Meeting Title: 1 Week Check-in Date: 2026-05-04 Meeting participants: Lisa Whall, Kaela Gallagher


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1 00:02:56.020 00:02:58.170 Kaela Gallagher: Hey, Lisa, how’s it going?

2 00:02:59.380 00:03:01.190 Lisa Whall: There we go. Good, how are you?

3 00:03:01.190 00:03:05.389 Kaela Gallagher: Good, good morning. Thanks for taking a few for me.

4 00:03:05.390 00:03:07.959 Lisa Whall: Of course, I like to talk to people.

5 00:03:08.470 00:03:11.759 Lisa Whall: in Slack. It’s like, people, pick up the phone!

6 00:03:11.880 00:03:13.029 Kaela Gallagher: I know.

7 00:03:13.030 00:03:15.390 Lisa Whall: out here in the world.

8 00:03:15.530 00:03:21.810 Kaela Gallagher: It was such a big adjustment for me, because I came from a background where it was like, if you ever

9 00:03:22.180 00:03:30.349 Kaela Gallagher: emailed somebody, when you could just call them, then that was horrible. Like, you should just always call, you should always pick up the phone, and so then…

10 00:03:30.350 00:03:30.870 Lisa Whall: Come in!

11 00:03:30.870 00:03:34.270 Kaela Gallagher: here was such a big change, so I totally get that.

12 00:03:34.270 00:03:36.449 Lisa Whall: I think there’s a good mix, there’s a good mix.

13 00:03:36.670 00:03:47.839 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, yeah, agreed. But just wanted to check in, like, as you’re at the one-week mark now, wanted to see how everything’s, like, been going so far.

14 00:03:48.050 00:03:57.020 Lisa Whall: I love it. I’m so happy to be here. It’s just, like, right up my alley. I like being busy. I like having a lot of moving parts,

15 00:03:58.240 00:04:04.249 Lisa Whall: You know, so it’s… it definitely was a great choice from my perspective. I’m super, super happy.

16 00:04:04.250 00:04:15.899 Kaela Gallagher: Yay! Okay, cool. And you feel like everything is kind of clear for you in terms of, like, what’s expected and what the goals are, like, you feel good about the expectations? Yes. Okay. Yeah.

17 00:04:15.900 00:04:21.609 Lisa Whall: Actually, Uzum and I, how do you really say his name? I want to say it, like…

18 00:04:22.440 00:04:25.830 Kaela Gallagher: I… I don’t think I say it the correct way.

19 00:04:25.830 00:04:26.790 Lisa Whall: Either.

20 00:04:27.330 00:04:32.889 Kaela Gallagher: I think it’s Utom? Like, Utom? Something like that, but everybody just says Utom.

21 00:04:33.530 00:04:41.950 Lisa Whall: That’s what I’m going with. I just feel like… it always feels awkward to me, like… and I think I use more of a D, so I say Udam, like, udum noodle.

22 00:04:41.950 00:04:46.399 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, no, I think he introduces himself as Utam as well.

23 00:04:46.400 00:04:46.840 Lisa Whall: Good time.

24 00:04:46.840 00:04:49.679 Kaela Gallagher: I think he says it like that, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

25 00:04:49.680 00:04:53.529 Lisa Whall: How do I put the nickname? I’m just gonna call him Boss. Be like, boss.

26 00:04:54.140 00:04:55.290 Lisa Whall: big dummy.

27 00:04:55.290 00:05:00.890 Kaela Gallagher: In Slack, it’s funny, everybody just refers to Utam and Robert as you or R.

28 00:05:00.890 00:05:01.529 Lisa Whall: I love it.

29 00:05:01.530 00:05:03.030 Kaela Gallagher: their initials.

30 00:05:03.030 00:05:13.699 Lisa Whall: Love it. That’s… that works for me. But yeah, no, Larry, so him and I talked on Saturday, and just really had a good catch-up, and I think we’re in a good spot.

31 00:05:13.820 00:05:17.560 Lisa Whall: In terms of expectations and what we need to get done, so…

32 00:05:17.810 00:05:25.900 Kaela Gallagher: Okay. Okay, good. And then, in terms of, like, the onboarding side of things, everything was smooth there? Like, any feedback.

