Meeting Title: Brainforge x Talisma Collaboration Planning Sync Date: 2026-01-16 Meeting participants: Greg Stoutenburg, Holly Condos
WEBVTT
1 00:03:52.910 ⇒ 00:03:53.980 Greg Stoutenburg: Hey! Hey!
2 00:03:54.290 ⇒ 00:03:55.360 Holly Condos: Sorry I’m late.
3 00:03:55.360 ⇒ 00:03:56.809 Greg Stoutenburg: Hey, no problem, happy Friday.
4 00:03:56.810 ⇒ 00:03:59.039 Holly Condos: Things, a lot of balls here going at once.
5 00:03:59.040 ⇒ 00:04:02.869 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, these Slack channels are pretty hot around here at Brainforge, huh?
6 00:04:03.430 ⇒ 00:04:08.930 Greg Stoutenburg: Absolutely. And speed is… speed is our name, right? Yep.
7 00:04:08.930 ⇒ 00:04:13.130 Holly Condos: So… You were a professor?
8 00:04:13.280 ⇒ 00:04:32.769 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yep. I was, got my PhD in philosophy in 2016 at University of Iowa, and, I was a full-time philosophy professor from the 2016 to 17 academic year through the, 2020-2021 year, and then, and then made a career transition.
9 00:04:34.010 ⇒ 00:04:37.020 Holly Condos: That’s awesome. Why did you switch?
10 00:04:37.480 ⇒ 00:04:41.249 Greg Stoutenburg: It was… I mean, it was, like, a combination of things. It was, like…
11 00:04:41.410 ⇒ 00:04:55.639 Greg Stoutenburg: So, like, the sort of thing that makes a person go to grad school is, like, they’re excited about it, and they’re interested in it, and then you get to the other side, and, like, that is not the job. So, one thing was just, like, honestly, just, like, major disappointment between
12 00:04:55.640 ⇒ 00:05:08.559 Greg Stoutenburg: My experience as a grad student, and for that matter, as an undergrad, like, being interested in stuff, and then, you know, go through grad school, go through the whole thing, and then it’s like, oh, my job isn’t teaching classes to people like me, and, like, participating in research stuff.
13 00:05:08.560 ⇒ 00:05:17.860 Greg Stoutenburg: It’s, it’s teaching… it’s offering classes for gen ed students because they think it sounds better or more interesting than math.
14 00:05:17.870 ⇒ 00:05:21.449 Greg Stoutenburg: And, like, but they don’t actually want to be there. It just, like…
15 00:05:21.450 ⇒ 00:05:21.920 Holly Condos: Yeah.
16 00:05:21.920 ⇒ 00:05:35.789 Greg Stoutenburg: less bad than something else. So, yeah, I mean, so that was a piece of it, and then, honestly, just, like, kind of, like, a couple years in, looking around, being like, my pay is terrible, it’s never gonna change, I see all these people who…
17 00:05:36.290 ⇒ 00:05:46.420 Greg Stoutenburg: are lifers, and they’re, you know, they’re, like, at the end of their careers, and they’ve pretty much taught the same, like, 4-8 classes on some kind of rotation for their entire working life, and I was like.
18 00:05:46.490 ⇒ 00:06:02.009 Greg Stoutenburg: I was like, I don’t think I have that in me, like… I mean, I like stability and peace as much as the next guy, but, like, I’m like, I’m ready to trade some stability and peace for, like, money and new challenges. So… Good for you. That’s great. It was those things, really, yeah.
19 00:06:02.010 ⇒ 00:06:10.280 Holly Condos: Yeah. So, just, just from a personal perspective, so both my parents, started out as teachers.
20 00:06:10.330 ⇒ 00:06:23.669 Holly Condos: Cool. And, then my mom, you know, got more degrees in early childhood ed. She was a great first grade teacher. My dad went more on the
21 00:06:23.880 ⇒ 00:06:43.470 Holly Condos: you know, operational side. So he was a principal, he was a professor, he was a dean, and so I kind of come from that background, if you will. My, my brother and sister-in-law currently are both professors at UNC, North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
22 00:06:43.510 ⇒ 00:06:51.800 Holly Condos: Nice. So… Oh, sorry, I just got a weird text. So, for Talisma.
23 00:06:52.260 ⇒ 00:06:56.160 Holly Condos: What we’re working… are you familiar with them at all?
24 00:06:56.320 ⇒ 00:07:01.250 Greg Stoutenburg: Nope, just seeing the name thrown around, I don’t know what they do, I don’t know what our project for them is.
