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Cara Putman
Author & University Lecturer; I help people achieve their potential. Achiever Activator Learner Maximizer Strategic.
Professional Background
Cara Putman, JD, MBA, is a versatile and accomplished professional whose career has spanned the realms of law, education, communication, and creative writing. With a strong foundation in broadcast journalism and a passion for effective communication, she has successfully transitioned into various roles, including lawyer, author, educator, and program developer. Her journey is characterized by her unwavering dedication to fostering understanding and collaboration among diverse groups.
In her current role, Cara serves as a full-time faculty member at the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in business law and ethics. Her expertise in legal research and writing is complemented by her experience as an adjunct instructor at institutions like Ivy Tech Community College and George Mason University. Here, she imparts her knowledge to aspiring legal professionals, utilizing her extensive background in litigation and tax law to enrich the learning experiences of her students.
Cara is also a well-recognized figure in the literary world, having authored over 30 novels and one nonfiction title. Her writing prowess has garnered her best-selling author status and numerous awards, solidifying her place in the hearts of readers and creating a platform from which she engages with her audience on a multitude of topics. Cara's books often encompass themes of hope, resilience, and ethical dilemmas, making them not just entertaining but also thought-provoking.
Additionally, Cara’s role as a corporate fundraiser and nonprofit program developer highlights her exceptional communication skills, particularly in fostering partnerships and securing resources for various initiatives. She is particularly passionate about making a difference in her community and frequently presents at women's retreats and writer's conferences, offering insights drawn from her extensive professional experience and personal journey.
Education and Achievements
Cara Putman’s educational background is as impressive as her career accomplishments. She is an Honor Scholar and holds a Weekend MBA from Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management, where she studied Business Administration and Management with a focus on developing skills useful in corporate settings. Prior to this, she earned her Juris Doctor (JD), cum laude, from George Mason University School of Law, specializing in litigation and taxation—an exemplary achievement that underscores her legal expertise.
Cara began her academic journey at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History with honors. Her commitment to education is further evidenced by her earlier studies at Mid Plains Community College, where she received an Associate of Arts degree with honors, demonstrating her dedication to academic excellence from the outset.
Throughout her career, Cara has taken on leadership roles that underscore her commitment to student success and educational excellence. As the former School of Management Honors Director at Purdue University, she played a pivotal role in shaping the academic journeys of high-achieving students, providing them with the resources and guidance needed to excel in their studies and future careers. This position allowed her to enhance the academic experience for students by fostering a community that values inquiry, ethics, and professionalism.
Achievements
Over the years, Cara has received recognition not only for her academic achievements but also for her substantial contributions to the fields of law, education, and literature. As an attorney licensed in Virginia and Indiana, her legal career has been marked by her specialization in adoptions, employment law, and business formation—areas that require not only precise legal knowledge but also an adept ability to communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively.
Her work in both the nonprofit sector and as a corporate fundraiser showcases her ability to leverage her communication skills for community impact. She has successfully driven initiatives that align with her passion for helping others, whether it’s through securing funding for vital programs or leading workshops that empower individuals and organizations.
Cara's journey as a published author is worth highlighting, as it showcases her ability to weave narratives that resonate with readers across multiple genres—most prominently in fiction and non-fiction. Her remarkable output of over 30 novels reflects her dedication to storytelling, while her nonfiction work speaks to her commitment to sharing knowledge and experiences that can inspire and educate. These literary achievements have not only entertained countless readers but have also been used in various educational settings, integrating storytelling into discussions of ethics, communication, and legal principles.
Moreover, Cara has made significant contributions as a speaker, engaging audiences at women's retreats and writer's conferences, where she inspires participants with her journey and the lessons she has learned along the way. Her ability to connect with individuals from diverse backgrounds showcases her exceptional talent in communication, allowing her to deliver messages that uplift and empower others to pursue their dreams.
As a lecturer in Law, Ethics, and Communications at Purdue University, Cara’s influence extends beyond traditional educational settings. She has led five study abroad programs, allowing students to gain invaluable international exposure and insights into global legal and business practices, thereby enhancing their educational experience at Krannert. This combination of scholarly activity, practical experience, and a commitment to mentorship exemplifies her dedication to developing the next generation of leaders.
In summary, Cara Putman’s impressive career trajectory reflects her multifaceted skills and her enduring commitment to excellence in all her endeavors. With her rich background in law, education, and writing, she continues to inspire students, readers, and fellow professionals alike. Her expertise in communications not only connects her various pursuits but also fosters a collaborative environment where ideas can flourish and meaningful change can occur.
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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.