John, Cory, Chuck, and I were in a good discussion on versions, code dependencies, frameworks, and what the future may hold. This was a carryover conversation from an earlier meeting, but we ended up spending a bunch more time on it. I thought that it was interesting the mix that we had on the meeting. Both Chuck and John have been our biggest proponents (supporters) for a centralized style guide and the adilas docs project. They were both huge assets in this discussion on direction and upcoming future decisions.

I'm not sure I can put all of the topics that we discussed into nice sentence formats. I will just list them and make some bullet points. It will help me switch gears and subjects quicker.

- BATC or B-Tech (local technical college) and working with them in networking and possible intern training options.

- What technologies are needed and being called for - in the general marketplace?

- Focusing on UI and UX first. UI (user interface) and UX (user experience). It used to be called GUI (graphical user interface) but they have added in the user component and what the experience is like. That is great and really makes a difference.

- Once the UI and UX is nailed down, go back in and recode the backend based on the UI and UX decisions. We also want to use standards and frameworks.

- We talked a lot about critical components (things that we use or lean on). We talked about how we had to alter a number of things when Adobe Flash went through its end-of-life stages and what impact that had on our application and company. We talked about other things that are being deprecated or are entering an end-of-life range. Things like bootstrap 3, jQuery, and other code technologies that we use.

- Cost analysis - what do we gain and what do we lose if we change?

- Some of our customers don't care about mobile and the latest trends and fashions. Some of them really care about mobile and responsive interfaces.

- How can we show and expose the features, advantages, and benefits of what we are doing? If we get buy in, that helps us push things out to our clients vs trying to convince them that they want and need what we are doing. Pitching the pretty and sparkling things. Steve always says - sell the sizzle, not the steak.

- Changes in code and technology. Like using CSS variables vs a custom mix of server-side code and pages that we build on the fly, every time. Speed, consistency, and efficiencies by using newer tech.

- Lots of time talking about helping and optimizing things by making some of these changes and enhancements. Including validation plugins, JavaScript, and moving things to the client side of the application. Less touches on the servers. Let some of the things happen on the client side of the application.

- If we make a bunch of changes, we will have to do some training for our developers on the new techniques.

- Cory was asking, how do we protect ourselves from a crisis mode? Dealing with end-of-life and depreciated or deprecated code sets and libraries.

- Setting priorities and focus areas

- The whole discussion switched as we talked about moving to new technologies and when we should do this. We were talking about adilas as a ship (small analogy). We talked about options of having ship A (current adilas platform and application) and building ship B (new or fracture adilas platform). We talked about what that would look like, how we could do that, and what changes would be needed. We also talked about options for transforming or morphing between ship A and ship B (what we have now and where we are going). Pros and cons to both approaches.

- I did some drawing and showed the guys some ideas and options on how we could set things up and structure things. Tons of potential. As a note, if we did start building a ship B (new or fracture model), we would want to put it in a totally different folder/directory and start from the login process going forward. We have lots of brainstorming already done on what we have learned and what we could build if we went to the fracture model.

- We got into a discussion on prices, up sales, and pitching the dream. Talks about pricing lists for products and services that we offer and what our clients gain if we go in that direction.

- Along with prices, we also talked about really charging for data usage and storage. Right now, that is not really a part of our pricing model, but it can be a huge load to carry, depending on the client. Some price changes and price increases are very needed and are completely warranted. As a side note, we (adilas as a company) may need to listen to our guys and gals who are working with us. They are pitching higher prices. It is totally warranted and needed. We are really close to tipping over the point of not making it (costs are higher than revenue coming in) to being on the positive side of that line. Price increases could really help us do that without trying to wrangle in tons of new sales and other efforts.

- Keep making small changes - progress by degrees

- John is going to start creating a document with some prices for dedicated servers, semi-dedicated servers, shared environment, and other products. We already have some of this, but it is not in a central location. The end goal is not to have it on a separate document, but have a centralized spot, location, and even get it all into our POS system. Lots of possible variables. As another side note, we (Steve and I) have produced quite a few different pricing spreadsheets over the years. It gets tricky based on number of employees, number of invoices, number of customers, number of locations, amount of traffic and usage, data storage, media/content and image storage, and other features that our clients either use and/or don't use. That's where it gets tricky.

- Both Chuck and John expressed that they are grateful that we (as a company) listen to them and take the time to try to implement their thoughts and ideas. That makes a big difference, if you feel like you are being heard.

- I'm wondering if Steve and I should step back and let some of our guys and gals make some of the changes that they are pitching and proposing. We have to get to a good balance point of normal supply and demand economics and business logic. I would be interested to see what would happen. We could monitor it and help guide it, but I would be super curious to see where things ended up going (fresh outlook and fresh set of eyes on older or existing problems or issues).

At the end the meeting, Chuck had to bail out, but Cory and I kept going with John. He was reporting to Cory on his payroll updates, plans, and other projects. He is almost done with the year end tax and payroll form printing stuff. We keep getting better and better at the communication thing. It's tough to nail that down. Making progress.