So the song goes “I don’t like Mondays”® (credit: Bob Geldof)….

After a weekend of development and code improvements, we were unable to get Dex through our internal tests to release it into beta - as planned for this week.  We ran into several roadblocks, and we held a long team meeting to discuss the opportunity vs. risk of launching the product to our beta users without some of the key, mind-blowing features.  In the end, we agreed that it was more important to get it done right than to get it done fast (this is me eating my words!).  This means disappointing all of the people who signed up for our beta program (our most interested audience).  And it also means a very disappointed and disheartened development team.  When everyone’s pulling all-nighters and working through weekends to hit a date, and you realize that the product just isn’t where it needs to be, its a real blow to morale and enthusiasm.

So Monday morning and the decision is made to push back the launch of our Beta program (emails to everyone who signed up to follow shortly).

But Monday gets worse…

Later in the evening I receive an email from a lawyer representing Dex Media (not to be confused with MediaDex) - who run Dex Knows, an online yellow pages site.  They believe that our use of the name dex “is likely to cause confusion and is an infringement of the DEX® mark”, and that we should change our product name immediately “before further and substantial damage results from [our] continued infringement of the DEX® mark”.

Apparently Dex Media feels that our relationship management product resembles their online yellow pages website and magazine publishing business enough that we risk causing confusion and could benefit from the goodwill they have accumulated with their customers.

Dex insurance: ok.
Dex skateboard: ok.
Dex software (software?): ok.
Dex supply chain logistics (software again?!?): ok.
Dex multimedia (media?): yup.
Medical equipment, clothing line, Imaging, Concrete work…

OK, so maybe we’re not so original, but I think its pretty unreasonable to say our product is anything like a yellow pages company.

So now we have a choice to make.  Do we try to make our case ($$$) or do we throw away all of our goodwill and time invested in an unoriginal but strong brand position?

At the very least, at least Monday’s over.

The new website, dexapp.com, launched over the weekend.

We plan on posting a new video within the next couple of days, but we wanted to get the new design up on the web for everyone to see (and provide feedback!).

We’re getting really close to launch now…

Here is a short video demo of Dex highlighting the contact management and some of the networking functions.

Ok, Dex isn’t launched yet but Scott A. gave it a sneak peak to VCs at last week’s Ottawa Venture and Technology Summit. Here is a short video of the presentation. Enjoy!

At a recent technology venture presentation, I introduced Dex by outlining the shortcomings of popular online networking tool LinkedIn and CRM software salesforce.com.

I really like Linkedin.  I have been a member for a couple of years and have twice as many professional contacts on Linkedin than I have “friends” on facebook.  I like that when people change jobs, I am notified, so I can keep track of their careers over time.

But the problem with Linkedin is that it just shows me a list of my professional contacts.  There’s no context to the list - it doesn’t show me how well I know them, when I spoke to them last, how their career path could intersect with mine, how they could help me - it doesn’t show me how “important” they are to me professionally.  In short, it doesn’t help me “work my network”.

I like salesforce.com and other CRM systems much less.  To me, CRM systems today are similar to excel spreadsheets with web forms attached that allow you and other people in your company to fill out information about people and interactions with those people.  Salesforce.com is simply a “central repository” that takes all the information you already know about people, and regurgitate it in nice charts and graphs.

What Dex provides - and what everyone should expect from their CRM system in a “networked world” - is a system that knows more than we know about our contacts.  Dex enhances the information we already know with the information our contacts say about themselves on the social web, like Linkedin and Facebook, with the information that trusted news sources say about them.  Dex takes all of that information, digests it, and then presents it back to us in a context that helps us make decisions to improve our business opportunities and professional careers.

Dex is going to revolutionize professional networking and contact relationship management for individuals and SMBs.

And we’re almost ready to launch…

This afternoon I’ll be demoing Dex for the first time, and after a couple of late nights and a lot of last minute edits by Creighton, I’m confident that Dex will give a great performance.

It’s great to see many of the key differentiators that we have been discussing over the last 4 months come to life, like the relationship meter and business opportunity rating with the underlying algorithm / scoring system;  a network health monitoring screen that helps find potential duplicates, incomplete records, and unassigned contacts; and a dashboard that suggests who I should be following up with based on a combination of my relationship strengths, my last contact, and business opportunity.

It’s also exciting to see Andrew’s design come to life.

I’ll be sure to post a short video before the end of the week of this first beta.

