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Megan Pray
Training & Development Professional / ASL Interpreter & Mentor / Accessibility & Inclusion Crusader / Administrative Magician
Megan Pray is an Acquisition Specialist at Hands Up Communications and is based in the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. She is a nationally certified American Sign Language interpreter with 15 years of professional experience across various settings. Her expertise includes customer service and scheduling, particularly within language companies. Recently, she has been seeking full-time opportunities following a layoff, indicating her openness to new roles and challenges in her career.12
Highlights
I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Acquisition Specialist at Hands Up Communications!
I've been (joyfully) watching the DNC.
Political leanings aside, we HAVE to do better with accessibility. So much is missing from the captions. (We use captions in our household at all times.)
About 60.7 MILLION Americans age 12 and older have some degree of hearing loss. An estimated 6.6 million of them have severe to profound hearing loss in one or both ears.
These statistics don't include anyone facing other barriers, such as auditory processing disorders, that would also benefit from alternate communication modalities.
I've been a real-time captioner. I am a simultaneous interpreter. I get it. It's hard to hear and understand clearly. It's fatiguing. You can't press "pause" or "rewind" in a live setting. So this is not a criticism of our captioners or interpreters by any means.
When we want people to truly hear a message (lousy pun intended), we need to consider our diverse audience. Successful accessibility begins before the service providers arrive to a job - how are we preparing for them to be able to DO their job? Do they have the prep they need? How will they receive the audio feed? Can we educate the speakers so they be mindful of their delivery?
Accommodations do not benefit a few; studies have proven repeatedly that increased accessibility has unexpected benefits for the majority. For instance, we have no deafness in our household, yet always utilize captioning because it enhances our comprehension and retention. Universal Design should be the standard.
If you vote without being fully informed because you choose not to do your research, that's one thing. But it's unacceptable for millions of Americans to go to the polls in 2024 without being fully informed simply because their access is limited by others. We can do better. Let's do better.
(Stats citation: https://lnkd.in/eCWHbyeX )
Updated to add: pleased to find that the 2024 Democratic National Convention Committee has made multiple channels available on their YouTube, including live ASL interpretation using Deaf interpreters and a channel with descriptive audio for blind/low vision. 🙌 Bravo. That's an inclusive America! https://lnkd.in/eciRgg6N
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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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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.