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Diane McFarlin
Professional Background
Diane McFarlin stands as a prominent leader in the realm of communication education, serving as the Dean Emeritus of the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications. With a career spanning over several decades, Diane has transformed one of the nation's top communication programs into a model of academic excellence and industry relevance. Under her guidance, the College has not only emphasized the teaching hospital method but has also fostered a vibrant learning environment where research and practical application come together to support the next generation of communicators.
At the helm of a college that boasts a dedicated team of over 100 faculty and staff, Diane oversees an impressive body of 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students across four core academic disciplines: advertising, journalism, public relations, and telecommunication. The College also operates seven media properties, including local PBS, NPR, and ESPN affiliates, providing students with unparalleled opportunities for hands-on experience. In addition, the College features a state-of-the-art 100-seat newsroom and a full-service strategic communication agency, catering to students' diverse educational needs and fostering an immersive learning culture.
Since her arrival, Diane has driven several significant initiatives that have greatly enhanced the College's reputation and educational outcomes. Notably, enrollment has surged by over 20%, with diversity among students rising to 40%. This growth exemplifies her commitment to inclusivity and student engagement, serving as a testament to the welcoming academic environment she has cultivated.
Additionally, Diane has spearheaded the establishment of a central hub for professional advising and student services, expanded interdisciplinary initiatives, boosted research productivity, and enriched the College’s master's program with new professional tracks and seven online master’s degrees. Diane's visionary leadership also led to the creation of The Agency, a strategic communication agency that provides students with real-world experience while generating valuable outreach for the College.
In 2017 alone, the College's outstanding efforts under Diane's direction received more than 100 regional and national news awards, including an impressive 18 Hearst Awards, thereby underscoring the high-caliber education and training provided within its walls. Furthermore, Diane initiated the establishment of a center for STEM translational communication research, recognizing the integral role of technology in modern communication.
Diane’s innovative mindset resulted in the creation of the Media Effects & Technology Lab, which aims to experiment with immersive technologies, ensuring that students and faculty alike remain at the cutting edge of communication advancements. Additionally, she launched Hatch, a content and product incubator designed to promote creativity and entrepreneurship among students.
In 2015, Diane recognized the need for a strategic roadmap for the College's future. She initiated a comprehensive strategic planning effort that focused on enhancing academic reputation, advancing multicultural faculty recruitment and retention, ensuring excellence in storytelling grounded in research, and equipping students with the professional skills necessary for success. Her vision emphasized the improvement of student career preparation and the importance of utilizing communication to create meaningful societal impacts.
Education and Achievements
Diane's educational foundation is firmly rooted in journalism, having received her Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications. Her early education at Lake Wales Senior High School in Florida paved the way for her remarkable journey in the field of journalism and communication.
Throughout her career, Diane has held several esteemed positions that further reflect her leadership and influence in the industry. Before assuming the role of Dean at the University of Florida, she served as President at the American Society of Newspaper Editors, showcasing her expertise and commitment to advancing journalism standards. Additionally, her tenure as President and Publisher at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, alongside her role as Executive Editor at both the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and The Gainesville Sun, highlights her extensive professional experience in the media landscape.
Diane’s efforts have been instrumental in forging strategic partnerships and enhancing the educational experience for her students. Her commitment to academic rigor, combined with her ability to foster a thriving community within the college, speaks volumes to her impact and legacy.
As a leader dedicated to creating pathways for future generations of communicators, Diane McFarlin continues to inspire students, faculty, and industry professionals alike through her innovative approaches to education and her unwavering commitment to excellence in communication.
Achievements
- Increased student enrollment by over 20% and achieved 40% diversity among the student body
- Established a central hub for professional advising and student services
- Expanded interdisciplinary initiatives to enhance learning opportunities
- Boosted research productivity within the college
- Expanded the master’s degree offerings, including professional tracks and seven online master’s programs
- Launched The Agency, a strategic communication agency for real-world experience
- Secured over 100 regional and national news awards in 2017 alone, including 18 Hearst Awards
- Established a center for STEM translational communication research
- Built the Media Effects & Technology Lab for immersive technology experimentation
- Launched Hatch, a content and product incubator for student creativity
- More than doubled new gifts to the College, significantly enhancing funding and resources for students
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Mesh offers several powerful features including:
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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.