Adilas Key Contributors:

Steve Berkenkotter - Main owner and business partner - original ideas, concepts, and training - sales, relationships, dreamer, visionary, custom code, coordinator, builder of the first industry specific skin, and the list goes on. Huge player in the adilas story and timeline. One of the original owners in Moring Star Automotive - where the system came from. There are three known Steve's in the system notes. Most of them are this Steve (99 out of 100 times). He won't admit it, but adilas was his brainchild.

David Berkenkotter - Steve's brother and business partner in Morning Star Automotive. David was a system user and helped us create the adilas quick search. He liked using that feature, the quick search, but it only existed on one page originally. He wanted us to put it on every page. That ended up being in the header. He was also one of the original partners in adilas. Power user in the system. Sadly, he passed away due to cancer.

Shari Olin - Commonly known as "Shari O.". She worked in the accounting department back in the Morning Star days. She has been somewhat of a mother hen to help all of us crazy chickens keep going. She helps with customer support, training, payroll, bill collection, and tons of backend office functions. Major power user. Just being silly, but she can have the mouth of a sailor but the heart of an angel. Part of the adilas admin team and a great friend.

Craig Leitner - Also part of the original Morning Star team. Craig was the automotive floorplan and bank guy. He is a power user in the system and does a lot of bank reconciliation and other tasks. He currently works with Steve and asks as the adilas controller (money flow guy).

Cory Warden - Originally an adilas rep and consultant. Cory become part of the team after being a rep for quite some time. She helps with customer care, client support, project management, and keeping the team on track. She also does all of the news and updates and other training material. Cory does tons of oversight type services for our clients. Power user and part of the admin team.

Sean Carlton - Sean was a manager at a Cannabis dispensary in Colorado that used adilas for years and years until they sold. Steve recruited Sean to help with sales, deployment, and training. Sean brings lots of usage experience. Often, he is one of the helpers if we need to send someone onsite to help with a deployment or training session. Power user.

Brandon Moore - I'm one of the guys that writes most of the developer's notebook entries. Originally, I was hired by Morning Star, the automotive dealership, to help with data entry, accounting, and website stuff. I ended up being one of the main adilas developers and architects. I build content, write code, help other developers and team members, and help with training. Helped start the project back in 2001 under the Morning Star name.

Chris Dunsey - One of the first adilas interns (developers). Helped with a number of projects. Ended up being somewhat of a consultant later on.

Shawn Curtis - Kinda a funny story. He was taking a developer's class at Bridgerland. He knew my brother Russell. He asked to join our developer class and became one of the first interns along with Chris Dunsey. Shawn ended up helping with payroll and other projects. Some of the photo galleries in the system came from Shawn's help. He also worked on the media/content (file upload) pieces. Later on, he did more payroll work and acted as a buddy to Brandon and did some consulting work. We worked together for years and years.

Russell Moore - Russell is my younger brother. Originally, he was added to the group because of his graphic skills. He ended up being a great backend developer and project manager. He has also acted as a trainer and mentor for Brandon along the way. Much of the current system came from projects and efforts that Russell was involved with. He has also been Brandon's AI tutor in recent years. Great help to the system. Huge contribution.

Chris Johnnie - He is an entrepreneur who teamed up with Russell to help create a company called "Adilas For Business" or "AFB". Eventually, both Russell and Chris sold their pieces back to adilas. They were honestly the first ones to really try to run as a white label of adilas. This was back in 2015 and 2016. Chris really helped to push the product to the next level along with Russell's help.

Danny Shuford - Longtime friend of Steve's. Danny helped with some website design, sales, and videos for adilas. He even got into creating custom PDF labels for clients. Light development work.

Marisa Shaw - She is Danny's daughter. Danny brought her to an adilas training event in Denver, CO. Marisa was the star student. She ended up helping with some graphics, flyers, marketing material, teaching, instruction, and planning. Power user. Very helpful.

Shannon Scoffield - Shannon is Brandon and Russell's sister. Her maiden name is Shannon Moore. Huge help and virtual assistant to Brandon. She has helped with training, project management, and content creation. Most of the major content sessions were or have been with Brandon and Shannon working together. When they, Brandon and Shannon, were traveling, Shannon was one of the primary adilas instructors. If she was teaching Brandon was taking notes. If Brandon was teaching, Shannon was taking notes. Power user.

Cheryl Moore - Cheryl is my mom. What an asset. She owns a small business and has owed a few different ones. When we were doing training sessions, she came to every one of them. She asked wonderful questions and was a great supporter. Sometime, I would use her as a test subject - can my mom do this? If yes, we are good. If not, we may need to keep tweaking it. Thanks mom!

Wayne Moore - Wayne is my dad. He was my hiking buddy and more than willing to talk about ideas and concepts on our walks and hikes. He helped out with video stuff and was a great coordinator for making other connections. He worked at Bridgerland (technical college) and helped us get setup with classrooms, computer labs, and other great connections. Huge cheerleader! There is another Wayne, Wayne Andersen, he is a backend developer, systems guy, and database guy.

Wayne Andersen - This Wayne lives in Portugal and helps with all of the backend security, server, and code testing. Major skills, writes code, helps push all of us to new technologies, partially retired but loves to play with tech stuff. If you search for Wayne and it deals with concepts and coordination stuff, that's my dad, Wayne Moore. If you search for Wayne and it sounds like a master backend guy, that's Wayne Andersen.