Wish us luck!

Over the last two weeks project development has hit a speed bump and gone from warp speed to a crawl - despite Creighton’s best efforts.  The reason for the major slowdown?  Ajax.

The slowdown has caused a lot of issues in our production schedule as we try to coordinate launch activity, do early demos, copywriting, website development, and all of the other activities that surround the last phase of product development.

But mostly it just causes frustration because we don’t know how long it will take to flesh out the new design (the AMAZING design!!!).

We’re putting out the word to everyone we know that we’re looking for some heavyweight help.

If you or anyone you know is a “code ninja” with Ruby, CakePHP, Design, Ajax (!) and is looking for an exciting opportunity to build some pretty revolutionary products - send me an email… quick!

(Photo cred: Dunechaser)

One of the core goals of dex is to create a dependable and complete source of information about the people in your professional network.

To keep contact information dependable we reach out to your contacts and ask them to confirm or update their contact information to keep it updated.

To make information more “complete”, we encourage you to write regular notes about your contacts, automatically collect email and calendar events related to this contact (more about this feature to come!), and collect relevant content about this person from popular “networking” and news websites.  We try to gather as much relevant information as we can about the person so that they aren’t just a name in a database, but a three-dimensional person based on your relationship with them.

Through dex people will finally transcend the sterile address book view and take on a much more complete, relevant, and useful profile that will help you interact with them in a much more meaningful way.

Why it matters:

1. An undependable or “dirty” contact database won’t be used
2. Strong businesses rely on strong relationships with customers and partners
3. Your knowledge of a person is limited.  By gathering external information, you can learn more about people which can help strengthen your relationships.

——-

This is a series about killer features and common sense approaches to professional network management (and what used to be called CRM).  If you have any specific things that vex you about CRM or professional networking, please comment and I’ll blog about how we are addressing it through dex.

After months of work on naming, branding, searching for URLs, and generally “birthing” an application, we have finally named our new baby software…  dex.

Dex represents some core principles that we have baked into the application, which we will be talking a lot about over the next few weeks:

1. Improve your relationships. Dex isn’t another long list of people in a database - dex groups and displays people based on how well you know them, and how well you should know them, and makes recommendations on how to improve your professional relationships.
2. Let your contacts manage themselves. People should be able to control what databases they are in and what companies know about them.  All of the contacts in dex have the ability to update their own profiles.  It keeps content up to date, reduces spam (which we can all appreciate) and ensures your company’s contact database is full of people who want to be there.
3. It’s your network - own it. Bring your network to your job.  Meet new people.  Move on and take it with you.  Company databases can be used for flyers and christmas cards, but your professional network is a huge asset that belongs to you - leverage and own it wherever you go.

Ultimately dex is about a refreshing change in the CRM landscape: a Relationship Management application that is about people - three dimensional people and the interaction we have with them as individuals and as part of a company.

It’s very exciting.

Scott A. and I have had long discussions about how software companies can better service their clients. One thing that we both agree on is that software companies need to be a lot more human and approachable. I was inspired earlier this week when I received a hand written note in the mail from Adam Behringer, the developer behind Bee Doc’s Timeline software. Bee Doc’s is likely a one man show with Adam doing everything. However even being so busy as he must be, he has the time to send me a postcard thanking for buying his software. I don’t care who you are that means something. This is essentially what Scott and I are talking about. In this dis-attached world we need to still be able connect. Here is what Adam had to say about the hand written thank yous on his blog:

First and foremost, I want Bee Documents to be about people. The people who use the products, the people that make the products, students, teachers, artists, film makers, professionals, parents, writers… The list goes on and on. Sending out hand written thank you notes is an example of an effort to make a human connection to customers. The new website will feature customers and their work as much as our product. We’ll continue to seek out ways of bringing humanity, human relationships, and human contact to the center of our brand.

Since the new MG apps (new name not yet released) are changing the game for CRM as it evolves to (personal or business) Network Relationship Management, it will be nice to see what personal touches also come into play. I think that the time has come to change a lot of things about how software companies work. Essentially we need to introduce people and relationships back into the equation at many levels. Unfortunately things have gotten so sterile in the software industry that we are surprised when someone actually reaches out. As far as I’m concerned what Adam did was important and I know that MG will follow along that path as well.

On the app front, Andrew tells me that designs are very nearly finished and that we should be posting screencaps before you know it. That will be great because I have been dying to start talking about them.