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Paul Evans
Organising, representing & campaigning.
Professional Background
Paul Evans is a dedicated media and business professional with over twenty years of diverse experience in the sectors of media, new media, public policy, and business development. Currently serving as a senior official at a prominent UK entertainment-industry union, Evans is responsible for overseeing a rapidly-growing division of freelance workers, demonstrating his commitment to advocating for the needs and rights of individuals in this dynamic and evolving work environment.
Throughout his career, Paul has been hailed as a creative 'do-er' with a knack for transforming ideas into actionable plans. He possesses specialist expertise in understanding industrial relations, public management, and political structures, allowing him to navigate the complexities of various political landscapes effectively. His prior roles have included being a well-connected pioneer in the Web 2.0 space, where he made notable appearances in mainstream media outlets as both a columnist and a TV pundit.
Evans's entrepreneurial background is notable, particularly his extensive sales experience. He has successfully combined his commercial acumen with remarkable organizational skills to achieve landmark results in his various roles, demonstrating his ability to drive growth and innovation in any setting.
Key Career Milestones
- Paul began his illustrious career as a freelancer from May 2008 to October 2013, focusing on promoting best practices in local representative government, showcasing his early inclination towards public service.
- He joined Poptel Ltd in 1999, where he not only contributed to the company’s web-development initiatives but also helped draft the business case for this new venture.
- Paul played a pivotal role in jointly leading a Management Buy-Out of Poptel Ltd's web-development arm in 2002. This led to the formation of Poptel Technology Ltd, where he served as a company director and business development manager, ultimately achieving a remarkable turnover of over £700,000 in their first year of trading.
- Evans established the Councillor.info project in 2003, a venture that continues to yield profits for its current owners, thus cementing his reputation for creating sustainable and valuable projects.
- Throughout his career, he has worked on over 50 major web development initiatives for renowned voluntary sector and trade union organizations, exemplifying his dedication to using technology for social good.
- An early advocate for integrating internet solutions into political challenges, Paul initiated the New Statesman New Media Awards in 1998, reflecting his commitment to innovation in media.
- His background also includes significant experience as a political researcher focusing on EU broadcasting policy and press work for the Labour Party during the pivotal 1997 General Election.
Education and Achievements
Paul's educational background has equipped him with robust theoretical knowledge, which he has successfully applied to his practical work in the media and public policy arenas.
- He earned his M.Sc. in Politics and Administration from Birkbeck, University of London, delving deep into the intricacies of political systems and governance.
- Additionally, he holds a BA (Hons) in English Literature from Kingston Polytechnic, reflecting his strong foundation in communication and analytical skills.
- His academic journey also took him to St Mary’s University, Twickenham, where he further enriched his educational pursuits.
Notable Leadership Roles and Contributions
- Paul served as the Assistant National Secretary at BECTU, where he applied his deep knowledge of industrial relations to strengthen the union's role in advocating for its members.
- He was previously the Research Officer at BECTU, demonstrating his commitment to thorough research and informed decision-making in the entertainment industry.
- In his role as a Business Development professional at Slugger O'Toole Ltd, Evans contributed to expanding the company's outreach and services, leveraging his sales expertise to maximize impact.
- His tenure as the Events and Projects Manager at Memeserver Ltd focused on political innovation, during which he managed thought leadership efforts, training, and mentoring programs that aimed to elevate the standards in political discourse and engagement.
Achievements
- Paul has honed his presentational skills through journalism, research, and an extensive array of conference speaking engagements. His ability to communicate complex ideas effectively has made him a sought-after speaker.
- He possesses a unique blend of technical project management skills, evident in his work on over 70 major website projects. His proficiency in web development encompasses strategy creation, system integration, and design, making him an invaluable asset to any organization.
- Further, his experience in event management spans a range of high-profile conferences, awards ceremonies, and public
Highlights
For everyone who wasn’t at the script page-turn meeting, this is the template that all of the England sponsors, and all of the players’ agents have signed off on (see previous tournaments):
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Rubbish in the qualifying round - scrape through, somehow, at the top of a mediocre group.
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Rubbish in first knockout game but somehow beat the rank outsiders they’re playing after extra time.
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Brilliant in the next game - a flair performance showcasing at least one exciting young breakthrough player. A comfortable win. (Note: preparing for millions of people who watch football once every two years telling everyone “it’s coming home!”)
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Lose on penalties in the semi-final that they deserved to win following a second half in which a referee openly trolls every English viewer (not least by being French or something like that - tba).
However, all bets are off (geddit?) if there is a change of government on Friday morning.
As Harold Wilson pointed out, England have only ever won a major tournament under a Labour government and Sir Keir may be able to retain the services of the genie who has been busy since the moment the PM confided the election date to his most trusted advisers.
Remember where you heard it first.
I've been helping to broker a good conversation between the directors on ITV's Coronation Street and Emmerdale and ITV, and I'm pleased to say that the broadcaster has recognised some of Directors UK's members' concerns and agreed some important improvements to their terms and conditions.
I still believe that directors need to assert their interests a bit more firmly than many currently do, but hopefully, this is a step in the right direction.
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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.
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