Alan Williams - One of the lead developer's at adilas.biz. Alan joined us in 2015 and quickly came up through the ranks. Trainer, CTO, team lead, master developer, prototyper, and system architect. Alan has helped with many projects and features over the years. He also helped Brandon with some of the prep work for the adilas lite (fracture) plans and project. Sometimes called "Dr. Alan" by the other developers. Example: This might be a project for Dr. Alan.

Bryan Dayton - Bryan has been one of the most versatile guys on our team. Originally, he joined a development class out of curiosity. He and Brandon live in the same town and know each other from church. Bryan has done more custom code or small system projects than almost any other developer. He also joined the team in 2015. He helps with sales, custom projects, pushing on projects that he thinks will yield a return. Lots of work on the adilas lite and fracture project. Very hard working and versatile.

Dustin Siegel - Developer who helped with numerous cannabis and cultivation type projects. He worked directly under Steve to help with that business vertical. Many of the original pages that Steve built were taken over and remade by Dustin.

Eric Tauer - Developer and custom code guy. Originally, Eric knew Steve and lived in Salida, CO. As a note, adilas is Salida spelled backwards. Eric has a background in database work and data warehousing. Eric has done tons of custom systems for clients. Often, Eric would pioneer certain features or logic, as custom code, and then we would bring those features into the main adilas application.

Garrett Kirschbaum - Adilas intern and then full developer back in 2015. Stressful time of building and expansion. He and others helped run the adilas shop with Brandon's help. Garrett was a great developer and helped us standardize a number of tools and features. He was the first developer to work on sub inventory, back in the day. He also did other projects and helped with some developer management stuff.

Charles or "Chuck" Swann - Charles was an instructor at Bridgerland for web development. He builds custom websites, does amazing mock-ups, prototypes, and is a CSS master (styling a website using code). Chuck worked with Russell to help with redesign work, projects, and vision. Chuck worked fulltime for a number of years and now works and coordinates work done by a small hand-picked design and development team. Anything that needs some design loving gets passed over the Chuck and his small team.

Steve McNew - Friend of Steve Berkenkotter's. This Steve helped prep some whitepaper documents to help with getting adilas standardized and some internal audit type stuff. Mostly white papers and putting things down on paper. He ended up getting hired by the local school district and wasn't able to finish the process, but he got it started. He asked some great questions, and we had some good conversations.

Abby Elkins - Abby is Brandon's daughter. Her maiden name was Abby Moore. Abby, when she was little (10-12 years old) helped with some of the original concept artwork for adilas. Later on, she helped with content for the presentation gallery and then the adilas lite plans (fracture). Currently, she is working graphic artwork for different adilas pages. She's now in her mid 20's and has some awesome art and content skills.

Aspen Moore - Aspen is Abby's younger sister and Brandon's daughter. Aspen helped Brandon with some planning and counseling (mental help). Aspen also did some general business consulting with her dad Brandon.

John Maestas - Developer, backend server guys, and designer. John came to us through Dustin. John was uses as a jack of all trades on the backend and frontend. He did numerous projects, documentation, payroll, and page redesign projects. John was also very help to Brandon in working on the notes and comments on the SWOT analysis document. Many other projects as well. Good vision of the future.

Kiva Berkenkotter - Steve's wife. She helped Steve with various projects and planning sessions. At one point, she was in charge of paying commissions and collecting monthly reoccurring payments. Huge supporter to Steve!

Heather Moore - Heather is Brandon's wife. What a trooper. Cheerleader, support, ideas, and consulting. Huge asset to Brandon (me). Thanks Heather!

Jonathan Wells - Designer and mock-up guy. He helped to map out the system and created a number of deep mock-ups for adilas lite (fracture) projects. Great job catching the vision and putting those pieces into a visual representation. We still refer to his work when talking about fracture (future project for adilas).

Jonathan Johnson - Business consultant from Epic Enterprises. Met with Brandon and Steve in end of 2019 into 2020. Really helped us see some needs and opportunities. Later, helped Brandon with some other consulting when trying to define the fracture plan.

Calvin Chipman - Windows software developer. Calvin also did a bunch of web-based work, database stuff, label printing, and API socket stuff. Calvin was the first developer to use the adilas API's to create a native mobile app for a client. He also built a number of special developer tools used by some of our team to speed things up. He's the tool guy!

Cody Apedaile - Bryan Dayton's cousin, Cody helped with a bunch of JavaScript code and changes. He also spent some time working on the UML diagram for the adilas database. We didn't get things finished, but he was working on a new build your own interface (custom to you) for adilas. We ran out of funding. We want to get back to that project at some point.

Dave Forbis - Dave was the official "high tech gofer". He did a bunch of things. Graphics, project management, brainstorming, planning, sales, and helped with managing developers for the adilas shop. He was another great student. He came to a number of training courses and brought so much to the courses. He was also a big support to Brandon during some rough times.

Josh - There are three Josh's. Josh Wheeler, Brandon's friend and developer. Josh Sagert, developer and adilas user (worked tons on the discount engine), and Josh White, Steve's friend from California. Josh White has brought us a number of bigger leads and bigger players, like franchises, and other higher-end clients. Anything recent is Josh White, from California. He helps with networking, sales, and dreaming of new things.

Suzi Distelberg - Sales, training, and deployment. She also worked with some custom projects and doing step-by-step user guides. She has helped with all kinds of projects and even gone onsite for setups and training. Great asset!

