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Paula Wallace
President and Founder of Savannah College of Art and Design
Paula S. Wallace is the esteemed president and founder of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). With a rich history in academia and leadership, Wallace has overseen the growth of SCAD into a prestigious institution with over 14,000 students and 46,000 alumni. SCAD offers a diverse range of academic programs across various locations, providing a unique blend of traditional and innovative learning opportunities. Wallace's visionary approach has led to the restoration and transformation of numerous buildings into inspiring educational spaces, earning SCAD recognition from esteemed organizations like the American Institute of Architects and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Highlights
SCAD in Golf Digest? You bet. Our Bees hit aces in every industry, every sector. When I introduced SCAD Athletics in 1984, the first program of its kind among art and design universities, the doubters wondered what the creative professions could possibly have to do with sports. Did the next generation of architects, animators, and filmmakers truly have any desire to perfect a forehand slice, best bowling records with a negative split, or excel in equitation? They sure did—and SCAD Bees have dominated on fields and courts ever since—blossoming from a single club soccer team in '84 to national championship-winning teams and individuals in cross country, cycling, lacrosse, golf, equestrian, bowling, and swimming: lifetime sports that SCAD Bees can enjoy far beyond their college years. Aaron Asedo (B.F.A., furniture design, 2008), SCAD golf team alum, has turned his own lifetime sport into the entrepreneurial career of a lifetime. His latest venture, Florham Park Golf Club, has every linksman in the five boroughs of New York scrambling to refine their game. Aaron curated each detail of his business to overdeliver for members—realistic practice turf, advanced hitting bays and simulators, stretching and massage rooms, an infrared sauna, and more, designed within an industrial-modern built environment that helps golfers stay the course. The union of sport and design—a literal stroke of genius. SCAD friend George Lopez agrees. While on my podcast (On Creativity, found wherever you stream podcasts 😉), the actor and avid golfer attested to the complementary nature of art and athletics. Both imbue the utmost mental fortitude and push our Bees to new heights of poised performance. An advance on the fencing strip spurs a student to take the creative leap that sets a whole career in motion. One recent study found that college athletes earn an average of 3.4% more over the course of their lifetime. So many SCAD Bees just like Aaron have married their gifts for invention to a passion for play and produced grand entrepreneurial feats. As a student and SCAD soccer star, Hope Kemp-Hanson (B.F.A., fashion, 2021) won the Woolmark Performance Challenge for her line of skateboarding fashion with hidden impact protection, and she now works as a global apparel designer of innovation at The North Face. Former SCAD bowler Dylan Byars (B.F.A., UX design, 2020) is now a UX designer with Storm Bowling Products, while Jamie Jaeger (M.A., motion media design, 2018; B.F.A., motion media design, 2016) works as a creative producer/editor for the PGA Tour. SCAD degree programs—the best in the game—open so many doors for every Bee, including those who want to work in the sporting sector. Athletics and art: a hole-in-one for SCAD! ⛳
Let the games begin! Our SCAD family has the confetti cannon locked and loaded for SCAD student YI-TUNG CHEN (Antonio), who makes Olympic history this summer as the first male Taiwanese fencer to qualify in the foil category in 36 years. Antonio's a busy SCAD Bee, clinching a bronze at the Asian Fencing Championships while studying sneaker design and graphic design and competing on the SCAD Men’s Fencing team, earning him the title of SCAD Atlanta Men’s Athlete of the Year for two consecutive years. Allez, Antonio! Adding to our excitement, SCAD alumna Cheryl Haworth (B.F.A., historic preservation, 2006), an Olympic Bronze Medalist in weightlifting, will provide expert analysis for NBC's coverage in Paris. Bees buzz all over this Olympiad! For 16 days, stars like Antonio, Simone, Naomi, and LeBron compete on the world’s most monumental stage before an estimated one billion spectators at the largest live event ever staged in the long history of France. Several of the soccer and sailing events take place in Marseille, a short drive from SCAD Lacoste (!), though the grandest spectacle unfolds tonight on the River Seine—a ceremony so complex that there's no opportunity for a full dress rehearsal. No pressure! 😉 To learn how this mammoth production requiring over 400 cameras comes to fruition, I recently spoke with Rene Celestin, the genius behind this summer's opening and closing ceremonies. I had many, many questions! Celestin revealed that the "Seinsation" required the Herculean task of choreographing an army of thousands of creative pros—architects, filmmakers, fashion designers, animators, photographers, writers, and more—a pantheon of professions for SCAD Bees. Rene’s own story will resonate with many dreamers. From humble beginnings at a desk inside a broom closet (true story), Rene battled self-doubt and skepticism in his journey to launch a creative career. When I asked how he rose above those doubts and naysayers, Rene, an avid skydiver, responded with a smile. “Sometimes the door opens, and you just have to jump!” At SCAD, we teach our students how to make those same lofty leaps and land on both feet with brands—many in Paris and across Europe—like LVMH, Renault, Spotify, Google, Apple, and others. SCAD Bees always go for the gold. During this year's games, pay close attention to the inventive magic at play: lighting, scripting, filming, costuming, and musical performance all taught at SCAD to our students every day. While the world’s greatest athletes compete for everlasting glory, the collective brilliance of scores of creatives, including Celestin, invites us to sit on the front row for the event of a lifetime. Listen to my full conversation with Rene Celestin below, and cheer on SCAD Bee Antonio Chen next week when the men’s foil competition begins on July 29. En garde!
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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.