Meeting with both Steve and Alan. Originally we were going to be discussing some ideas on company structure and where things are headed. We got a little bit sidetracked and ended up covering a number of other topics. These are some of the notes.

- We spent some time doing a general catch-up. It's been awhile since we have met as a group.

- Steve was talking about some of his friends that are teachers and have been forced to do online school (prison camp for the teachers). They, the teachers are being watched super closely. They, the teachers, almost feel like it's a prison camp type atmosphere (too tight).

- Advances in software

- Age of our kids, they are growing up

- Business, everyday wondering what you will do today and tomorrow

- Kelly has been pushing hard on us

- Master/slave relationship

- The squeeze - by clients, internal owners/users, and in general. We are feeling it!

- Analogy of a bug vs windshield - which one are we?

- How do we find our way forward? Plan and vision

- Super loose structure - our current plan is very loose

- Wild west thing - our current mode of operation - minimal rules, laws, expectations, or structure

- Getting spread thin

- Alan was talking about teams for projects but no one takes ownership

- Still dealing with teams, they didn't want to be left out but didn't want to really participate

- So much to do but the turnaround is so slow (how quick we can get the projects across the finish line)

- Frustrating/mental health

- Building and not finishing things

- MVP (minimal viable product) - Leaving stuff that is still flapping in the wind

- Whirlwind (bouncing all over)

- Discussions on funding and a centralized office

- Drift & culture

- Deadlines and nobody caring about it

- Why don't you care?

- Managers of Steve's stores - back in the Morning Start Automotive, Inc. days - They really kept things rocking and rolling

- Not taking any crap and rolling some heads if needed

- In the replacement business (people) - When you deal with employees, you tend to be in the replacement business (from past expierence)

- Reviewing peoples work and making sure that people are on task

- How big can you get before it implodes on itself? Experimenting...

- Managers and assistant managers

- Employees and workman's comp

- Payments, lawsuits, HR stuff, discrimination - more employee/employer stuff

- Filling in the gaps

- Start with a manager

- Manual of what your duties are - put it in writing

- Defining roles

- Part-time or variable working schedules

- Part-timer's may end up costing you money

- Scheduling and who is working when

- Missing the employee/manager piece

- Independent contractors and putting requirements on them

- We are all part owners but what does that mean?

- Alan had some questions like - Co-owners and having to pay to be paid? How does that work. Basically, we had to pay money to become a co-owner and then we get paid by the company for doing work. Just trying to figure things out.

- How does joint ownership work?

- Defining responsibilities

- Who wants that management position?

- We (humans) know right from wrong

- Too much oversight or pampering

- Learning curve

- Moving on

- You could always get someone better - or not - That's a variable

- We can't hire people that need help all the time

- Avoiding things

- We have all been trying really hard

- Good guy/bad guy and letting people go

- Fitting virtues to the jobs that they can do

- Efficiency

- 1 person can manage 5 or less people

- Are our people remote or local

- Going over some possible structure options

- Getting the managers setup

- Being able to crisscross over departments (some flexibility)

- Each department does their own R&D

- Able to switch things up (bring new life)

- We have so much stuff that our clients could use but we don't do the client retention stuff (letting them know about stuff like gift cards, loyalty points, new carts, etc.)

- Each department could use a programmer

- On purpose, rotate people around

- Bare bones - What do we need, right this minute?

Going over meeting notes from this morning (# 10813). Light training on customer affiliate programs for invoices, ecommerce, and customers. After that, we chatted and talked about some other internal needs and ideas. See notes below:

- A lot of the meeting kept coming back to - what are the rules? How do we define things?

- That is something we are really missing and what is needed in defining some structure.

- Efficiency - how can we create more efficiency?

- Retention - clients, users, internal, more??? Retention may need to include all of those pieces of the puzzle. We need help internally, Brandon wants to help to keep sharing the vision and helping other people succeed as they try to define and implement more structure.

- Make a new graphic to show the structure... this could go along way...

- If working in different departments, report to the correct supervisor based on the project and/or task.

- Helping people know who they are accountable to report back to.

- Start with simple budgets - incentives, bonuses, etc.

- Flex grid to help track budgets - super simple

- Easing pain points

- Guidelines on budgets - make up some rules

- Budgets - start right off or wait? could go either way.

- Staffing - prioritize the biggest needs

- Understanding the biggest pain points

- Biggest resources - other people who are already doing those things

- Get some feedback and input from others - help them invest in the solution

- People are one of your best assets

- Customer support - Sean, Cory, and Shari O.

- Counseling with others - Getting that input from others - Perspective changes - May take a little bit longer

- Communication - Getting people on the same page, then getting it going, then helping it keep going

- Leadership and defining roles

- Processes - plans - what does that look like?

