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.