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.

I’m currently at the web2.0 summit in San Francisco (which has been a fabulous conference), and yesterday I had the opportunity to sit down with Rafe Needleman from webware.com - the web application blog at CNET - and gave him a demo of dex.

You can his article about dex here.

Rafe’s article got us (albeit briefly) onto the homepage of CNET news:

Here is a still from the Mercury Grove video that we shot this past weekend. Craig Fitzpatrick (above) was nice enough to star in it in his white suit.  Thanks to everyone who participated in the shoot. In total, we got about 20 people out to give us a hand.  Eventhough we ran amok in downtown Ottawa for over two hours, we only got one warning.  Not bad. The video should be ready soon and I will make sure to post it here first.

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…

Scott A. and I were trying figure out ways that we could get a bunch of people in one place to help us with some great videos that we are doing for Dex.

Scott A. came up with a great idea which was to offer to take everyone who shows up to be an extra in the MG video shoot to a free breakfast in downtown on Saturday morning.  We would have breakfast first, then do the video shoot.

The shoot is actually two short videos and would filmed on location at the Code Factory and at the corner of Metcalfe and Queen in downtown Ottawa. The whole video thing may take 2 hours max.

If you are interested in attending, just reply to this post and let us know how many people you will be bringing with you.  Also when filling in the comment form be sure to put your email address and I will send you the exact details.

Feel free to invite friends and family as well. The weather is going to be great on Saturday morning and the more the people we can get the better.

This will also be your only real chance to make fun of Craig Fitzpatrick who will be wearing a white suit for the shoot.

The whole thing would start at 10am on saturday morning.

We ordered our first limited run of t-shirts today in preparation for the upcoming web2.0 conference in San Francisco. If you’re going, let me know and we’ll hook up.

Thanks to everyone for some awesome suggestions. Special thanks to Oli and Brett for these great slogans. I still think there are more gems in the list, hopefully we’ll be able to pull more of them out for our launch!

I’ll be in touch shortly to get mailing addresses for shirts (through DEX!).

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!

We’re getting close to launch, and for people who have been following this blog, you know that we are trying to introduce a more “human” and modern approach to CRM and online professional networking.  We also want to raise local awareness about dex.  And we all wear t-shirts.

So… we decided to solicit ideas from you for evocative, funny, appropriate captions for wearable t-shirts.

Here are some ideas to help ignite your creative flame:

“Dex.  It’s like a dating site for co-workers”

“Dex could have saved your marriage”

“Let’s talk about Dex baby,
Let’s talk about you and me…”

Send us your idea (in the comments below) and we’ll send you a t-shirt with the “winning” caption.

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…