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David Ross
CEO at Ross Video
David Ross is a prominent figure in the live video production industry, known for his extensive experience and contributions to engineering, business, and video technology.
With a career spanning several decades, David's early passion for programming led him to win multiple engineering competitions during high school, showcasing his talent in real-time programming and computer graphics.
After graduating with a degree in Computer Engineering and gaining valuable co-op experience, David joined Ross Video in 1991, where he progressed through various roles, eventually becoming the company's president in 2004 and CEO in 2006. He now serves as the Chairman of the board and majority shareholder, leading Ross Video to consistent sales growth, averaging around 15% annually since his tenure began.
Throughout his career, David has been recognized with numerous awards and honors, including an honorary doctorate for his achievements in Engineering and Business. He is also a Fellow of prestigious organizations like the Canadian Academy of Engineering and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE).
A strong advocate for continuous learning and knowledge sharing, David actively participates in CEO organizations and has been a member of TEC (Vistage in the US) since 2011. His dedication to personal growth is evident as he listens to management books even during Marathon races.
From 2009 to 2021, Ross Video, under David's leadership, successfully acquired 18 companies in various areas like graphics, robotics, virtual sets, sports analytics, and more, all financed internally, showcasing his strategic vision and commitment to company growth.
David's educational background includes studies in Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo, an Honorary Doctorate in Engineering from the University of Ottawa, and education at Seaway District High School.
Formerly serving as the CEO of Ross Video, David Ross continues to drive innovation and success in the live video production industry, establishing himself as a key figure in the field.
Highlights
Our new ChatGPT-based RossBOT Beta has been an interesting journey.
Late last year, our Tech Support team asked for 9 additional hires to manage the increasing volume of support calls. We found that 20% of these were simple “read the manual” inquiries. This seemed like an ideal use for ChatGPT.
None of our existing systems offered this advanced capability so we looked for consultants to help. The first quoted $200k USD. The second quoted $20k but didn't really perform. Then some of our people played around and figured they could do it in house "for free"!
In April, we launched RossBOT Beta - a new clickable circle on the bottom of our tech support page: https://lnkd.in/dYWGaYTU
It initially only knew one product - our XPression Graphics.
It's not just able to answer questions about the manuals, but it can answer follow up questions and know the context of natural language queries. That's cool. What was even more cool is how it can answer questions IN ANY LANGUAGE! This is even though our manuals are written in english. I love that part!
Recently, we've expanded RossBOT Beta to include all of our products. This has huge utility but also exposes some challenges with the technology. Some of our older manuals have outdated information about adjacent products. Newer manuals tell a different story. This confuses ChatGPT and leads to errors. It highlights the "garbage in, garbage out" rule and really holds our tech writers to a new standard of keeping all documentation fully up to date and aligned. Manuals have to be "ChatGPT ready"!
Even though it's using the latest ChatGPT 4.o, it's still slower than I'd like. About 15 or 20 seconds per question. That's faster than picking up the phone to find a person, faster than some web searches, but just slow enough to be slightly annoying. We'll have to work on that.
I've also noticed some quirks regarding how it provides manual links to help answer questions in detail. This can work well, but if you change products in your conversation, it still thinks you're still in the previous manual. Refreshing the web page solves this but it highlights that this still early days for this tech.
To make this work we had to limit some of ChatGPT’s broader capabilities. It won't write you poems based on our products, and it won't give you tourist advice while visiting Ottawa. A fair trade-off for our goals.
The bottom line? It was used 9,000 times last month by customers - and service calls have stopped rising! This is a win-win for both our customers and our business.
Ross Research Labs will continue to make RossBOT better. Overall, it's a fun and fascinating project!
#RossVideo #Rosslife #ChatGPT #techsupport #AI #AIFails #AISuccesses
PS. Yes, the image was also generated by ChatGPT and has all sorts of oddities and spelling mistakes. After a few iterations that didn't really improve, I decided it was actually a good representation of the promise of this tech and the quirks that come with it!
My father used to say, “The answers aren’t in the boardroom, they’re OUT THERE!”
Excellent advice Dad!
It’s true that this advice applied 50 years ago when our company was founded and it applies just as well today.
In the past few months I’ve been to Las Vegas, Hamburg, Zurich, Austria, Warsaw, Bucharest, New York, Delhi, Seoul, and soon Tokyo. (That might explain my lack of time for LinkedIn posts!)
There’s nothing like getting out there to learn what technologies people need and how their workflow is changing. You also get to know:
- What your business partners and customers think of you
- What your competition is doing well and where they’ve left opportunities
- The personalities and strengths of your team, and areas needing improvement
- How the economy is changing and how your brand is perceived
- How tech support and project management are performing
- Whether your commercial structure is correct
- What new features or products are needed and how your pricing compares
- The different needs of various regions around the world
- The pride you feel when a customer has “all Ross” and the humility you suddenly relearn when the next customer has built their facility with precisely “no Ross” :-)
It’s all OUT THERE.
Maybe above all, you develop lasting relationships you’re simply not going to make on Zoom or Teams.
When I come back I not only have a long list of ideas (maybe too many!), but I’m also better prepared when a member of my team comes with a proposal for something new. I can hear the proposal and say, “I know exactly what you mean, I’ve seen that need many times recently myself - let’s get started!”
A big thank you to all the incredible people I’ve met along the way. Your help, insights, and hospitality have been invaluable.
#rossvideo #BusinessTravelisAliveAndWell #ABusinessIsOnlyPeople #TheAnswersAreOutThere
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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.