Kelly Whyman - Kelly is Dustin's wife. Kelly was single handedly the best independent sales rep that adilas had. She did training, consulting, and sponsored a number of custom projects. Kelly helped Steve and Brandon with reports, functionality, and other things. She got so good at things, state contracts snagged her up to work at state and multi-state level stuff.

Molly Hennessy - Molly was another independent sales rep and consultant. She had numerous clients and got into doing SOP's (standard operating procedures) and other high-end documentation and training. Molly was an entrepreneur and even started creating some of her own product and services. If you search adilas on google, some of the other results are from Molly. Super creative and a great consultant.

Hamid Karbasi - Developer - He has worked with Brandon doing small websites, training, and small tasks. He currently is a manager at a retail store and brings some managerial type skills to the table. Willing to talk about concepts and how they apply to retail and other environments. He is also lightly helping with some planning for fracture.

Gene Spaulding - Friend, entrepreneur, and businessman. Gene is an old college friend. We had a number of friends in common. He has been a small mentor to me over the years. Way back, before adilas, he helped me get my first business loan for a project that I was working on.

Sharik Peck - Friend, entrepreneur, public speaker, physical therapist, and businessman. Good influence and mentor in ways. Sharik and I used to exercise together back in the day. Many of fun walk, run, and weightlifting session. Learning some conference and training skills from him and his wife. They have done really well pushing their product lines and doing some marketing. Trying to get some ideas.

Bridgerland Technical College - Use to be Bridgerland Applied Technology College. Not a person, but a huge help. This is a local technical college in the Logan, UT, area. Brandon's dad, Wayne, worked there. Tons of assets. They provided classrooms, training options, computers, and even an small incubation spot (starter office space) for the adilas shop during the startup phase. Huge asset!

McCorvey's Pro Shop - Also known as Bowling World. Client that had multiple locations. The started out with around 30 and grew up to the 90+ location level, all using adilas. Long time client.

Emerald Fields - They were the first client that wanted their own fully dedicated box and server. They had multiple locations and requested some custom code, reports, and features.

Beaver Mountain Ski School - Client that we helped them track their ski school (snow sport) lessons. Students, instructors, classes, and schedules. Custom interface dealing with elements of time and flex grid.

Bear 100 - This was the first event or annual event client that we did. They used the system for about a week each year. They had 350+ runners and their families that would be on the site for multiple days straight. It was a 100 mile running race with 13 aid stations and a small social portal for the family and friends to watch their runners. This one was special as it had custom input options to upload CSV files to populate the database vs normal HTML form field entries. Records were sent in batches from remote places to adilas for storage and race progress.

High Valley Bike Shuttle - Online ecommerce and scheduling client. They also have a cafe and small retail store. Fun online scheduling and bulk flex grid projects.

Herbo - Mike Roundtree, owner of Herbo, was the first company to do a small white label of adilas. Mike has been a great asset to Steve and the two of them have worked on projects, plans, and dreams. Herbo also has a custom payment solution that they are trying to market and get rolling. Mike has been a great supporter for years. He is also a certified CPA and that credential helps us and him. We would like to get other CPA's on board as well. Thanks Mike!

Nxtlinq AI - AI assistant. These guys really pushed us to get an AI agent inside of adilas. Tons of development took place and lots of prep stuff. We wanted to do a 3-part plan for integrating AI. 1. Teach it how to navigate using the AI quick search (check - done), 2. Teach it all things adilas. and 3. Teach it how to be clear up at the consultant type level. We only got the first phase done. Lots of other plans and such, but we ran out of funding.

Grok AI - Steve loves using Grok. He has built a number of image generation options inside of adilas. He is also working with Grok to feed it data to help with analytics and AI insight. This is not finished yet, but we may end up using Grok as an AI assistant inside of adilas. We have simple and emerging connections available right now but need to really polish things up before going live with the AI assistant options.

ChatGPT AI - We have started using ChatGPT to help with code, explanations, explore resources, planning, and help with training and flow for people and other AI bots. Currently, Brandon, Steve, Bryan, Alan, Josh, Russell, Chuck, and Wayne are using AI in either ChatGPT chat sessions or some other form of AI. We have some using Copilot, Gemini, Claude, etc. AI is actually helping in many ways. ChatGPT is a big one for use. Anyways, they are earning their place in the adilas key contributors list.

There are so many more that I can't list. Developers, users, power users, reps, consultants, trainers, clients, accountants, friends, family, and even critics. They have all helped out the idea farming process and progression. Good stuff! We couldn't have done this alone. It takes a community to do what we are doing.

Wasn't able to make the meeting. Steve McNew and I sent some emails back and forth to touch base.

Touching base with Steve McNew. He is working on a number of high level white papers for our group. Here are some of the subjects that we spoke about this morning.

- Training and roles – Within your staff - Make a list of who does what and how well they do things - Maybe even a matrix or sorts.

- Degrees or levels – Help, solve, knowledge - Who can help on a project, who is going to solve the issue, who has some prior knowledge or experience with a project or topic?

- One deep vs two or more deep (better options) – Meaning who is working on the projects? One deep is a solo worker (one man team). Two deep (or more) become a small team or a partnership of sorts.

- Installs – Sales and security - We need sales and talk about sales - That is one of the focuses. Having said that, we also need to include some security items in the sales pitch. Let our clients know that we take security seriously and do it well. That is a big part of sales.

- Security – Physical and systems - Steve McNew wants to write up a couple of white papers dealing with security.

