doing what. We also talked about breaking the bigger projects into tons of smaller, more manageable mini projects. They, the clients, were requesting a 4th menu board (already have 3), new settings, auto refresh, and tied to quantity on hand.

The concept of an "MVP" (minimal viable product) and how that fits into the bigger or master plan. Either way, you still have to manage these projects from end to end. 

Towards the end, Cory and I spent some time looking into the timeclock issue with the AFB timecards and timeclock app. We ended up checking different versions of the code, working with the backend actions, and looking over code with Cory. I was coding and narrating and she was watching and asking questions.

Working on gathering up ideas and data for a master adilas plan. Reading over notes, developer's notebook entries, and coming up with some scratch files to add to the plan. The goal is gather things, then copy and paste from the scratch document into a more organized and formatted official document of sorts. We may end up using the web, so that we can link and refence all kinds of other things. It also becomes searchable which is awesome.

As a side note for me, I'm seeing the adilas jellyfish model as a great starting point for our master plan. It has all of the services and extensions that we want to build out and define (that we can see right now). See attached for an older copy of that graphic.

Started playing with elements of time and setting up the main pieces for the adilas master plan. Here is a quick breakdown of the time id's.

Master Adilas Plan

All time id's are inside of adilas

2283 - Main Index

2284 - Jellyfish Model

2285 - Value Add-On Core Model

2286 - Adilas University

2287 - Adilas Marketplace

2288 - Adilas Cafe & Community

2289 - Fracture - Future Project

2290 - Budgets & Finances

2291 - Marketing & Sales

2292 - Other Timelines, Plans & Projects

Emails and working on the adilas master plan. Spent some time updating the presentation gallery outline document. See attached. The old starting went a little deeper and was kinda rough. Smoothed out the opening and did some light formatting.

Getting ready to send some documents and starting info over to Steve dealing with the adilas master plan. It's not done, but we are making good progress and I've been gathering tons of info and details and data.

Just for fun, here's another element of time (developer's notebook entry) that deals with what brings value?

One huge advantage of our system is the visibility and transparency of who does what inside the system. If we don't have it, we could easily add it. We currently have tons of histories, log notes, historical data, and data broken into tons of small transactions, all being monitored and recorded in the background. That is awesome.

The sales guys are gearing up to help sell gift cards. Sean and Michael have been pitching some of our existing clients to see if they could help them get started, for some practice runs (doing gift cards and gift card setup).

As part of the sales meeting, Steve asked me if I had any sales ideas. We started getting into a small pitch of where I think things need to go. Basically, a pitch of our pitch (parts of the adilas master plan). Nothing is in stone, but I had been thinking about some ideas and options over the weekend. I pitched the idea of maybe selling some percentages of adilas in order to raise some money. We are shooting for 2 million and basing a budget off of that. As we were talking, Steve was liking what he was hearing, but he also had some hard or tough questions. I wrote a number of these questions down in a Word Doc that I have been working on, but some of them dealt with things like client acquisition costs, life expectancy for clients, what do our clients really like and need (MVP stuff), and how can we roll things out in packages or make the process smoother? How do we get paid back? What are the timelines? What is the ROI (return on investment)? And other great questions. Good discussion.

Eventually, Steve had to bail out and jump on another call/meeting. He wanted to stay but had to go. He told us to keep planning things out. Sean, Michael, and I kept going, talking and laying out the basic pieces of the plan and/or pitch. It's not ready yet, but we want to build and make our own pitch deck (files, assets, and a presentation) for potential investors and co-owners.

As we were talking and drawing things out, Sean said that he heard this from one of our clients - "You (meaning adilas) are sitting on a gold mine." - Renee Grossman - "You just need to finish it!" - Meaning we have a great thing going and being developed. It just needs to be taken to the next level and fully get the i's dotted and the t's crossed. This comment of "You've just got to finish it" inspired some more discussion on helping people catch and believe the vision of what we have and where we are going.

I was giving the analogy of the Death Star from Star Wars and how it was mostly a work in progress but it finished enough to give you the vision of what it could be. I realize that not everybody likes Star Wars, but I liked the analogy. We went through a number of drawings, light sketches and talking about options. I had a fun time, and the guys were chiming in and having fun as well. Basically, I was trying to pitch them on the adilas master plan and recruit their help in building it out further.

Just for fun... I added a small Star Wars graphic that I modified on 3/13/23 to this element of time, just for fun. See attached.

