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Adilas.biz Developer's Notebook Report - 3/30/2023 to 4/3/2023 - (7)
Photos
Time Id Color Title/Caption Start Date   Notes
No po photos available. Click to view time details.
Shop 9926 Adilas Time 3/30/2023  

WordPress was down and this caused our main website to be down. I contacted Chuck via text, then a phone call. Sent emails to Wayne with some instructions and suggestions from Chuck. Trying to get things figured out. Luckily, you could bypass the main website and do a direct login by changing the URL (web path) to the login page.

Jumped on the GoToMeeting session and was having audio problems. Cory had some questions about the adilas label builder and getting images pulled in. Kelly needs some sub inventory reports. Some of that gets pretty dynamic and pretty deep. After that, John and I talked about our WordPress site and getting our stuff off of an outside content management software package, WordPress. We couldn't get ahold of either Wayne or Chuck to get help. We need to get some documentation from both or have John help with that documentation. Our eventual goal is working towards standardizing and using best practices for all of our developers. Constant processing of pivoting, updating, and changing to fit and fill our needs.

Chuck was able to meet with me and I jumped back on the GoToMeeting session. John jumped back on as well. We were trying to fix the WordPress stuff for our site. Chuck was helping John try to navigate to a certain file folder and make some changes. We kept running into issues. Cory jumped on and we made a quick fix for her on a cross corp invoice to PO transaction (special cross corp page). Once we finished that up, back on with John going over plans and what not.

 
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Shop 10023 Onsite training 3/30/2023  

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.

 
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Shop 10027 Working with Aspen 3/30/2023  

Working with Aspen and meeting with her to go over her proposal, presentation, and progress on the world building project and presentation. Looking good. She has been working on verbiage and content for her PowerPoint slide presentation. It's almost 70 slides right now. I'm curious to see where it ends up. Part of it is more marketing focused that what I saw last time we met. I can tell that she is working on it. I got her a check and all paid up.

 
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Shop 10028 Meeting with Hamid 3/30/2023  

Touching base with Hamid, an adilas intern. He is starting to code his website project for the business zipper site. It's still pretty basic but a fun first little site. He's been putting in a little bit of time each day, working on things. This new site will end up being a form of a billboard type site - a separate smaller site that promotes a bigger site (the main adilas.biz site).

 
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Shop 10009 Adilas Time 4/3/2023  

Sean and Cory joined the morning meeting. Sean was asking about parent attributes and how to use them out in ecommerce. After that, Cory needed a bulk update for units of measure (converting each to grams on a bulk scale). Alan joined the meeting and Cory was going to have him help with some of the backend data updates and data clean-up.

Cory and I were looking into some errors and needs on the merchant processing side of things. Shari O. jumped in and we talked more about standardizing our merchant processing efforts. See elements of time # 9934 for ideas on standardizing merchant processing by using Datacap as a 3rd party solution. We need a more trusted solution and we are not very good at hardware integration stuff. An outside party to handle that would be awesome!

 
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Shop 9989 Recording Notes 4/3/2023  

Recording notes from last Thursday and today (3/30-4/3). Emails and going through things.

 
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Shop 10025 Working with Aspen 4/3/2023  

Met with Aspen to look over her world building presentation. We ended up getting into this little Q and A session and small virtual interview. It was kind of fun. Aspen took a bunch of notes on a Google doc. I won't share all of the info that we covered but I may pull out a few key pieces.

- Settings and speaking the client's language is a huge part of it - where it starts or where they (the client) gets some buy-in. Once you speak their language, they feel more comfortable.

- System configuration - I like this, I don't like that, can I hide this, can I make this show up here or there, etc.

- Using world building concepts in trainings and demos. Once the clients figure it out and catch the vision, they use world building terminology in describing what they are wanting or what they are hoping to achieve. Basically, if you can get the client to start thinking about the bigger picture, it really gets the juices flowing and the ideas rolling in. Virtually get the wheels spinning.

- Keep building what we know and then deal with other ideas and requests as they come. Custom code vs settings and toggle on/off features. A growing blossoming idea farm.