- Talk in person - setup a time to meet, call, text, etc. somehow meet

- Micro meetings

- Department text thread (quick blast) or department email - Group communication format

- Following protocols - Going up the chain - Somehow making a note or list of items to talk about

- Discussion and re-defining expectations - Softer conversation first - If it becomes reoccurring, escalate it

- If we need to, we could use the advisory board to help make hard decisions

- Finding and seeking out good talent

- Not everybody is a leader, that's ok

- Apply my areas of expertise to customers, users, and internal people - training, consulting, support, setup, planning

- Retention Department - Responsible for things such as: Training, Setup, Customer support, Consulting, Adilas University, and their own research & development

This never happened. We were going to talk about the advanced sub inventory search and simulating some bad data.

Emails. Small label builder grid size fix. Looking into a customer inventory items upload.

Meeting with Shari O. over the phone. We went over questions on yearend payables, math questions, and also what about different payments for different things (interest and commissions). She saves results and documents things with spreadsheets (full audit trail). After talking about work stuff, we switched gears. We had some conversations about honesty issues - what stresses us out - what is the correct way (legal way) - our levels of job satisfaction - team stuff - etc. Good conversation. Shari O. and I can talk pretty openly about all kinds of subjects. That is nice.

Back on the data upload for a client on data 7.

Working on payroll updates. Printed out pages from the new Pub-15 for tax withholdings. Matching up numbers, look-up tables, and reading through instructions.

More payroll updates.

Working with Russell. We were talking about using chatGPT (AI bot) and getting suggestions on code. We then worked on some AJAX and infinite scrolling reload. Planning for a new project. See assignment below.

- Assignment for Russell and I - Start with Adobe XD - design a dashboard, chart, deposits, drill-downs, invoices, modal pop-up (with options for edit, view, print), time/projects and dynamic search - When we build it, the dashboard, it will be... I (Russ) do, we (both) do, you (me) do. Training exercise.

Meeting with Bryan to do some code review. Tying elements of time to other system players (main id). Fixed a merge conflict, light code review, and pushed up database update files.

Meeting between Steve, Alan, and Brandon. From a previous meeting, we had some assignments. When we started today, we let Alan start. He knocked it out of the park. Great job! Here are some of my notes:

- From Alan - Regularly scheduled intervals

-- Weekly/bi-weekly - Group meeting (15-30 min)

-- Monthly - budget meeting w/ admin/billing (30 min)

-- Quarterly - in-depth goal/vision meeting (1-2 hrs)

-- Annually/Semi-annually - co-owner meeting (30 min)

- Agendas - Alan

- Rotate facilitator - who is leading the meetings

- Small budget talks from Alan - he had worked up some plans

- More salary type options - Alan would like to see us get away from hourly and do more of a salary type approach

- Paid time off

- Get files from Alan - he has some great stuff

- He even did some great work on goals, mission statements, and budgets

- Keeping true to - all data is live and searchable - acronym for adilas

- Monitoring usage and helping to automate things - use technology to see where most people are going and then help speed up those places or parts of the system.

- Getting to an automated free version (trial version) - easy onboarding and setup type scenario - let people try it out

- Following up on people who use or try the free version - sales leads

- Demos, videos, and ways to learn the system

- Working backwards - what do we have already, fill in the gaps, and make it better as we go - different way at looking at the system. Instead of saying, we need to rewrite the whole thing, look at what we have, find the gaps, and then fill in those gaps.

- Updates and videos to help with training for new features

- Cutting costs - lots of talks here

- It got kinda ugly - small internal finger pointing session... everybody is feeling pressure at different levels. Not very good :( (frowny face) but... we had a small little war. It got a little bit heated.

- The subject switched from cutting costs and HR problems to sales and getting out and making sales - everybody, developers included

- Get out and talk to people - slow down and sell it - finding people who fit

- Who should we be selling to? Who are we looking for?

- From Steve - Firewood and analogy of going out, leaving the fire, and looking for firewood

- Changing the approach - we are developers - get ideas from other people and just talk to people - as you talk to people, things will just open up and you'll get a chance to talk to them about what you are doing or hope to be doing. Just open your mouth.

- Eye opening, if you get out there - If you are out and about, you will be amazed at what is out there.

Meeting with Shannon. One of the goals is helping Steve out with sales. On our overviews... for the adilas lite and fracture project, we would like to cut things down to the top 3 main pieces or topics. Maybe simplify the adilas lite model (web pages - take off the accordions and make it really simple...).  What are the three main points? Less is more. Focused and to the point. We did some comparing between the old and the new. When we can, some of the new graphics are going to be worth a thousand words.

Working with Eric on the chart of accounts project. Light history about how and why we built what we built. Proposing a tabular view for the P&L and the balance sheet.

Meeting with Bryan. We were talking about a 2-week notice and plan. We need to wrap up some development projects and switch over to doing some sales stuff. Bryan Dayton was talking about setting up a meeting with Brian Mowris. He works for a company that helps and supports other small businesses.

Bryan Dayton and I were talking about options to help auto updated inventory (other systems - circle B - speed and access to data). Other topics were independent website design, knowledge that we have learned along the way, and then doing a code review with Bryan. We found a few small things, fixed some merge conflicts, and other small changes.

Payroll updates based on new pub-15 values. Entering new look-up table values.