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Alex Fox
Chief Exec Shared Lives Plus
Professional Background
Alex Fox is a prominent figure in the landscape of social care and community support in the UK, serving as the Chief Executive Officer of Shared Lives Plus. This role puts Alex at the helm of the UK network for Shared Lives, Homeshare, and Family by Family, creating innovative solutions and support structures for vulnerable individuals and their families. With a profound commitment to improving social care systems, Alex plays a pivotal role in influencing public policy related to social care and has dedicated his career to advocating for the rights and well-being of those with disabilities and older adults.
Beyond his role at Shared Lives Plus, Alex serves as the chair of the national Building Community Capacity network for Think Local Act Personal, an organization focused on transforming social care, and holds the position of Vice Chair, contributing to vital discussions and initiatives that shape the future of community engagement across the UK. His expertise extends to the NHS Assembly, where he participates in discussions that guide health and social care integration.
Additionally, Alex has significantly contributed to the COVID social care taskforce's advisory group dedicated to supporting individuals with learning disabilities and autism during the pandemic. His insights and leadership have proven invaluable during a time of unprecedented challenge. Another remarkable highlight of his career includes chairing the NHS England, Department of Health, and Public Health England's review of the Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) Sector, ensuring that the voices and needs of these organizations are represented in policymaking.
Education and Achievements
Alex pursued his higher education at the University of Leeds, where he studied English and Philosophy. This academic background has empowered Alex with critical thinking skills and a deep understanding of human communication, which are instrumental in his advocacy work and leadership roles in various organizations.
His dedication to the field of social care was recognized at the highest levels when he was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his extensive services to social care in the 2016 New Year's honours list. This distinguished honor is a testament to Alex's unwavering commitment to improving social welfare systems and ensuring that the contributions of vulnerable populations are acknowledged and valued.
Alex is also an accomplished author, with significant publications to his name, including the notable book, "A New Health and Care System: Escaping the Invisible Asylum," published by Policy Press. Through this work, he offers deep insights into reforming health and care systems, providing invaluable lessons drawn from years of experience in the sector.
In addition to his hands-on work and writing, Alex is recognized as an Honorary Senior Fellow at Birmingham University, further underlining his contributions to developing social policy and educational research. His passion for social justice and innovation is reflected in his association with the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) as a Fellow, where he promotes ideas that can drive positive social change.
Notable Contributions and Publications
In collaboration with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), Alex published the impactful report, "Meeting as Equals," which focuses on creating asset-based charities. This report emphasizes the importance of engaging communities effectively and ensuring that organizations can capitalize on local strengths to achieve sustainable impact.
Alex is also a well-regarded voice in the media and online platforms, where he shares his thoughts and insights through his blog at alexfoxblog.wordpress.com. His experience and expertise have earned him recognition as one of NESTA and The Observer’s Britain's New Radicals, an initiative that highlights individuals making significant societal contributions. By utilizing various platforms, including Twitter as @AlexSharedLives, Alex effectively communicates issues related to social care and community service, reaching a broad audience.
Personal Interests
When he's not advocating for social reform or writing about pressing issues in social care, Alex enjoys pursuing outdoor activities such as rock climbing, harmonizing his love for nature and physical challenge with his professional undertakings. Additionally, he dedicates time to writing, further allowing him to express his thoughts and contribute to the discourse surrounding social care and community engagement.
Alex's unique blend of personal interests and professional dedication illustrates his holistic approach to life—one that values health, well-being, and continuous learning. His ongoing contributions to the UK social care landscape not only help current communities but also lay a robust foundation for future generations.
With a rich seam of exp
Highlights
Social care hasn't featured a great deal in the election campaign. This isn't surprising: while public concern about care and support for older people in particular is growing, every attempt to make a pledge on 'fixing' social care in recent elections has ended in disaster (remember 'dementia tax' and 'death tax'?) Labour this week though have announced they would use NHS funding to buy 'thousands' of care home beds, to get the mainly older people who are in hospital unnecessarily (because care in the community can't be arranged in time) out of much-needed hospital beds and reduce 'delayed discharges'. It's always slightly frustrating that seemingly the only way that social care can become a campaign issue is in relation to a problem for the NHS, rather than in its own right, but there is no doubt that delayed discharges are a huge issue, both for people who become weaker and often sicker the longer the stay in a bed in a hospital ward, and for the NHS. So it is welcome that Wes Streeting, who may well be about to be the next health and care Secretary, is taking that issue seriously. There are issues with the solution proposed though. A care home bed is not always much better for an individual's health and attempts to regain independence than a hospital bed. A sudden increase in beds purchased would reduce those available to an already-stretched social care system, and could hit threadbare council social care budgets if care home providers put prices up in response. By far the best solution is to get people home, so for very many people, it would be better to spend the available resources adapting their home to be accessible to them and providing 'reablement': home care that is focused on regaining physical capabilities and the confidence to live at home again. In contrast, a 'temporary' care home placement can very easily become long term, then permanent, as the chances of returning home recede. Our work with the NHS getting people home faster consistently teaches us that at the core of the potential problem, and solution, here, is focusing not on 'saving the NHS' or 'fixing social care', but on what a good life looks like to someone who is currently lying in a hospital bed, which for someone in their 80s can take less than 24 hours to reduce their leg strength from being able to get out of a chair unaided, to needing help to do so. A good life nearly always looks like Home.
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Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.