33 00:05:25.900 00:05:32.769 Lisa Whall: The only thing, and I’m talking to Bea directly, the training for the,

34 00:05:32.900 00:05:34.820 Lisa Whall: For the platform.

35 00:05:35.110 00:05:35.660 Lisa Whall: Is…

36 00:05:35.660 00:05:36.620 Kaela Gallagher: Quick start one.

37 00:05:36.620 00:05:47.870 Lisa Whall: Yeah. Okay. It’s got some gaps, and he knows about it, he’s gonna fix them, but I’m working with, you know, I’ve been a little bit of a guinea pig there, and you know, there’s some links not working, stuff like that. I mean, it’s no…

38 00:05:48.270 00:05:54.190 Lisa Whall: He knows he’s fixing it, and, you know, that’s about it.

39 00:05:54.190 00:05:58.030 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, I’ve been trying to go through that as well, and just, like, give him feedback, like.

40 00:05:58.030 00:05:59.380 Lisa Whall: Okay, good.

41 00:05:59.380 00:06:05.869 Kaela Gallagher: as a guinea pig, too. And I had some things, too, where I, like, clicked a link, and it didn’t go to any… so, yeah.

42 00:06:05.870 00:06:17.299 Lisa Whall: Exactly. I mean, we’re just… that’s Q&A. We’re Q&Aing for it. That’s totally fine. It’s the first… I’m like, I gotta get this done, like, I’m gonna get in trouble, and this isn’t working, and I’d be like, B, help me!

43 00:06:17.300 00:06:18.390 Kaela Gallagher: I can’t.

44 00:06:18.390 00:06:21.229 Lisa Whall: I can’t get past this gate! I’m gonna get tired!

45 00:06:21.230 00:06:28.710 Kaela Gallagher: Well, I’m glad you’re being diligent about that. I appreciate that.

46 00:06:28.710 00:06:36.080 Lisa Whall: I’m task-oriented. If you give me a task, I’m gonna get it done, but I will be a rat on the Cheeto until it’s done.

47 00:06:36.150 00:06:41.530 Kaela Gallagher: Amazing, amazing. Cool. I appreciate you giving him feedback on that, too. I think that’s just helpful for everybody.

48 00:06:41.530 00:06:46.859 Lisa Whall: Yeah, we’re just… it’s an awesome tool, and it’s funny, when I was talking to Item, I was like…

49 00:06:47.230 00:06:54.089 Lisa Whall: He’s like, yeah, some of the business people, they don’t want to learn cursor, and I’m like, I want to learn cursor. Like, I’m all in. I want to be…

50 00:06:54.790 00:06:55.250 Kaela Gallagher: Yes.

51 00:06:55.250 00:06:58.800 Lisa Whall: things on my own. I want to be able to code. I want to be able to build my own.

52 00:06:59.220 00:07:02.170 Lisa Whall: Like, that’s the future. Why, you know…

53 00:07:02.170 00:07:09.840 Kaela Gallagher: 100%. Yeah, I, I, I had a little bit of a curve coming in with it. I think…

54 00:07:10.280 00:07:16.840 Kaela Gallagher: there were issues, like, connecting it to GitHub, and so it wasn’t, like, actually using the information I needed it to.

55 00:07:16.840 00:07:18.040 Lisa Whall: Oh, no!

56 00:07:18.040 00:07:25.370 Kaela Gallagher: And so… but once… once that was ironed out, I’m like, oh my gosh, like, I can do so much with this, like, I just had it…

57 00:07:25.880 00:07:42.189 Kaela Gallagher: literally last week, scanned my internal people database for all of the missing phone numbers, emails, addresses, like, all the information that I need for people. Then it sent Slack messages to everybody asking for that information. Then, once I received the information back, it updated the.

58 00:07:42.190 00:07:42.710 Lisa Whall: Copies.

59 00:07:42.710 00:07:43.690 Kaela Gallagher: for me. It’s like…

60 00:07:43.690 00:07:46.620 Lisa Whall: It did not. It did not.

61 00:07:47.780 00:07:49.809 Lisa Whall: That is so cool.

62 00:07:49.810 00:07:50.660 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

63 00:07:50.890 00:07:53.220 Lisa Whall: That is a great use case, I love that.

