Dustin and I worked on getting some data (small sub report) out of the sub inventory attributes section. That subject and topic has caused us much grief. It gets so deep, it becomes hard to pull the data out easily without knowing the whole data path (what relates to what and where are things stored). It is all there, it just may not be the most effective storage so that easy retrieval can happen.

Eric joined and had some questions about the adilas 3rd party solutions page. That page is starting to get pretty big and everything is virtually wrapped in smaller conditional logic pieces. It gets pretty deep. He also had some questions about showing loading bars (spinning graphics) to show that certain actions were in process and then showing the user when they had finished.

After Eric left, Wayne joined in and had some questions about the shop (ecommerce area) folder and how a corporation gets setup and/or acknowledged out in ecommerce land. We talked about form, URL, and session values and which ones take precedence. After that I spent some time recording some notes on what was going on.

As a fun side note, my hiking buddy and I were talking about a number of fun topics this morning. As a precursor... my sister Shannon and I were talking about the progression of the tools that we use yesterday for our afternoon meeting. My hiking partner, Brian Stewart, and I were discussing some of these same concepts this morning. The tools that we use progress from simple to more robust and more complex. See this entry for a deeper look at what we are trying to cover...

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=371&id=4029

Anyways, after progressing through the lower tools (head, paper and pen, computers, databases, software, web, etc.) we were talking about these topics. I just wanted to record some fun ideas and concepts that we may use later on as we go deeper.

- Data Fusion - mixing data from multiple sources.

- Big data - how much data, where does it come from, how did we get it, how do we analyze it, what trends are we seeing? etc.

- Digital currency - like bit coin and other digital currencies

- Trends - watching for, discovering, and anticipating trends

- Security and privacy - huge topics that have different levels from head to paper to computers to web to bigger...

- Independent systems - there are certain things that we don't want to interconnect and/or limit access to. That is an important topic (limiting access and/or limiting outside connections).

- Auditability or history or audit trail information - how easy/hard is it to follow the audit trail? This is way deeper than just a one-liner. What was the lifecycle, steps, states, and phases of x (fill in the blank).

- AI (artificial intelligence) - What level of AI are we talking about? Simple if statements, cases, switches, states, or fuzzy logic with decision making power. How does this play in and how will it affect things in the future?

- Integration to other platforms - Once something is on the web, do we allow for integration, do we pick strategic integrations, or leave it open for any possible 3rd party integrations? That starts getting into strategy and even ethics.

- If you do allow integrations, what about syncing data (making sure that data on side a and side b are the same) and figuring out rules of master/slave type relationships between syncing parties. What about integrity of the data sync or data syncing process.

- What do the clients want? If we are avoiding things on purpose, does that get us in trouble? A simple survey of our customers may help shed some light on those topics. What are they wanting, expecting, demanding, and/or wishing for?

- Real-time transactions and flow of funds - batching (time delayed - per month, week, day, etc.), I owe you accounts (who owes who and when will it get paid), real-time transactions, real-time payments, allowing vendors, banks, and government agencies real-time access and real-time payments for products and services. Along those lines, who negotiates those terms and deals? This sounds like more permissions and settings on a per corp (per world) type level.

- Systems vs standalone applications - sometime you can gain great advantages by using a system vs a single standalone tool. Having said that, sometimes as you add more players and pieces, there is a virtual drag (resistance and/or friction) that may go along with that. If it works, sweet. If not, you have been creating an anchor of sorts.

- What are some potential warning signs that we put up... company pride, individual pride, not listening, avoiding certain topics and/or features, seeing and acknowledging hidden threats, on purpose staying a certain size (not reaching our potential), working on a private agenda, and other possible warning signs. As a side note, this topic was toward the end of the hike (we were actually driving home from our hike) and we started talking about integrations with other existing software companies and their platforms. The main topic was the accounting giant "QuickBooks" (and other like products) and why we are not trying to integrate with their product(s). It got pretty deep, but my hiking buddy was concerned that we might be missing out by not integrating with QuickBooks and others. I know that some of our clients would like that, but we have on purpose delayed and kicked that can down the road multiple times. Some of it is pride, some is money and cost of doing so, and some deals with challenging tradition, and some deals with following true to what we are learning and exploring (what if we can do it this way or that way vs just following the crowd - love of exploring).

Anyways, without going too deep. We had a great conversation the whole hike (see notes above) but when we said that we on purpose were not trying to integrate with other accounting systems, the whole conversation changed and it seemed like all of the other topics that we were talking about had no value (basically a game changer). I thought that was very interesting. I will bring it up with Steve (my partner in Adilas) and see what he says. My personal vote is to just keep going. We have a great plan. We just need to keep working the plan. To note a much earlier talk that I with another buddy of mine (riding up a ski lift), he asked, what/who is your major competition? My response was "tradition". I'd have to stick with that answer right now. Tradition is our biggest competition. Interesting and hopefully correct, there is still lots of things that need to play out. We'll see where it goes from here. Yee haw!