- Training philosophy - Not just the training, but also the philosophy of why and how we do the training. Steve McNew was thinking that this may help us on our journey.

Meeting with Steve McNew. We started out talking about volunteering and helping in our communities. Invest in the youth. Give, give, give. Good stuff.

He will be giving me some new white papers. Light touches to keep things together. Impact analysis, gather the small nuggets that we gain and find, and keep moving towards some more technical white papers. Steve also stated that he is willing to help us out with technical input and consulting, if we ever want to go in that direction.

After Steve McNew left, Steve Berkenkotter and I chatted over the GoToMeeting session. We can take our product out to custom levels, out of the box, better than some companies can do plain custom. We are built for that, in a way.

We talked about moving towards flex attributes (in-line database extensions) for employees and invoices. The employee stuff could be for HR (human resources) and other internal things. Invoices are so used in our system, allowing flex attributes to those would be huge. Once again, custom options right out the box. Build your own - whatever!

The shelf (code repository or code graveyard) - We would love to get some of the older projects off the shelf and make them part of the big picture (really deploy and launch them). We have some projects like: dynamic sales tax naming and new sales tax buckets, invoice due dates, save reports for stock/units, and tons of others. They are sadly, just sitting on a shelf, getting older and further and further away from the current master branch. It takes time and resources to get in there and revitalize those pieces and make them part of the bigger picture or part of the whole.

We would also love to make things as dynamic as possible from the get go. Build with that mentality in mind.

Meeting with Steve McNew and Steve Berkenkotter. Both Steve's were on for a bit. Then Steve Berkenkotter had to bail out and just Steve McNew and I chatted and went over some things together.

Here are some rough notes:

- Trying to push more on sales

- Ideas on prospecting with customers and doing demos

- We will need to keep building out the info graphics - a good image speaks a thousand words

- Refining the installation plans and deploying new clients - getting them going well and properly

- Steve Berkenkotter's top 3 on the tick list, as of right now - 1. Sales, 2. Work on earn and burn ratios, and 3. Servers (being able to split up databases - datasources and/or world building project - bus to motorcycles transition)

- Top 5 things from the conference that we just had from Steve McNew - see attached - 1. Helping Kelly with an installation plan, 2. Working with Sean on deployment processes, 3. Bug tracking and getting things tighter, 4. Communications and collaboration within our team, and 5. Projects and planning pieces (heading toward fracture).

Dustin was checking in on his bulk move by batch number project. Sean checked in as well. After checking in, they both bailed out to work on their own projects. I spent the rest of the time reading some new whitepapers from Steve McNew on different subjects. Merged in some custom labels for Danny.

On Friday, June 11th, 2021 we had an internal conference day for just the adilas team. We went from sales to internal code to ideas and plans. All over the place. See attached for my notes. Many great things were discusses. Once again, this was an internal team meeting, but we don't mind sharing what we were talking about. :)

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The attached notes are better formatted, but I wanted to push some of them here for searchability:

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Group Sales Meeting

Marisa, Danny, John, Cory, Sean, Steve, Dustin, Shari O., Dawn, Brendan, Steve (mac), Brandon, Chuck, Alan, Kelly, Bryan

- Kelly was saying that there is some public records per states

- We may try to pull our own list

- Questions... who, what, where, how good, etc.

- Maybe look at a sample of 10

- We may need a more focuses approach

- What about different industries?

- We need to get the name out there

- Kelly was pitching a social presence

- Do we know anybody who wants to do the social stuff

- Word of mouth

- Testimonials

- Some new video graphics

- To the penny, to the gram, every day

- What about small streaming commercials – focused and pointed

- Kelly recommends that we maybe focus on a slightly larger pool

- Dawn – maybe focus on start-ups or that small to medium range

- Get them at the beginning – maybe even tradeshows

- It is a pain in the but to switch over – pain creates options for change

- Focus on services... deployment, oversight, consulting, training, best practices

- How can we deploy something easily and repeatable?

- It is tough to get some of the people started, but once they get all in, they tend to stay

- Kelly has done this over and over again

- Using the professional resources that are available

- From Kelly – Help get the clients all the way in – full system and platform

- Getting the success on the first implementation and then building from there

- What about focusing on those who are having trouble and/or are struggling

- Dawn loves the support, training, and feel good part of it – duplicate that feeling to others

- How quick can we respond – we jump pretty quickly on custom needs, development, training, and support

- Get more testimonials from our clients

- We have some experience to offer to those who want it

- What about pitching best business practices

- It's ok to be non-traditional

- Being Relevant!

- Focus on helping over sales – from Steve (mac)

- Simple things that bring the relevant pieces

- Social webbing – group effort

- Danny, straight up, I don't want to be the social media guy! We have to find the right person and/or persons (small little team)

- We are not QuickBooks... what does that mean? Be our own style!

- Packaging this platform based on the target audience

- Formulating a plan – ease the lift – maybe a monthly meeting with some planning

- Influencers and YouTube options

- Small info tips...

- New age marketing – we have to play to the current market

- Big Dumb Animal Pictures – super simple

- We have to do a cost analysis to see which one(s) make more sense for us

- John, what if we setup our own little social piece (aka maybe the adilas cafe) – we could allow all of our users and power users to pitch and promote – we may need to approve things, but we have tons of very knowledgeable people and users

- We are looking for engagement – back and forth – a relationship – maybe get an intern to help handle this

- Danny – Switching over to the modal message marketing

- How to save the app to your phone

- Make the email piece better

- Small web tool to help with building special html links to embed promotions, direct add to cart, discounts, campaigns, etc. A simple form to help with the backend tech of those URL's and web links.