Went into Smithfield to meet with my dad and his friend Harry. We chatted about updates, changes, and plans. I offered to help get them started and/or pay for an adilas power user to help them get started. It may be a great way to help people get going and get started. Basically, assign them a buddy to get them up and going and then they can take over and/or sub it out. After Harry left, I went over some new developments with my dad and lightly was pitching him on our master plan and possible ways of raising funds for adilas projects. That was kinda fun and he was a good listener and was encouraging me to keep pushing on things. We'll see how it all plays out. One of the biggest distractions is time... it takes time to make these plans and then it takes time and funds to make them happen.

Meeting with John and doing some planning. We were going over themes, ins and outs of how to make a new theme in our existing code, folders, paths, settings, and page level controllers. We talked about some of the new code and R&D that Jonathan Wells did. We are looking for feedback. We may end up offering options and pushing the choices over to the users. Tons of toggle on/off switches for the different features.

People don't want to scroll and they want a minimal number of clicks to make something happen. We talked about getting the information (all kinds) into the database. Minimal on the hardcoded pieces. The whole thing becomes data driven.

I was drawing and talking about different things. We would love to create a master plan. John and I started a small google doc to gather some the of the master plan info so we both could access it.

Shari O. jumped in and had some payroll questions. We did some quick research, pulled some records, and helped her make some changes. We got it all figured out.

Working with Aspen to go over our plan for making the plan. Light review and discussing expectations and where we are going. Started in on adding some research links to part of our plan. Pushed up the new stuff to the google doc that John and I had started.

Here is a light version of where we are heading... (just barely starting - for the record, it looks nicer in the google doc)

Master Adilas Plan or Adilas Master Plan

1. Company Structure - Adilas Jelly Fish Model
2. Product Development - Adilas Value Add-On Core Model
3. Education & Training - Adilas University
4. Community & Outside 3rd Party Solutions - Adilas Marketplace
5. Social & Efficiency Options - Adilas Cafe & Community
6. Deeper Product Development - Adilas Lite - Fracture Project
7. Budgets, Finances, Marketing, & Sales - Other Business Plans

New note added on 8/14/23 - For a pretty good breakdown of these projects - just at a high level, see this element of time 10377 and it's photo gallery.

________________

Table of Contents. To-do

All time id's are inside of adilas

2283 - Main Index

2284 - Jellyfish Model

- Research on the Jellyfish model - link

2285 - Value Add-On Core Model

- Research - link

2286 - Adilas University

- Research - link

2287 - Adilas Marketplace

- Research - link

2288 - Adilas Cafe & Community

- Research - link

2289 - Fracture - Future Project

- Research - link

- Adobe XD mock-ups with options

2290 - Budgets & Finances

2291 - Marketing & Sales

- Adobe XD mock-ups with options

- World Building Concepts and Concepts of the Data Assembly Line - Pitching the concepts

- Research on world building, research on data assembly line

- Presentation Gallery - great start for an outline of what adilas does

2292 - Other Timelines, Plans & Projects

All kinds of little things. Emails and reviewing the adilas docs. John had been in there making some changes. Sent an email out about the pivot group meeting tonight to go over ship A and ship B stuff.

Small notes for me - There is a huge value in education alone. If you combine education, training, and maintenance, you have a huge piece of the puzzle. Those pieces will help support the whole. I added in a few research links to our Google doc for master plan research.

Emails and recording notes from older entries. Trying to get caught up. Recording notes from back on 7/11/23 and some of Aspen and I's brain dumping and high level master plan stuff. Then moved on and did notes from 7/17, 7/18, and 7/19.

As a small side note, none of this would be possible (developer notebook entries) if I hadn't scribbled some small post-it notes when it actually happened. On the negative side, it does take a while to transfer that info from pen and paper into digital, but it has great value to me and is worth it. Anyways, this is a small shoutout to the speed of pen and paper as a quick tool (small little scratches). Sometimes I'm presenting or in the middle of a meeting and can't take a digital note or someone will say something and I quickly scribble it down. That's how I roll. Those tools help extend my memory. Good stuff.

The actual meeting with Hamid was from 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm. I spent the first half an hour doing some prep work. Putting him in the system as a user, assigning permissions, and recording a small video for how to record project timeclocks in adilas shop (just under 4 minutes in length).

During the actual meeting we went over how to add project timecards, different tasks, adding, editing, and looking things up. We built some quick links to help him navigate around quicker. We then talked about Snagit and Camtasia for options for internal and external training. Hamid is going to checkout some tutorials there to see how it works. We briefly talked about some of the billboard sites and options there. The other major topic was dealing with helping to refine some documents and make things more presentable. I gave him a few links to check out and we'll slowly start refining some of the pieces of the plan.

Links that I sent to Hamid

- 10,000 foot view of where we are headed... https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=748&id=10377

- More links and research stuff - master plan - https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=748&id=10179

After the meeting, I did some clean-up, reviewing some Snagit files, different videos, and uploading the new video for adding subs of time.