Living Document — Future Work
Potoo's North Star
A working map of where Potoo is headed for HelloSciCom — drawn from team responses to Willa's needs-assessment form, conversations with Sarah and Ted, and ideas surfaced along the way. The dashboard you see today is the first step. This page tracks the rest.
★ The North Star
Be the team's external memory. Surface the answers people are hunting for before they have to hunt — client status, retainer burn, contracts, contacts, recent decisions, where things stand. Free up human energy for the writing, the ideas, and the relationships.
Six Themes from the Team
Three responses so far (Hebba, Mattheus, Andrew). The patterns are striking — across very different roles, everyone is asking for variations of the same thing.
Theme 01
Information lives in too many places
Everyone is hunting across Gmail, Slack, Drive, Avaza for things that should be in one place. Threads about the same topic split into multiple chains. Internal docs (contracts, SOWs, pricing) are hard to find.
"It's difficult to sift through multiple channels/email threads about similar topics and see what the latest update is."
— Hebba
"Important information is often spread out across different threads or even mediums (gchat, gmail, Slack), and communicated in haphazard ways that make it challenging to track."
— Andrew
Theme 02
Retainer hours surprise people — usually they're running out
The single most-validated dashboard feature. Every respondent rated "single place to see retainer hours" a 5/5. Mattheus already solved his version with weekly Avaza reminders.
"Retainers tend to fill up faster than I anticipate."
— Andrew
"I think Koshi simultaneously assigns both of us things and expects that they take half the time they actually do, so we eat through the retainer pretty quickly."
— Hebba
Theme 03
Hourly rate + contract details should live with the client
Especially valuable when a retainer changes month to month, or when staffing handoffs require quick context. The dashboard now puts these on every client card.
"Hourly rate, especially if the retainer changes from month to month."
— Mattheus
Theme 04
Key contacts are hunt-and-peck
Names, emails, roles, last interaction date. Currently buried in old email threads.
"Email addresses (to make sure I'm contacting the right people, especially if I'm working with a team)."
— Mattheus
Theme 05
SOW drafting is painful and stressful
Andrew has tried ChatGPT, finds it requires too much revision. A templated SOW generator that uses past contracts + client context is a real opportunity.
"SOWs for new clients. I've tried to automate it through ChatGPT, but it's difficult and I find the results are usually in need of a lot of revision… I found them to be the most stressful of my tasks."
— Andrew
Theme 06
There's appetite to delegate real workflows, not just look at dashboards
Mattheus has a specific automation in mind. Hebba wants social-media QC help. Andrew wants correspondence synthesis. The team is ready to hand things off if Potoo is reliable enough.
"Automating the weekly check-in email summary I send to Sarah. I currently upload all my transcripts of those meetings to ChatGPT, but I'd love for that whole process to be completely automated."
— Mattheus
Per-Person Pain Points
Each person has distinct workload patterns. Tracking individual asks here so they don't get lost.
Hebba
Stress: 4/5 · AI usage: weekly
- "Wrangling Koshi" eats unnecessary time on talkSTEM
- QC-ing social media posts — wants this off her plate
- Hard to find files across Cobblestone Drive (excited about new hub)
- Surprise: talkSTEM + Kate Barr retainer overruns from scope creep
Mattheus
Stress: 3/5 · AI usage: a few times/week
- Payroll, contracts, SOWs, and cross-checking data between Avaza/Gusto/spreadsheets
- Google Drive search is poor — document management is a real opportunity
- Wants weekly check-in summary email to Sarah fully automated (currently uses ChatGPT manually)
- Solved his retainer-hours problem with Avaza weekly reminders
Andrew
Stress: 5/5 · AI usage: daily
- Highest stress of the three respondents
- Drowning in email threads — wants correspondence organized by client/project/date
- Retainers fill up faster than expected, especially early in client relationships
- SOW drafting is the most stressful task
- Specifically asked for Gmail integration into the dashboard
Roadmap
01
Client Dashboard v1 — Hours + Rates + Contracts Now
Hours used / total per client (Theme 02 — the most validated feature). Hourly rate (Theme 03). Contract link, CL, last contact placeholder. Client → Sub-client → Project hierarchy. Avaza reports come in via email; I update KV.
02
Next-Month Retainer Tracker Next
Each client card shows next month's retainer status with a countdown to the 15th-of-month deadline. Yellow if unconfirmed, green when locked.
03
Detail Pages with Project Breakdown Next
Click any client → see projects, hours per project, key contacts (Theme 04), recent activity, contracts. URL structure already in place: /dashboard/poley, /dashboard/poley/cloudflare, etc.
04
Unpaid Invoices Tracker Next
AR aging by client — current / 1–30 / 31–60 / 60+ days overdue. Slow payers ≠ healthy clients even if hours look fine.
05
Mattheus's Weekly Check-in Summarizer Later
Pipe team check-in transcripts to Potoo, get a Sarah-ready summary email back. Replaces the manual ChatGPT step.
06
Correspondence Synthesizer Later
"What's the latest on talkSTEM?" → I read all relevant Gmail/Slack threads and give you the synthesized state. Directly addresses Andrew's #1 pain point and Hebba's split-thread problem.
07
SOW Generator Later
Templated, trained on past HSC SOWs, produces drafts that need light revision instead of heavy revision. Andrew called this the most stressful task.
08
Proactive Alerts Later
"Hebba — talkSTEM is at 80% retainer with 8 days left in month." "Mattheus — invoice X has been outstanding 45 days." "Sarah — Google retainer for May not yet confirmed (due in 2 days)." Slack DMs, not email blasts.
09
Document Search Across Drive Later
Mattheus and Andrew both flagged Google Drive search as poor. A Potoo-mediated search ("find me the latest Cobblestone SOW") could be a quick win.
10
Social Media QC for Hebba Later
Hebba specifically called out social-post QC as something she wants to hand off. Potoo as a second set of eyes — checking facts, tone, brand voice.