25 00:07:01.460 ⇒ 00:07:11.639 Holly Condos: Okay, so… I just… I’m putting together kind of a… what… It’s cool about each partner.
26 00:07:11.670 ⇒ 00:07:16.009 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay. To inform some of these discussions a little bit better.
27 00:07:16.050 ⇒ 00:07:24.709 Holly Condos: Let me just look this up real quick. I’m not sure, I think, I think UTOM…
28 00:07:25.240 ⇒ 00:07:34.539 Holly Condos: somehow met… Aaron, who is the U.S. VP. So they’re an Indian-based company.
29 00:07:35.190 ⇒ 00:07:42.089 Holly Condos: They have their own product. It’s like a CRM, CXM kind of thing.
30 00:07:42.820 ⇒ 00:07:52.390 Holly Condos: I can send you… I mean, you can look up the website, it’s talisma.ai. Okay. But… Basically.
31 00:07:52.970 ⇒ 00:07:57.980 Holly Condos: I think before I joined, so it must have been in maybe August?
32 00:07:57.980 ⇒ 00:08:15.389 Holly Condos: July or August, Utam connected with Aaron and said, hey, let’s talk. You know how Utam’s so great with just opening the door and starting a conversation? And Aaron is very similar. He’s really outgoing, but he is… he is the U.S.-facing
33 00:08:15.700 ⇒ 00:08:18.920 Holly Condos: Services lead, if you will.
34 00:08:19.190 ⇒ 00:08:26.349 Holly Condos: So he’s kind of directed a lot of the recent discussions. Basically, what we’re doing.
35 00:08:26.980 ⇒ 00:08:31.339 Holly Condos: Right now, is looking at, okay,
36 00:08:32.610 ⇒ 00:08:42.310 Holly Condos: their higher ed customer base, right? So what they want to do is basically use BrainForge to overlay
37 00:08:42.559 ⇒ 00:08:48.969 Holly Condos: And implement, and customize, you know, add the kinds of cool things that we do.
38 00:08:49.060 ⇒ 00:08:58.489 Holly Condos: to their products, so it’s a collaborative approach, right? Now, the other angle is, we refer to them, they refer to us.
39 00:08:58.490 ⇒ 00:09:09.540 Holly Condos: And they just referred us to Bay University. I don’t know if you’ve seen that in Slack at all. Utam and I met with the… I guess he’s the CEO or the head of…
40 00:09:10.190 ⇒ 00:09:14.220 Holly Condos: I don’t know, IT? We met with him this week.
41 00:09:14.380 ⇒ 00:09:20.510 Holly Condos: And he is actually… the Bay University guy, is hiring… his name is Frank.
42 00:09:20.840 ⇒ 00:09:23.080 Holly Condos: He’s hiring…
43 00:09:23.240 ⇒ 00:09:34.720 Holly Condos: a guy who they’ve used as a… basically a consultant to help them figure out their automation journey and AI implementation. So, Frank…
44 00:09:34.890 ⇒ 00:09:38.050 Holly Condos: Is bringing this guy on, and wants us to meet
45 00:09:38.340 ⇒ 00:09:49.239 Holly Condos: you know, next month to figure out the roadmap, if you will. So that’s a really good lead, right? Yeah, yeah. But the reason I’m pinging you is that
46 00:09:50.030 ⇒ 00:09:53.249 Holly Condos: I’m trying to tap my network
47 00:09:53.430 ⇒ 00:10:00.119 Holly Condos: Right? So my father taught at the University of Denver. He works for the Colorado State Department. Like, he’s got a lot of contacts.
48 00:10:00.120 ⇒ 00:10:03.779 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. Right? And so I’m wondering if…
49 00:10:03.820 ⇒ 00:10:09.839 Holly Condos: you want to do… if you want to jump on that train with me, I can just send you the Notion doc I’ve started.
50 00:10:10.510 ⇒ 00:10:13.379 Holly Condos: And then, you know, we can utilize
51 00:10:13.490 ⇒ 00:10:20.990 Holly Condos: the go-to-market team to help us reach out a little bit with some messaging. We’ve worked on a little bit of messaging with Talisma.
52 00:10:21.100 ⇒ 00:10:29.290 Holly Condos: But not a whole lot yet. Robert has a few contacts in New York that, you know, I want him to…
53 00:10:29.480 ⇒ 00:10:32.839 Holly Condos: make intros to Aaron for, or to Lizma?
