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Jessica Sier
Journalist
Jessica Sier
Jessica Sier is an economics and technology journalist based in Tokyo, Japan. She currently works as the North Asia Correspondent for The Australian Financial Review, a position she has held since April 2024.12
Prior to her current role, Jessica worked as a Technology Journalist for The Australian Financial Review in Sydney from June 2021 to February 2024.1 She has also held positions as a freelance Journalist and Content strategist from August 2020 to June 2021, and as an Automotive Journalist at Dow Jones in Berlin, Germany from February 2020 to August 2020.1
Jessica has a Bachelor's degree in Journalism and has worked in various media roles over the years, including as a Markets reporter, Video journalist, and Investor Relations professional.1
You can connect with Jessica Sier on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-sier-6ba9573a1 or reach her via email at jessica.sier@afr.com.3
Highlights
In Sydney, whenever I was feeling a bit lonely or bored, I'd pop down to the pub.
I'd order a pint and strike up a conversation with other bar flies wiling away the hours.
In Tokyo, my Japanese is so miserable the locals beg me with their eyes not to speak with them. And besides, the "pub culture" doesn't really exist like it does in Australia.
Fortunately, I've recently discovered listening cafés, or "kissa".
These tiny bars, hundreds of which are dotted around Tokyo, are for concentrating on absorbing music. They are not for chatting; they are not for eating.
They are for listening to records piped through elaborately set-up stereo systems that range as widely as the genres of music their owners have spent lifetimes collecting on vinyl.
I interviewed music devotee and director Nick Dwyer, who has just screened his six-part documentary on Japanese "kissa" culture.
Since we met -- over a vape at the Eigakan Jazz listening café in Bunkyo -- I've visited one of these delightful venues at least once a week.
I get to be surrounded by quietly drinking strangers without the pressure of having to speak to them. Everyone’s a winner.
Here’s a story about Nick’s documentary and some of the kissas I’ve been frequenting.
https://lnkd.in/gb5KiSb4
On Tuesday, I watched Penny Wong’s slick, black motorcade pull away from me on the border of North and South Korea. My stomach sank.
I had just stepped out of a black van, after a tense ten minutes interviewing the Foreign Minister on how dangerous the nuclear-armed despot running North Korea was. The despot who ran the country less than two kilometres from where I was standing.
As my shoes hit the steaming asphalt, I realised I was clutching just my notebook and phone. My bag, which housed my laptop and my passport, was nowhere in sight.
I had memories of it leaning against a chair during Wong’s press conference at the DMZ, the weapons-free buffer between North and South Korea.
As I stammered out my confession: I’ve forgotten my bag, ten pairs of blank, serious eyes swivelled to look at me.
The motorcade was already 15 minutes behind schedule, and the Foreign Minister was due back in Seoul for an estimated 12,000 bilateral meetings and a working lunch. There was no way they were turning back to get the journalist’s bag.
As I stood by the side of the road, wishing the ground would swallow me whole, phone calls were made. Orders were barked. Defence force personal materialised from thin air to protect the motorcade.
“Okay, the boys will bring it down from the DMZ and they’ll drive you back to Seoul,” I was told. My feeble gratitude was drowned by a flurry of movement as the motorcade sprang into life.
Lights flashed, security personal slammed doors, and within seconds, six black cars snaked away from me and headed for the freeway.
I watched them leave, glad my mother had no idea where I was or what an arse I’d just made of myself.
And then I wrote this story:
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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:
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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.
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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.