- Maybe, we need to upgrade our email platform. It is a small holdover from years gone by.

- What about the delay on the outbound emails?

- Marisa – maybe outsource things as needed

- Steve – would like more input on the bulk tools

- Better filtering and target marketing

- Steve wants to work direct with Dawn and Branden

- Matrix and target marketing – even predictive

- Maybe a little itty bitty (super small) native app on the different phones – iOS, Android, etc.

- Steve wants to get into possible predictive marketing

- Steve – looking for great feedback and even ideas and dreams...

- Archiving, saving for later, dismissing, etc. We have the data, what do we want to do with it? – Wet clay...

- Danny – Going back to past clients

- Version 1 vs Version 2 – type attitude

- What kind of clients do we want? We may not want certain kind of clients.

- We love people who like details and are willing to play

- We love people who take things to the fullest level

- We love people who just need a small little piece – there is a gap in their current model and they need some help. We can then grow from there.

- Do a full comparison of what we offer

- Pitch what we do differently – we help deploy and maintain your ERP

- White glove approach

- Playing with the tools that we have and flipping those into marketing messages

- Chuck – maybe check out some groups on Facebook

- Blog posts, articles, info snippets, quick videos

- Talking with Kelly – how have we helped small businesses become bigger or big business – showing the potential – dreams to reality

- The small goals to achieve – steps to get to the next level

- Small goals lead to bigger goals – getting some small successes along the way

- Clients and expectations – not all money is the same – budgeting and planning – what kind of client do we want

- Reoccurring revenue vs one-time revenue

- A quote is just one of many pieces that needs to be done

- People, skills, and cogs in the wheel

- We all care... where would you and your skills fit in best

- Seeing the bigger picture

- Maybe looking at personalities and figuring out the mixing and blending of our options and resources

- Slowing down and taking the time to see where we are at? Virtual time travel – child, youth, adult – as a company

- What's the difference between a goal and dream? A plan!

- The internal group summary that we did... a great start

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Second session - Servers & Infrastructure - Refining Our Processes - Tech Support & Training - Project Management

Steve wants us to show the online label builder

- We had some good talk about where we want to go

- We pointed to our internal summary report

- Steve McNew – helping with the strategic marketing plan, technology road map, timelines to position, plans for action

- Scale – can we grow and can we shrink

- Conversation between big and small – perspective – big and small (sales, number of team members, lines of code, etc.)

- Molly – Is adilas the big guy or the small guy? Think of code (lines of code). We could be considered a big guy if you were looking at code and functionality.

- We like being small (ish), but what if we are big already

- If we want to grow, that means that we want to get better – grow in a good manner and sustainable manner

- The underlying services that support the whole

- Be your own style!

- Steve McNew – old classmate with Steve Berkenkotter – guest speaker – part of the adilas team to help us get some things more standardized – processes and procedures

- Defense contractor for the military – 28 years

- Testing, software, management, auditor

- He has already called, interviewed, and talked with a number of different team members

- He did a 20 page audit and report on what he was seeing

- Getting into some testing and processes – he would like to see more of this

- Not trying to derail the train – we are trying to polish the Ferrari (spelling – awesome car)

- Whitepapers – catering to a higher audience – going beyond stick figures and into technical docs – not everybody will want to read some of these, but there will be some that require it

- Steve B – if we try to sell our product to those who can't afford it, it doesn't really work. They have to be able to pay for what we do (really do – billing for our time and efforts)

- Fin-tech – financial technology

- Using whitepapers as part of our marketing plan

- John M – unit testing – confidence of the developer team – currently only Wayne and Alan are doing this (unit testing)

- Going to ease into this – refining our testing plan

- Version control and when do we update these systems? The older way was wild west... we may want to figure out some specific micro builds.

- It would be nice to keep track of the versions and options.

- The balance between core and custom development

- The application needs some spring cleaning – what is being used, what isn't, what is going slow, etc. – Refactoring

- Priorities – customer priorities or our internal priorities – what is the mix and blend of these pieces

- We all ware many hats... we may need to define that so that we don't overstretch ourselves

- We all use (and can use) the system in different ways – how do we translate that information to our clients, other developers, and other team members (upstream and downstream)

- 2 minute videos – no more

- Work instructions – even giving it to someone who has never done anything in the system

- Danny – Shoutout to Steve and Brandon – we have done great – what is coming next? Resources?

- Talks about earn and burn ratios

- Prices have to match the services

- We are a growing business

- Kelly – going from 1.5 to 10 (millions) – that is a huge change

- We are competing with companies that are hugely funded... what do we want to do?

- There are some real things in our path – there is tons of potential – what do we want to do with it – also, sometimes there is shelf life on potential or advantages

- We don't want debt – however, there is a time for debt – cost analysis and being smart about it

- Making choices, but also being willing to fail

- Marisa – look at our new website

- Steve – there are some percentages of adilas that are available – not looking for vulture capital (just being silly – vulture vs venture)

- Someone looking to take on some risk but helping us to get to the next level, without taking over the company

- Kelly – pitching our vision and business plan – we have to define the vision – Danny seconded the define the vision before looking for the funding – goals, sales, budgeting, maintenance, and getting a business plan.