54 00:10:32.940 ⇒ 00:10:37.530 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep. But Robert’s busy, right? This is not on the top of his list, so… Right.
55 00:10:37.530 ⇒ 00:10:42.490 Holly Condos: We… also in play, we have a joint collaboration deck
56 00:10:42.550 ⇒ 00:10:58.910 Holly Condos: that we originally… we… Hannah started, we put it together, we gave it to them, and they… Talisma-ized it, if you will. Because the idea is, okay, we… we do, in a trifecta kind of model, announce a partnership.
57 00:10:59.520 ⇒ 00:11:06.849 Holly Condos: Show this joint collaboration and promote a… an event all at the same time.
58 00:11:07.500 ⇒ 00:11:18.870 Holly Condos: So, all of these things kind of go together, and I don’t know how much you want to be involved or not, but I’m tapping you, at least initially, because you were a professor.
59 00:11:18.870 ⇒ 00:11:27.249 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that’s cool. And so, can you help me understand what the, like, what the… what the project is? Like, what would I be helping with? Like, copy?
60 00:11:28.180 ⇒ 00:11:36.709 Holly Condos: Well, I think initially it’s… it’s what contacts do you have that we could reach out to for this event, right?
61 00:11:36.840 ⇒ 00:11:44.739 Holly Condos: Number one, and number two, are they institutions that potentially would be interested
62 00:11:44.970 ⇒ 00:11:48.369 Holly Condos: in either our product, or Teleismus, or our joint.
63 00:11:48.370 ⇒ 00:11:48.850 Greg Stoutenburg: capability.
64 00:11:48.850 ⇒ 00:11:49.550 Holly Condos: abilities.
65 00:11:49.550 ⇒ 00:11:50.419 Greg Stoutenburg: Oh, okay.
66 00:11:50.420 ⇒ 00:11:54.099 Holly Condos: Right, which you probably need to see the deck to have a more informed.
67 00:11:54.100 ⇒ 00:11:55.180 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, I think so.
68 00:11:55.180 ⇒ 00:11:56.180 Holly Condos: a lot there.
69 00:11:56.180 ⇒ 00:12:15.619 Greg Stoutenburg: Right. Yeah, I mean, yeah, okay, that makes more sense. Yeah, so, yeah, sure, I’ll take a look, and, you know, and happy to, like, make contacts with anyone who I think would be relevant. My experience was, like, I mean, after grad school, the only place I actually know anyone who’s, like, not a philosophy professor is the one place I worked full-time, and…
70 00:12:15.760 ⇒ 00:12:19.470 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, some of those people are still around. So, yeah, I’ll see what I can do.
71 00:12:19.640 ⇒ 00:12:26.980 Holly Condos: Okay, so the… we’re kind of going off of Talisma’s advice from the perspective of
72 00:12:27.240 ⇒ 00:12:32.840 Holly Condos: who to reach out to, and they’re recommending that, you know, we go with the CRO, or…
73 00:12:32.840 ⇒ 00:12:38.330 Greg Stoutenburg: the… the group that makes decisions about their IT spend. Yeah.
74 00:12:38.330 ⇒ 00:12:49.580 Holly Condos: And again, their AI journey and, you know, how they’re dealing with, okay, we don’t want to replace our professors, but we want to utilize the technology. How do we do that?
75 00:12:49.580 ⇒ 00:12:51.120 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah.
76 00:12:51.120 ⇒ 00:12:53.740 Holly Condos: So that’s kind of the… the…
77 00:12:54.060 ⇒ 00:12:55.740 Greg Stoutenburg: you know, the… Yeah.
78 00:12:56.050 ⇒ 00:12:57.930 Holly Condos: Type we want to reach out to.
79 00:12:57.930 ⇒ 00:13:01.580 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I think that’s gonna be, like… that’s gonna be titles like…
80 00:13:02.360 ⇒ 00:13:06.659 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, like, direct… library director, or, or learning.
81 00:13:06.660 ⇒ 00:13:08.030 Holly Condos: Library director? Wow.
82 00:13:08.030 ⇒ 00:13:13.720 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, Library Director, Learning and Technology Services Director.
83 00:13:13.720 ⇒ 00:13:14.450 Holly Condos: Okay.
84 00:13:15.390 ⇒ 00:13:17.749 Greg Stoutenburg: Or, like, a provost, probably.
85 00:13:17.750 ⇒ 00:13:19.610 Holly Condos: I was thinking Provost.
86 00:13:19.760 ⇒ 00:13:20.530 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
87 00:13:20.760 ⇒ 00:13:24.620 Holly Condos: Okay, I’m gonna take down Library Director, though, because that one.
