Not just about the presentation.

I spend a lot of time on presentation. I think it's very important to put the right foot forward and to carefully manage your brand, your look and the way that the market perceives you.

While that is all true, there is another truth. If underneath it all, the value and quality is not there, then all the sizzle in the world won't make a dead horse move. (was that me channeling John Wayne?)

I got a real rush of emotion out of this video clip, it was a good reminder that in the end, if the quality is there, the value will be apparent to people that take the time to look. While the packaging is important, it's what's underneath that really counts.

Despite bad teeth, a somewhat dumpy demeanor, total lack of confidence in himself... I want you to see what happens to the audience when this guy starts to sing. Watch the reaction from the judges.



Sometimes it's enough to simply be great at what you do, the rest will work itself out - people will see the raw talent underneath the rough exterior.

Just keep plugging away at it, you'll find eventually people start to take notice of what you're doing.

Time Fly's

Time flys
Originally uploaded by Waponi

We've been hard at work here at iXLd media trying to monitize our business model. Building things and selling things are two very different beings and while we're very good at conceptualizing and building things, somehow the art of marketing ourselves is often the hardest to master.

While we've been focused on the "growing our business" stuff, it's sometimes hard to see what's under your nose.

We'll be contacting many of our current installed clients to ask them what first brought them to us and why they were interested in XLsuite to begin with.

From that point, we should be able to find the ones that are interested in moving to the next step and trying out a lot of our newer functionality, including the new product catalog which should be going into beta rotation this week.

Watch our progress on http://template.xlsuite.com

Visualising Time

Wow do I ever need something like this in my life.

I love the way you can see things in time in a more visual manner.

I'd like this type of tool, maybe in conjunction with a "mind mapping" type of tool to help you plan projects with.

These are the ideas, these are the things that need to get done, these are the individual tasks, how long they'll each take and ... voila - a view you can slide through and adjust as you go. Am I on time? over time, do I need more time? What if I added another person to the task list, then what happens to my time line.


Muhahaha, this is much more my sorta project planner.

XLsuite makes a statement with Multi Domain CMS

We thought we'd use jyte to make a claim about our new CMS features.



Give it a spin, sign up anysub.xlsuite.com for free.

AgentXL Tradeshow Pics

These are some shots from the tradeshow we did with our StrataXL division.

Fun times and the first time we came out of the gate with a product lauch.



Here is a link to the album if you like:

AgentXL Tradeshow Pics

Web Publisher Expresses Delight

Christmas is always a slow-time. Seems much harder to get things done through that season. Since the New Year, it has been one heck of a flurry. Major pieces of XLsuite are coming together, as are interested parties who are discovering how this business-in-a-box available anywhere there is an Internet connection can help them succeed and manage their business.

Look, I'm not even going to try and convince you. Listen to this one example from a typical start-up business owner instead:

As a site Publisher myself for years, I've been frustrated by the limitations of publishing tools. I've been agonized by the repetitive task of emailing a few hundred people from Microsoft Outlook, or by paying some other third-party for their email application. Then I'm using MS Outlook to manage contacts, and a variety of other online systems that I have to subscribe so I can get a job done.

Since the creative side took over I haven't been that sharp on the business management stuff to begin with. Maybe the tools wouldn't have made a difference, and maybe they would have. Business management tools aside, my real passion was sharing empowering and inspiring writing with my web audiences. Each time I'd write some clever new piece, I created a new table-based-layout web-page, FTP it to my host, copy a clever bit of the text, create an email message, hot-link the Read More tease to the web-page, and save it as a draft. Why a draft? Because now I have to email this teaser to about 300-400 email subscribers and I've just found it easier to click and shoot from the one central place I do manage my contacts: MS Outlook.

As you can see, that is a lot of tedious work. It almost takes the reward out of publishing your own site content, regardless of how inspiring it is. Then along comes XLsuite. Initially, even though I saw the possibilities of what I was hearing and seeing, it wasn't there yet, and I was still dubious of many things. As months went by, I kept involved and watched what would unfold.