- Adilas Trust option – co-founders

- Possible option – Maybe take some of IP (intellectual property) and sell that to a new entity and then restructure those new pieces

- Dustin – thoughts on corporate structure – we are all on our own little islands – Ferrari to a tricycle – frontend compared to backend – splitting up those pieces and functions – he wishes that we could be more collaborated.

- John – teams and buddy projects – small sub teams – full stack (all levels) vs specific skills or somewhat limited skills – this needs to be part of our plan.

- Sean – we already have some small teams that are working on some of these projects – cogs of the wheel – buddy tagging the workflow and processes

- John – the adilas docs project – and being able to go to it and also add to it – working on standardizing the pieces – filling in the gaps

- Danny – Navy Seals – two is one, and one is none – at least two on a project – two-by-two

- Kelly – scale – having a back-up

- Danny – accountability back and forth

- John – confidence levels

- Kelly – what about a succession plan?

- John and Dustin – real life buddies and how they help out each other – seeing a different angle or perspective

- Marisa – tooooooooo much weight gets put on single persons

- Kelly – relieving pressure and helping with scale

- Marisa – Cory, Kelly, and Marisa – wonderful training slides, presentation, and delivery for the conference. Awesome job!

- Alan – modularize things – able to be reused – code concepts can relate to business functions – one to many relationships – translating knowledge into real life and different scenarios

- Chuck – last summer Chuck was on a joint project with he, Russell, and a different John. It worked out awesome – Keep pushing towards that kind of rollout of the project

- Molly – thinking and coming up with ideas. Keep it going!

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Next Session - Deployment & Oversight - Design & Layout - Internal Core Development - Custom Development 

- Deployment – where are we going and how can we make this all work – team effort

- Shari O. – first touch and setup corp, Sean and Shay first hour or so, Sean helping to coordinate the next steps and pieces

- Sean does a great job of reporting back

- Report on things, record the notes, get back with us to help us keep pushing

- Doing great with testing and prototyping

- Kelly – who is on settings, who is on planning, maybe even looking at pre-deployment options

- Before Kelly even does a demo, do some consultation – figure some things out without doing any pitching or selling. This is called listening.

- What are you looking for, wanting, expecting, hoping for?

- Make the demos custom to the pain points or key wants and needs

- The prep work is huge to help them be successful

- This platform is not a turn on and go type system – there may be pre demo, consulting, custom planning and demo, then custom hand holding to get them going down the road

- Picking the point of contact... who is going to own this thing?

- Owners, managers, and users

- Users want the easy button – Steve calls this the tail wagging the dog vs the dog wagging the tail – what is and how can we get buy in?

- Tools are great, but solutions to problems and pain points are even better

- Give to get! If you give too much, it can get you into trouble.

- What is the cost to fixing things... on the other hand, failing does help with major learning – there has to be a balance

- We tend to remember pain – setting people up for success

- Often users are looking for a quick switch. This system takes work. Please sell it that way.

- Not going to custom too quickly – learning the manual way – then automating it

- User buy in – light pain and then helping them learn a better way

- Change proposals and scope of work – setting up boundaries

- Feature creep – setting that scope of work – cause and effect of what they want and what they give – expectations and timelines

- Sometimes I start with NO – interesting

- A saying no - sandwich... Yes, I'd like to, no, I can't. Yes, I would love to help do this... - people think that no is a bad word

- Having a plan to say yes, vs just saying yes

- We like to please people – that is awesome – what does that cost?

- Help make the plan to say yes. Maybe, no (first), however we could do this...

- Making things repeatable

- What are the internal costs to do deployment?

- Say $350 for a setup fee – does that cover it? If yes, great. If no, where does that put us?

- Maybe on the setup, prep, an activation fee (define this – turning on the lights), setup and deployment fee (range), training, custom code, imports, labels, etc.

- We like to cater to everyone – that had bitten us

- Actual prices and then use discounts if needed. You can't really ever raise a price after the fact.

- Back-up our prices

- Use adilas to run adilas!!! This is our communication tool, let's use it.

- We are good at the dreaming and software building part of things, we need some major loving on the service side

- There is demand!

- What pulls at our time - It is time, money, skills, etc.

- Kelly – earn has to be more than burn

- Flipping the demand to sales or services that could be provided

- MVP – minimal viable product, plan, player, etc.

- Intangibles

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Next Session – Show and tell! What are you working on?

Calvin – Advanced file and folder finder, resize images, convert images

Brandon – harvesting assets from element of time

Steve – parent attributes report, items not on a recipe (manufacturing), modal message marketing for customers, log notes for vendors and employees (payee/vendor logs), backorders homepage, mini units, auto add item (quick PO behind the scenes), bulk update on the vendor – master copy paster... :)

- Branch 122 – fun

Bryan – cfqueryparams – stop SQL XSS (database hacks – cross site scripting)  - SQL injection – converting from dynamic queries to secure dynamic queries - Example: Corp_id = #Trim(some form or URL var)# or Corp_id = <cfqueryparam etc, etc,> - this stops the SQL hacks

Bryan is also working on eChecks for eXPO, Hypur checkout in the shopping cart (eComm), new API's for delivery (with documentation and samples)

John – Payroll project to allow holiday date picking, timecard flags, timecard totals (pre summing the math to go faster and lead towards bulk payroll), new timecard reports showing grouped sums and totals.

Page templates and style guide defaults with Chuck – Going from old school tables and links to the newer grid and mobile ready code. Part of the adilas docs project. Build once, use many (effective copy and paste). Basic templates (3 new ones). New information icons and popups (modals). Style guides and usage of those pieces.