88 00:13:24.620 ⇒ 00:13:25.090 Greg Stoutenburg: I haven’t…
89 00:13:25.090 ⇒ 00:13:26.220 Holly Condos: thrown around.
90 00:13:26.220 ⇒ 00:13:37.289 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, the librarians, my experience in higher ed, like, I was kind of surprised by how much power, like, the head librarian will have at a university. Like, as far as, like, the technology that comes in or out, like.
91 00:13:37.290 ⇒ 00:13:47.789 Greg Stoutenburg: I was surprised, like, usually all of IT will report to… if they don’t report to, like… that’s why I gave two titles. If they don’t report to, like, the main librarian person, then it’ll be, like.
92 00:13:47.790 ⇒ 00:13:51.360 Greg Stoutenburg: it’ll be a title like Director of Technology, and then sometimes…
93 00:13:51.760 ⇒ 00:13:59.260 Greg Stoutenburg: you know, one of those reports to the other, or the other way around. Yeah. But yeah, librarians have a lot of power,
94 00:13:59.890 ⇒ 00:14:03.600 Greg Stoutenburg: Learning and technology services, or titles like that.
95 00:14:03.930 ⇒ 00:14:04.300 Holly Condos: Okay.
96 00:14:04.300 ⇒ 00:14:13.340 Greg Stoutenburg: Will be relevant, or then anything that involves, like, like… Operations, is usually.
97 00:14:13.340 ⇒ 00:14:13.750 Holly Condos: Yeah.
98 00:14:13.750 ⇒ 00:14:16.879 Greg Stoutenburg: They’ll have an office in the main admin building.
99 00:14:16.880 ⇒ 00:14:17.340 Holly Condos: Yeah.
100 00:14:17.340 ⇒ 00:14:20.120 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, that’s where my mind goes.
101 00:14:20.120 ⇒ 00:14:27.869 Holly Condos: Okay, that’s helpful. So, what I’ll do is, I’ll send you three things. A little info about Telisma.
102 00:14:28.860 ⇒ 00:14:36.499 Holly Condos: the Notion doc with… my contacts, and Robert’s, because, you know, we have a couple.
103 00:14:36.500 ⇒ 00:14:37.010 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep.
104 00:14:37.010 ⇒ 00:14:52.379 Holly Condos: Or maybe… I don’t know. We have two… we gave them two from our HubSpot. I think they were Texas uni… like, colleges, you know, they’re not major universities. Yeah. Which, again, I think Uten probably just knows someone who knows someone.
105 00:14:52.690 ⇒ 00:14:57.259 Holly Condos: And then I’ll also send you the joint collaboration deck.
106 00:14:57.260 ⇒ 00:14:57.700 Greg Stoutenburg: Cool.
107 00:14:57.700 ⇒ 00:14:59.749 Holly Condos: Draft, where it’s at now.
108 00:14:59.750 ⇒ 00:15:00.800 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, sounds good.
109 00:15:00.800 ⇒ 00:15:09.769 Holly Condos: So again, I’m not trying to load you with more work, but I also want to… you know, I think you get the bigger picture here, and so I want to utilize you as much as we can.
110 00:15:09.770 ⇒ 00:15:14.209 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, and I’m happy to just, you know, take a look and write down some email addresses, that’s fine.
111 00:15:14.210 ⇒ 00:15:14.680 Holly Condos: Perfect.
112 00:15:14.680 ⇒ 00:15:16.259 Greg Stoutenburg: Great. Yeah. Cool.
113 00:15:16.260 ⇒ 00:15:21.190 Holly Condos: Sounds good. And then I think you saw my note on, amplitude, so I’ll.
114 00:15:21.190 ⇒ 00:15:22.519 Greg Stoutenburg: Oh yeah, he’ll reach out to Hugo.
115 00:15:22.520 ⇒ 00:15:27.830 Holly Condos: you go, and I’ll bring you guys back on copy, because he and I kind of went off of it a little bit, so…
116 00:15:27.990 ⇒ 00:15:32.350 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we’re good there. Perfect. Yeah, cool. Alright, awesome.
117 00:15:32.350 ⇒ 00:15:32.670 Holly Condos: Thanks.
118 00:15:32.670 ⇒ 00:15:34.140 Greg Stoutenburg: Alright, thanks. Have a good weekend.
119 00:15:34.140 ⇒ 00:15:35.840 Holly Condos: Yeah, if you do, bye.