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Billie Mandel
Coaching teams and leaders to reach their creative and collaborative potential
Professional Background
Billie Mandel is a transformative force in the tech, entertainment, and telecommunications industries, with a career spanning over two decades since 1998. Known for bringing rainbows, rock-n-roll, and radical inclusion, Billie has successfully carved out a niche as a versatile facilitator, coach, and educator. Billie specializes in creative leadership, communication and critique, and inclusion coaching, equipping teams and organizations with the tools they need to innovate and nurture inclusive cultures.
Billie is also the creator of the unique Embodied Critique method, which focuses on actionable critique and leveraging creative tension to elevate product outcomes and enhance design and development culture. With a strong passion for public speaking, Billie engages audiences with dynamic presentations that inspire action and foster creative thinking. Her friendly demeanor and authenticity—often referred to as a "Good Judy"—make her a beloved figure in her field.
Billie's superpowers include expertise in team collaboration and communication coaching, product strategy and culture, critique, innovation, and hybrid and remote collaboration for both technical and creative teams. She has extensive experience in group facilitation and workshop design, and has mentored numerous individuals in startup product design and organizational culture.
Education and Achievements
Billie Mandel boasts an impressive academic background. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Latin American Studies and International Relations from Stanford University, an institution renowned for its rigorous academic standards. Following this, she pursued a Master of Arts in Politics, Psychology, and Political Science at the prestigious University of California, Berkeley. Billie's education provided a solid foundation for her diverse career, allowing her to approach complex issues with a well-rounded perspective.
Professional Tenure
Throughout her illustrious career, Billie has held various prominent roles that reflect her expertise and leadership in design and user experience. As the current CEO and Chief Instigator at Mandel Creative, Billie leads initiatives that blend creativity with strategic thinking. She also loves sharing her knowledge and has served as an Adjunct Professor at the California College of the Arts, where she taught Communication by Design, further shaping the next generation of creative leaders.
Before her current role, Billie contributed to the success of several esteemed organizations. At Atlassian, she served as an R&D Craft Educator and Strategist, utilizing her extensive knowledge to enhance product outcomes and user experiences. Her time as Acting Vice President of Design and Strategic Advisor at Yeti LLC highlights her ability to navigate fast-paced environments successfully.
Billie's dedication to the field of design extended to her roles at FiveStars as Director of Experience Design, and at General Assembly, where she led User Experience Design instruction. Her expertise also saw her contribute significantly as Head of User Experience at Perforce Software and Director of User Experience at Myriad Group AG. From her experience as Manager of User Experience Design & Research at Openwave Systems to her early role as Interaction Designer at Yahoo! Inc, Billie has continually championed user-centric design.
Notable Achievements
Billie's notable achievements extend well beyond job titles. Her passion for inclusive practices and creative facilitation has made her a sought-after voice in the industry. She has designed and facilitated numerous workshops tailored to enhance team dynamics and foster a culture of innovation. Billie's unique talent in harnessing creative tension through her Embodied Critique method has not only improved product design and development processes but also empowered teams to communicate more effectively.
In her previous role as VP Content/Editorial Manager at Ask Jeeves, she significantly influenced the approach towards user engagement and experience, underscoring her commitment to elevating content strategies through thoughtful design. Over the years, Billie has been a pivotal figure in mentoring upcoming talents in the design community, sharing insights that have helped shape successful careers. Her workshops and training sessions have also made a significant impact on teams striving for hybrid and remote collaboration, particularly in the challenging tech landscape during and after the pandemic.
Billie's vision extends to promoting diversity and inclusion within tech and creative fields. Her work in inclusion coaching has enabled organizations to better understand and implement practices that advocate for a more equitable workplace. Through her leadership and advocacy, Billie has consistently pushed for positive change, helping organizations recognize the immense value that diversity brings to creative processes and product outcomes.
By being at the i
Highlights
Here’s a #truthbomb for you as we move into winter holiday season: on the hardest days in our future, we will have to make decisions with people with whom we disagree. We generally can’t choose our families of origin OR our peers at work, and those are the people with whom we will eventually have to make some of the most significant and difficult decisions of our lives.
We could choose to view our holiday gatherings, or our annual planning discussions, as an inevitable battle for which we have to come properly armed… or as an opportunity to build some critical shared #communication skills while the stakes are comparatively low.
Here are some tips for getting yourself in the right head space to interact with people with whom you might disagree this season, at work, life, or both:
- Make space between feeling and reacting
- Find (and try to increase) your areas of shared purpose
- Treat your most conflictive relationships as human connection opportunities
To make space between feeling and reacting, try the technique I call “naming the elephant.” What am I feeling, why am I feeling it, and what do I want to do about it? Especially with family of origin, we will often find that when we dig into what we are feeling and why, it has nothing to do with the present moment or present struggles at all. In that case you might choose not to take the bait when Uncle Fred says you’re just like your mother, and instead to take a breathing break (aka bio break) to text a friend, watch a silly cat video, or anything else to calm your central nervous system and clear your head.
If you’re sitting down at a table with someone, there’s always at least a sliver of shared purpose you can find. My friend Tutti Taygerly teaches a technique where you find that sliver of shared perspective — even if it’s just “be proud of the outcomes of our work” or “agreeing not to start a fight at the dinner table” — and build on that shared area by asking thoughtful questions. “Please help me understand” is a great start — the trick is to listen to their answers without defending. The benefits of that drive to understand more also applies to yourself. Why do I think what I think? Is this belief still serving me, or could it be holding me back?
Finally, if you’re anxious about sitting down at the table with someone, I’ve found that setting your own intentions helps a lot. Whether it’s a family system or a corporate culture, you will approach your interactions more skillfully if you can ground yourself in the belief that “it benefits me, the other person, and the system in which we interact, if we increase our understanding of one another’s motivations.” You might never see eye to eye from the get-go, but if YOU decide to view increasing mutual understanding as investing in the long game, you’ll generate more patience to get through today and feel good about how you did it.
#communication #conflictresolution #growthmindset #culture #gratitude #family #coaching #happyholidays
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
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.
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