Servers with Wayne

Chuck – Huge new web site!!! Awesome Job!!!

Global Design Dashboard, adilas docs, and new presentation gallery (sales tool).

Danny – message marketing, custom labels, sales team meetings – hats off to all of us! Keep listening and keep finding solutions. Open table – follow your highest excitement and be yourself! Be happy!

Alan – enterprise level catalogs, refactoring code (custom page settings), standardizing code for speed and reliability.

Random comments – Cory really liked having access to all of the team members, right here at the conference. Marisa – great to meet everyone – keep floating the boat. Sean – he likes the team. Molly – loved watching and wants to be involved. Chuck – idea of everyone joining slack

Meeting with Steve McNew - consultant and software engineer who is helping us refine, define, and standardize our processes and procedures.

He is working on some adilas docs and whitepapers - structure and design behind what we are building.

We started out our meeting with me reporting to Steve McNew (steve mac) about harvesting graphics, creating training curriculum, and refining some of our processes. All of those are things that we are trying to nail down and get ready before the upcoming training conference in the middle of June. Steve then asked about some of our refinements that we are making and also asked if we could quantify (counts, status, ratios) any of our claims. He is trying to get me to think about taking what we do (normally) and being able to repurpose those same tasks as marketing messages.

Here is an example of taking the normal and making it into a marketing message: I told Steve that we moved and migrated some domain names and servers. Tons of code changes and database reference changes (hundreds of thousands of path and pointer changes). With that project, we created a new database, field/column level, find and replace tool. I explained it that way, how I just wrote it. Steve said, you could take that same thing (find and replace tool) and say something like - Able to handle end of life transitions in a fast and effective manner. His way sounded a lot cooler than mine...

Steve showed me some of the white papers that he is working on. See attached for a small screenshot. He is starting to take our old images, graphics, and core concepts and mixing them with other technical documents. Our goal is to slowly step towards a more refined stack, role, and define what tools and techniques we use to get there. We talked about promoting and highlighting some of our proof of concept pieces, end-of-life tools and transitions, cost-benefit analysis, etc. Basically, using what we already do and adding to it to bring it up to par (a higher level, whatever that may be). This means using our concept drawings and analogies and putting more technical terms and drawings to make it seem more professional.

We went over some other topics such as document templates, risk management, and connecting the dots. We have a ton of content and do a lot of good things already. We just need to bring them out more and fully connect all of the dots. Along this way, I was amazed at how I could say something and Steve would rephrase it as a virtual marketing message. I would explain something and he would take the same thing and flip it so that it sounded cool. Sometimes with just the slightest word, phrase, or verbage change. Almost a virtual positive spin on things... like lemons to lemon-aid type flip/flop. Lots of opportunities.

Towards the end of the meeting, Steve showed me some quick and dirty drawings (simple boxes, flow charts, arrows, and text labels). He wants to help us capture the how and the why. That is awesome. Exposing the layers and looking at things from different perspectives on what we are doing and how things flow together. That sounds exciting. Great meeting.

Here is a link to an online drawing app that Steve recommended.

General topic: Adilas docs and whitepapers - structure and design behind what we are building

Steve McNew and Cory joined me for a meeting to go over some backend structural planning. We were looking into how we deal with builds, software integration, plans, and configuration options. Lots of talk about architecture, configuration management, guides, checklists, etc.

We build and break, build and break. We want to capture the benefits of what we are doing and then polish and market those pieces. Figuring out what is working and other options that would fit well with our company. We talked about project management, ideas, and other possible options. We will end up cherry picking things and turning them into marketing messages. I'm really excited about that.

We talked about quick check-ins and communications within our group. Going to the next level on standardizing our processes.

Online meeting with Steve McNew. We went over some design and structure documents. Trying to help build a more stable structure and foundation. Light planning on the upcoming adilas conference. Open input cycles, funnels (tools), prototyping, and building the dream. Nice meeting.

Reviewing a document from Steve McNew (Mac) about the adilas structure and where we are headed expanding into more structured engineering practices.

Meet with Steve McNew via GoToMeeting. Steve M. lives in Colorado and is a retired software engineer and project manager for US Air Force level project and contracts. He is going to be helping Steve Berkenkotter (normal Steve) and I out with taking things to the next level.

Brandon (myself) has a seven page document that goes over a bunch of questions and ideas that Steve M. was proposing and pitching. Much of the meeting today was going over that document. Here are some of my other notes:

- Pull in some nuggets from other places

- Base line assessment – top down and bottom up

- Finding the low-cost solutions and putting those pieces in to play

- We do have a place for the docs to land and be housed – docs, reports, standards, forms, checklists, letters, updates, etc.

- Steve M. has some possible samples – may need to be sanitized (from other projects and other clients)

- Capture some of the proof of concepts, prototyping, risks/approaching, telling the story, R&D – we already do tons of this... maybe bring it more into the forefront of what we are doing and even marketing

- Model based engineering

- Throw a few things around and see what fits

- Connecting the dots – lots of existing pieces, let's just start connecting the dots

- As we connect these dots – how can we turn this into marketing?

- Some migration stories – where are we headed, where were we, and where are we now?

