Call Summary: Manager Onboarding with Raven Clissold

Overview

Raven Clissold, Gary's direct manager at Open Technology Incubator (OTI), conducted an onboarding meeting covering Harvest time tracking, the OTI/OpenTeams ecosystem structure, and establishing their working relationship. They agreed on monthly check-ins given Gary's direct initiatives with Travis.

Key Topics Discussed

Reporting Structure

• Raven is Gary's direct manager at OTI
• Gary works on initiatives directly linked to Travis (Applied AI Society)
• Agreed on monthly check-in cadence (can increase if needed)
• Raven: "You are in a little bit of a different position where you're working on some very direct initiatives."

Time Allocation

• Gary's time: 50% OpenTeams, 50% Incubator
• All work directed toward Applied AI Society initiative
• The 50/50 split relates to OpenTeams sponsoring the nonprofit community

Harvest Time Tracking Walkthrough

Structure:

• Client → Project → Task hierarchy
• Tasks can include: meetings, project management, business development, engineering, content creation, social media, etc.

Views:

• Week view: Bulk hour entry
• Day view: Required for adding notes

Process:

• Enter hours per task per day
• System totals daily and weekly hours
• Must hit "Submit" button for manager approval

Deadlines:

• Regular weeks: Monday morning for previous week
• Month-end: May need earlier submission for accounting close
• Raven gives heads up for edge cases

Purpose:

• Helps accounting understand how to pay people (hourly, salary, contractor, full-time)
• Enables proper fund allocation across integrated ecosystem
• Audit documentation

Gary's Applied AI Society Work Categories

Based on Gary's Q1 presentation, tasks will include:

• Meetings with potential community members
• Event attendance (lots of meetups)
• Calls with people who could benefit from or help the community
• Development of documentation and chapter playbooks
• Content creation and social media (blog posts, case studies)

Gary emphasized: "I want this to be basically the best documented community ever so that people can replicate it."

OTI/OpenTeams Ecosystem Structure

Entity Overview:

• Open Technology Incubator (OTI): Houses shared services
• OpenTeams: Has IPO vision in next 5 years
• Quonsite PBC: Formerly Quonsite Labs, pivoted to PBC model

Shared Services (housed in OTI):

• HR (services OpenTeams and Quonsite PBC)
• Finance and Accounting

Evolution:

• More separation between entities over past year
• Each developing own pipelines and fundraising
• Eventually OpenTeams will hire own internal functions
• Raven: "What you'll see over the next five years is there's going to be a lot more separation and more independence."

Quonsite Labs → PBC Pivot:

• Still R&D lab but now more independent
• Must find own revenue streams vs. depending on OpenTeams/OTI business
• Raven: "They actually have to have their own pipeline of business in order for them to sustain themselves."

South By Southwest 2026

• OpenTeams considering multiple events
• Focus has expanded from government/defense to include international and Nabari
• No decisions made yet
• Last year's American Defense Summit may not be the sole focus

Additional Team Members for Applied AI Society

• John Dunford: OTI team member discussed as potential help
• Inessa Pawson: Already helping (was on Gary's Q1 presentation call)

Raven's Background

• 4 years at OTI
• Previously at University of Utah (worked with Bradden 10 years ago)
• Bradden brought her to OTI to help build Incubator and manage funds
• Met Travis through OTI
• Was running logistics at American Defense Summit (South By 2025)

Slack Channels

• General is main channel for announcements
• More channels will be created as initiatives ramp up
• "Cooler" channel not really used anymore

Action Items

• Raven to set up Gary's project in Harvest
• Gary to start logging time once project is set up
• Monthly check-ins established

Key Quotes

Gary on documentation philosophy: "I want this to be basically the best documented community ever so that people can replicate it. The idea is go slower, steady to go fast."

Raven on ecosystem integration: "Our ecosystem of companies is so integrated with each other. And we all partner with each other, and we all have different agreements with each other. It helps accounting understand how allocations are supposed to be."

Raven on future trajectory: "What you'll see over the next five years is there's going to be a lot more separation and more independence."