- We have outgrown a number of different models. For example: We started out with 5 different roles for permissions. Things like sales, mangers, accounting, admin, and backend/web. Now we have over 170 individual permissions that may be applied in any configuration vs the five simple roles that we started with. Also, our first round of corp-wide settings was to build out six corp-wide settings. We had to flip the model when we got up to the 400 ish level. We ran out of room. We ended up building vertically (variable/value pairs) and using custom setting objects (JSON objects and linking similar settings). Tons of ways that things have exploded, changed, and evolved over time. It's been a process. The other big challenge is adding in or taking away new stuff without affecting those who are already in there working (existing clients). You almost have to make the system a chameleon that can change its shape and color on the fly.

- Aspen and I talked about the potential of doing a white label approach. Kind of like the Intel chip inside of a computer. It could be branded however, but the chip is what the whole thing rides on. For example: You could have an HP, Dell, or some other brand of laptop but all of them use the Intel chip as the underlying microchip processor. We would like to do something similar. Whatever brand, powered by adilas.biz on the inside. We don't have to be the main company like HP or Dell or whatever. We could easily just help power those brands using our tech and underlying engine.

- Along the lines of a white label - It would take a potential competitor years and years and millions and millions of dollars to do what we can do right now. If they saw the value of a white label option, they would be smart to go in that direction (saving time and money). Just reskin it and start selling it vs building it from the ground up. There is already a market for what we do (based on our current clients and 20 years in the business and millions and millions in revenue - even though we aren't done yet).

- Aspen asked me about a couple of features that we are using right now and how they relate to world building. I mentioned elements of time and the flex grid tie-ins. Both are hugely customizable and fill gaps and needs, out the door. We talked about selling in bulk but tracking individual items, tracking processes of change (dealing with sub locations, sub phases, or steps of a process). One-to-many relationships, custom fields, preset settings, configuration, and being able to limit what is shown (even though behind the scenes it could be very complex). Tons of samples, examples, prototypes, and working models. We have nuts and bolts companies, bike shuttles, ski schools, and tons of other companies that use these pieces. This is just two pieces of the much bigger puzzle.

- Most of our progress is somewhat limited by outside funding, not ideas or needs. We have huge dreams; it just depends on where the funding for that comes from. This whole thing has been build on a garage type budget. We have ideas and projects that sometimes sit for weeks, months, and years before we can get to them. Our list for an MVP (minimal viable product) keeps revolving and growing. If there is funding, it moves to the top of the list. If not, we chip away at it little by little.

- Lots of analogies between our system (the adilas.biz system) and the body. Often, we start out talking about things like arms, legs, feet, etc. As we get deeper, we get into layers, joints, muscles, system, and clear down to the cellular or molecular levels. People keep wanting to be able to control and/or see the next layer, the next layer, etc. We haven't found the end or bottom yet.

- Aspen was asking what is the difference between world building and fracture? I tried to explain that the fracture project is more of list of lessons learned, ways to speed things up, ways of standardizing things, allowing for customized things, show/hide things, toggle on/off certain settings, full control over flow and display, and controlling things at a smaller detailed level. World building is what we are trying to do and/or accomplish (think bigger picture). We use fracture (aka the next generation of the system or application platform) to get to the bigger world building pieces. We talked about Legos and building blocks of different size, shape, and functionality. Sometimes you need to play in bulk (bigger or preset pieces), medium pieces, and super small pieces.

- We got into talking about the iceberg analogy (or ice berg analogy - different spelling) and how if we could have the whole mountain but only show the iceberg, it would sell better than something seeing the whole big mountain. It makes it look too intimidating (showing the whole mountain). The iceberg looks so much more approachable (be able to configure just what you want to see and use). That's where fracture and some of those ideas come in. You could still have the whole mountain (under the surface) but only have to show what is needed or wanted. Put the rest of the engine under the covers (under water) like the Intel chip inside of a computer. It's all perception and expectations.

- Ideas that don't get exposed (out to the public) can sometimes die in a hole. We talked about if a bigger company was pushing some of the world building concepts or data assembly line concepts, they would sell like hotcakes.

- Towards the end of the meeting, we were getting into costs, growth, and projections - numbers, costs, financials, etc. Fun stuff!

Anyways, a great meeting. Aspen has more notes in her Google doc where she was recording things from the small interview. I enjoyed the chat and the learning session. Sometimes you don't know what you have until you start trying to verbalize it. Good stuff!