- Layering the big picture

- Trade studies – why do you do what you do? Prove it and/or show the reasons

- Finding our own mix of methodologies

- Steve M. will throw things at us and we'll judge and respond

- Letting some of the things rise to the surface and even showcase things

The following are a few URL's (web pages) that we used while talking. Some fun things:

Web link - adilas content - word doc - starting of a plan for our company

Web link - help.cfm?id=393&pwd=map - help file and diagram of the interactive map - inside look at adilas

Web link - help.cfm?id=479&pwd=core - help file and diagram of the core interface and world building concepts

Web link - adilas content - excel file - versions of adilas

Emails and recording notes.

Reviewing a 7 page document from Steve McNew - internal consultant and software process engineer. I have a copy of the document saved on my local computer. Some new and exciting things. Mostly a structured refinement of some of concepts, methods, and practices. Trying to become more structured and standardized in our approaches and philosophy.

I also had a half an hour phone call with Steve Berkenkotter. Part of it we were going over the document from the other Steve (software consultant), talking about funding, and what are the next steps for us as a company. We talked about scale, stepping up to the next level, allowing others to help handle small teams and sub projects, and concepts of the data assembly line.

We keep seeing a need for things to be open and flexible, then coming together and getting more rigid, and then expanding and contracting again, over and over. This same process will be needed as we go up the chain, clear into aggregated or master systems at the enterprise levels. These are the virtual flex bubbles or flex pods that we keep seeing. It all comes back to the data assembly line type concepts. Kinda fun to see it go full circle and even to keep expanding beyond the simple transactional corporations and worlds. "O|O|O" (pretend that those are little flex pods or flex bubbles - the O's are the flexible or open areas (based on phases and permissions), the | (pipe symbol) is the checkpoint or divider for the next level.

More info on the data assembly line concepts - help file

Steve McNew gave me a call and we chatted for just over half an hour. He is working on doing an internal audit of how we run things. See attached for some of his questions that he sent over to me prior to the main meeting. As a funny side note, I read through the questions and virtually gave myself an "F" or a failing grade if I had to answer the questions as I perceive them. Having said that, as Steve McNew and I were talking, we actually do a ton of those things, we just do them in our own way that works for our size and style of business.

One thing that I thought was interesting was how Steve approached the questions and my answers. He seemed very open minded and really seems to want to mix the solution to match the customer (us) vs just forcing certain things. I really enjoyed that in our conversation. Also, the more we talked about it, my failing grade went way up, just in our style and format vs a huge super funded development shop. I think that there is hope.

After the meeting with Steve, Wayne and I jumped on the GoToMeeting session to chat about some things. We talked about the content server, new files, and options for a date purge project that needs some loving. Good conversation and we hopefully figured out where we are headed. He is doing a great job and has taken tons of pressure off of me.

As a side note, while I was talking to Steve about our processes, he asked - what is a topic that needs more attention? I said "depth" meaning depth to our staffing. Currently, if anyone were to die, get hurt, or have some sort of major issue, we would be in some trouble. There are great people working with us, but we don't have a ton of depth in who can take over if something goes wrong.

Another couple things that I wanted to record were some random thoughts from my conversation with Steve.

- We tend to expand and add on to projects so that they will fit more than one person or need - this often requires settings, named aliases, and other rules and/or parameters vs just hard coding things.

- We are very flexible and come in as a low cost solution. For example: $5K with a big company may not even get you in the door... where as $5K with us gets you a full meal - per say.

- Systems thinking - because we have all of the underlying pieces, we can mix and bled together really well. Having the whole system allows us to play differently than other software solutions. We have 12 main players, 12 primary business functions, and are built on tons of core unchanging principles. I love it. adilas formula 101.

- Because we are a web based tool, we can be very quick and nimble. Instead of having one huge program that needs to recompiled and be deployed as a huge piece, we have thousands of smaller dynamic web pages that make up the whole. Those smaller pieces allow us to go in and make changes quickly and deploy them daily. Some see that as negative, but we love it and use those dynamic pieces every day. Lots of smaller interconnected building pieces (Legos).

- Our whole infrastructure and location of where we play changes every day... we have to be somewhat dynamic in order to keep going. If we were too rigid, we may break. Granted that we need some more polishing and refinement, but we bend with the wind pretty well and that is important where we play and how we play.

- We are striving to be our own style. That is important. We have fun and have a burning passion for what we are doing and trying to capture our own dreams and allow for the dreams of others. We truly have a stable and dynamic business platform. And, we keep building and refining it everyday. That is awesome!

8/24/2020: For Steve McNew time.

Group meeting with Steve McNew. Steve is an independent auditor and project manager. He is currently retired and working on a number of volunteer and community projects. Steve Berkenkotter, from adilas knows Steve McNew from their early high school days. This was a preliminary meeting to start the process of flushing out some of the topics that need to be visited in an internal software audit.

Great meeting. It went for about 2 hours and we had 10 different people on the call. See attached for some of the notes that were taken. Some of the 10 people represented: users, power users, consultants, project managers, developers (coders), client IT departments, business investors, and systems admin and DBA's (database administrators). Good mix.

These were the topics set forth by Steve McNew:

My top 7 areas of focus for the audit:

1. System Architecture

2. Implementation Plan(s)

3. Metrics - system monitoring, key development metrics

4. Configuration Management

5. Root cause analysis

6. Risk management plan and process

7. Standards compliance, for example PCI

Other stuff:

1. Org Chart

2. V&V approach

3. Estimation methods

4. SW development methodologies

5. QA / QC approach and practices

Steve McNew joining the meeting to meet Brandon, Alan and Wayne.

Internal audit meeting