64 00:07:53.220 00:07:54.680 Kaela Gallagher: Oh my gosh, yeah, once you have it?

65 00:07:54.680 00:07:58.399 Lisa Whall: start, because I’m doing all this stuff manually to knock stuff out. I need to.

66 00:07:58.400 00:07:59.020 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

67 00:07:59.020 00:08:01.480 Lisa Whall: Teach it, because that’s a perfect example.

68 00:08:01.690 00:08:14.729 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, and even, like, I don’t know, even as you’re just starting a project, you can go into the plan function and just be like, this is what I want to do. Are you the best tool for me to use? Or… and it, like, it’ll just tell you. It’s so cool.

69 00:08:14.730 00:08:16.779 Lisa Whall: But cool. It really is.

70 00:08:16.780 00:08:18.510 Kaela Gallagher: Ugh.

71 00:08:18.510 00:08:19.350 Lisa Whall: do that.

72 00:08:19.680 00:08:23.960 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, cool. I’m glad you’re excited about that.

73 00:08:24.180 00:08:32.150 Kaela Gallagher: Anything else that we can do to support you? Like, any more information, or tools, or anything that you need?

74 00:08:32.159 00:08:33.839 Lisa Whall: Nope, I’m good right now. I did.

75 00:08:33.840 00:08:34.280 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.

76 00:08:34.669 00:08:38.630 Lisa Whall: To get some things done, and… That’s… it’s all good.

77 00:08:38.909 00:08:39.349 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.

78 00:08:39.350 00:08:42.629 Lisa Whall: Thank you, I appreciate it, and I will definitely ask, I…

79 00:08:42.830 00:08:50.069 Lisa Whall: have Lawrence here, like, don’t… which I so appreciate, because sometimes you come into these orgs and…

80 00:08:51.080 00:08:55.379 Lisa Whall: There’s just a lot of politics, even at smaller organizations, that.

81 00:08:55.380 00:08:55.810 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

82 00:08:55.810 00:08:58.090 Lisa Whall: They come across too strong too fast.

83 00:08:58.750 00:09:04.859 Lisa Whall: And, I just… I don’t get that feeling here that people are defensive, or…

84 00:09:05.460 00:09:07.050 Lisa Whall: You know what I mean? It’s a…

85 00:09:07.050 00:09:07.650 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

86 00:09:07.650 00:09:20.339 Lisa Whall: It’s a really open… I love that UTM pushes us to just do things publicly, because that’s really uncomfortable for me, like, the first couple days, because I’m like, I’m gonna get somebody in trouble, or whatever, and then…

87 00:09:20.570 00:09:26.590 Lisa Whall: The culture allows for that, and that’s… that’s a big deal, actually.

88 00:09:26.880 00:09:29.679 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, yeah, it’s actually, like.

89 00:09:31.140 00:09:40.129 Kaela Gallagher: I think you’re right, like, going into some other organizations, you feel like you have to be careful what you say, or how much you do in the beginning.

90 00:09:40.130 00:09:41.460 Lisa Whall: Right, right, right.

91 00:09:41.460 00:09:45.350 Kaela Gallagher: Am I gonna offend somebody if I change this process?

92 00:09:45.350 00:09:45.820 Lisa Whall: Debly.

93 00:09:45.840 00:09:50.690 Kaela Gallagher: Those kinds of things, but it’s like, actually here you’re, like, expected to do that.

94 00:09:50.690 00:09:51.050 Lisa Whall: And you’re.

95 00:09:51.050 00:09:55.599 Kaela Gallagher: You’re expected to move quickly, and you’re expected to make changes, even when you’re brand new, like…

96 00:09:55.600 00:09:56.200 Lisa Whall: Right, right.

97 00:09:56.200 00:09:58.380 Kaela Gallagher: I think it’s really cool that we…

98 00:09:58.630 00:10:01.220 Kaela Gallagher: Look for people who can just hit the ground running.

99 00:10:01.220 00:10:06.470 Lisa Whall: And then if… I don’t feel like you’d ever get in trouble here.

100 00:10:06.960 00:10:07.869 Kaela Gallagher: This is not true.