Now I'm chomping at the bit, feeling the ants-in-my-pants, and I want to use this tool to launch a number of exciting web-site properties for some very exciting ideas of serving people and community.

Oh, and of course, it has to earn its' keep - and mine! ;)

XLsuite Engine behind Tradeshow Offerings

The boys have been working hard on furthering the development of the XLsuite product. As with every worthwhile goal, we have our bumps and obstacles on our road to success. This past week, we got to participate in presenting a couple of new Verticals launched with the XLsuite back-end.

StrataXL.com
AgentXL.com
LiveInStrathcona.com
LiveOnCommercialDrive.com
LivinginMountPleasant.com
BlueAgent.ca
SellFM.com

Participating in those events clearly demonstrate interest in the technology, the social values, the ideas, and visions held by the creative force behind IXLD New Media.

Something Stinks!

Last week we told you of the terrible smell polluting our office space. We called the building management company to have the problem investigated. They sent some "handymen" over to snoop out and clean-up the smell.

After much strolling around, sniffing the air, cracks, crevices, and duct-work, these brilliant minds concluded there was no source from inside. I insisted that 4 employees abandoning the office suggests otherwise and that they would be best advised to keep looking into a solution.

From there, they approached the front of the building by my desk. One of them spotted a beautiful circular hole cut out of the floor and bent down to sniff from the hole. I've never seen one of these guys move so fast in my life. He leaped up and backward with a shout of surprise and disgust.

"I found it," he declared! "It's coming from right here - under there!" And he gagged and choked again from the awful stench.

This got them digging up the ancient hardwood floors to get at the source.

Cutting the floor out where he smelled through a hole, they tried to look underneath to see what was there. Unable to see much, they started pulling the insulation out from between the floor joists. Seeing that the floor joists ran from my desk toward the door, they dug up another chunk of floor (photo) right inside the front door. Watch your step when you come visit. We found we can easily convert it to a trap door. ;)

Once they had the two ends of their 'tunnel' open now, they were trying to glimpse in without getting their heads too far into the stench under the floorboards. It was a little awkward, and no doubt eerie, to stick your head through this small hole in the floor. And who knows what you'd find. I had the camera with me, and I wanted to see too, so I volunteered the camera's services. Have a look.

Not finding anything from one end or the other, the debate continued about the source of the offending odour. They insisted they must have eliminated it by removing the insulation batting. I wasn't convinced and need much more convincing. With the floors in the condition they were now in, I suggested prying a little further over the other direction to investigate along another section of floor joists.

Pulling up another section along the door, more insulation was pulled out. This time there was a slightly longer pause. The camera went down for a photograph and came back with another section of insulation further along. There appeared to be a shadow requiring a closer look. Seeing this image, I suspect the small rodents have been tunneling along underneath the insulation.

Standing back to let them dig around more, one of the guys stopped, grabbed a long-handled scraper and reach in to carefully lift something out. Here is what he found.

Along the bottom edge is the spinal cord. Where the spinal cord reaches the right-most end of this lump, you can make out the hind-leg, and the long slender hind foot and toes. This little creature didn't smell, as you can see it had been picked clean for a considerable time now. Nonetheless, it was a gross and fascinating find all the same.

With all that effort, we didn't find anything else. We eliminated the carcass we did find, a couple sections of floor were torn up, the insulation pulled out and disposed of, and with the cold weather and windows and doors wide open all day, we couldn't tell if there was a smell anymore.

Along with all this fun, when they began the job they started using their industrial vacuum cleaner to clean up after themselves. Unfortunately, there is a trick issue with this shop-vac; the filter falls off quite often. The very first time they turned it on, the exhaust spewed enormous clouds of fine dust everywhere inside the building.

Note the footprints in the photo. We'd just had the whole office cleaned the day before. With such fine dust it had the floor so evenly coated, photography would have difficulty conveying the extent of the mess. Then, I saw the footprints.
Without anything further to be done today, I sent them packing with specific instructions to return the next day to clean up the mess.