101 00:10:08.560 00:10:25.879 Lisa Whall: tried to do something. At the most, it’s like, actually, that’s not, like, your function, that’s somebody else’s, or whatever, but that’s… that’s really cool, because even, like, sending out, like, this marketing blurb, I’m like, I don’t want to get marketing and, you know, shouldn’t they… and then I’m like, oh, okay, no one cares. Like, this could.

102 00:10:25.880 00:10:26.280 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

103 00:10:26.490 00:10:28.000 Lisa Whall: Let’s get things done. Do the best.

104 00:10:28.000 00:10:28.740 Kaela Gallagher: you can.

105 00:10:28.740 00:10:31.799 Lisa Whall: And if you do it right, you’ll learn and do it right the next time.

106 00:10:31.960 00:10:38.230 Kaela Gallagher: Right, right, yeah. And I’ve, like, I’ve been lucky to kind of see, like, the…

107 00:10:38.230 00:10:52.639 Kaela Gallagher: behind the scenes of things, like in meetings with Utam and Robert, where they’re just like, oh yeah, this went wrong, but, like, we’ll take the blame for it. Like, we should have, you know, given that person more information, or we should have given them more direction. Okay, like.

108 00:10:53.130 00:10:56.199 Kaela Gallagher: we move on. It’s just a really cool culture.

109 00:10:56.200 00:10:59.460 Lisa Whall: Instead of, yeah, throwing people under the bus and all of that, like, that’s…

110 00:10:59.600 00:11:06.790 Lisa Whall: Oh, I have a funny story, though. I know you gotta get going, so… My son, I dropped it in the fun chat.

111 00:11:06.790 00:11:08.439 Kaela Gallagher: Oh my gosh, I saw that!

112 00:11:08.440 00:11:11.130 Lisa Whall: How bizarre is that?

113 00:11:11.130 00:11:12.450 Kaela Gallagher: Oh. My. Gosh.

114 00:11:12.450 00:11:26.589 Lisa Whall: I was dying laughing because my husband’s like, yeah, Nathan just texted, he’s going to Malta. And I go, no, he’s not. He’s like, yeah, he’s got a friend who’s from Malta, and he’s going to Malta in, like, 2 weeks. I’m like, well, I have a bunch of information about Malta now.

115 00:11:26.590 00:11:28.609 Kaela Gallagher: everything about Malsa.

116 00:11:28.610 00:11:31.830 Lisa Whall: I’ll have to send him a text with all of our information that I.

117 00:11:31.830 00:11:32.840 Kaela Gallagher: I did reach me.

118 00:11:32.840 00:11:35.020 Lisa Whall: That I didn’t retain at all.

119 00:11:35.020 00:11:38.389 Kaela Gallagher: Oh, it was so funny. Oh my gosh, last time we had a.

120 00:11:38.390 00:11:42.400 Lisa Whall: I was in very last place, by the way. I felt like such an idiot.

121 00:11:42.980 00:11:43.850 Lisa Whall: Dammit.

122 00:11:43.850 00:11:58.329 Kaela Gallagher: Last time we had a call like that, somebody went in and, like, grabbed all the images that were created from it and just sent it out. I need to do that today. Just a little summary through our funny AI-generated images.

123 00:11:58.330 00:11:59.550 Lisa Whall: Oh my god, they were gonna.

124 00:11:59.550 00:12:00.440 Kaela Gallagher: areas.

125 00:12:00.440 00:12:01.280 Lisa Whall: dying.

126 00:12:01.590 00:12:05.070 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, that was so funny. I love those Friday calls. Yeah.

127 00:12:05.070 00:12:08.199 Lisa Whall: Yeah, there… that was super fun. I really enjoyed that.

128 00:12:08.780 00:12:10.180 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, yeah.

129 00:12:10.280 00:12:11.140 Kaela Gallagher: Cool.

130 00:12:11.140 00:12:11.740 Lisa Whall: Alrighty!

131 00:12:11.740 00:12:17.319 Kaela Gallagher: We’ll check in again at 30 days, but, if you need anything between now and then, just let me know.

132 00:12:17.320 00:12:19.970 Lisa Whall: Sounds great. We’ll see you soon. Thanks. Thanks, Lisa.

133 00:12:20.040 00:12:20.900 Kaela Gallagher: Bye.