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Ronit Novak
Versatile Art Director and Creative Problem Solver
Ronit Novak is a seasoned professional in the field of photography and visual content creation, currently serving as the Director of Photography and Video at Toronto Life Magazine.6 With a diverse background in the Canadian media industry, Novak has established herself as a prominent figure in editorial and commercial photography.
Career Highlights
Novak's career spans several renowned Canadian publications and brands. She has held significant positions, including:
- Director of Photography at Canadian Business and MoneySense magazines5
- Photo editor for Maclean's magazine4
- Content creator and visual strategist for brands such as Loblaws, Shopify, and Rogers Media2
Expertise and Interests
Beyond her primary role, Ronit Novak demonstrates a passion for photography that extends into various aspects:
- Historic Photography: She teaches Historic Photographic Processes and is a speaker at the Photographic Historical Society of Canada1
- Antique Photography: Novak collects antique photographs, showcasing her interest in the historical aspects of the medium1
Additional Roles
Novak's professional profile is multifaceted:
- She is associated with THE GRAIN, likely in a content creation capacity2
- Her expertise extends to writing and artistry, as she describes herself as a mother, teacher, writer, and artist3
Recent Activities
As of September 2024, Ronit Novak continues to be actively involved in creating content and visual strategies for prominent Canadian brands.2 Her work contributes significantly to shaping the visual narrative of Toronto Life Magazine, which is described as the city's #1 current affairs and lifestyle magazine.7
Ronit Novak's LinkedIn profile can be found under the username "ronitnovak", where more details about her professional journey and accomplishments may be available.
Highlights
Read the latest from THE GRAIN: Google loses landmark anti-trust lawsuit Will creatives benefit from the emergence of new and innovative search engines?
My first encounter with Google was in university when a professor introduced it as “this cool new thing that is handy for looking things up on the world wide web.” He described the company as a plucky startup, that is “probably going to do big things in the future.” While I diligently searched card catalogues and microfiche, the lure of quick and prioritized Google search results became stronger and more pervasive for me—quickly becoming my inquiry of choice when looking for fast facts and news articles. Turns out I wasn’t alone. Today, Google integrates AI for personalized search results and targeted advertising, making it by far the dominant means by which people retrieve information online. Google’s control of the market cannot be understated:
- Google processes 8.5 billion searches per day, that’s 99,000 every second
- Google holds more than 92% of the global search engine market
- Google Trends is used extensively by analysts in business, politics, and entertainment to better understand global interests based on popularity and timing of search queries
Google held this top spot for over 20 years but that ranking may be finally ending because on Monday the company lost a seismic anti-trust lawsuit in U.S. Federal Court. Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google has been operating as an illegal monopoly, dominating the market by paying billions for exclusive contracts, becoming the de-facto search engine on browsers like Apple’s Safari, effectively blocking access to other search engine options:
“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,”
This ruling could be a game-changer for the creative industry where competition and innovation has been historically stifled by Google’s search stronghold and opaque, seemingly fickle algorithm. I have seen many a digital marketer mystified by the “Google algo” and its sporadic and elusive changes to search rankings and page views, for which breaking this monopoly could be a welcome change.
Google’s dominance has long meant high ad prices and limited visibility for independent creators. The ruling could foster fairer competition, lowering ad costs and offering more diverse platforms for content discovery. This shift is crucial for those who rely on digital ads and search algorithms to reach their audience.
The Google ruling could be a sign that lawmakers and regulators are finally catching up to the tech industry’s runaway expansion. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is actively pursuing several anti-trust lawsuits against other tech giants including...
To continue reading, go to: https://lnkd.in/gMhmRtfc
#ai #artificialintelligence #creativity #google
Read my latest from THE GRAIN, a Substack Featured Publication:
There she is, Miss AI, the dreams of a gazillion bytes Glory for a woman who has no soul
She’s beautiful, she’s smart, she’s… artificially generated! Kenza Layli recently won the first Miss AI Pageant, a marketing stunt by creator subscription platform Fanvue. Virtual contestants were not only judged on their beauty and poise, but also social media following and engagement (a.k.a. clout) and how successfully the model was rendered. And it wouldn’t be a pageant without inquiring about congeniality: If you could have one dream to make the world a better place, what would it be?
Will every future online influencer be made with AI? Miss AI herself now has over 200K followers on Instagram, although Lil Miguela boasts 2.5 million people paying attention to the daily life of a 21-year-old robot in L.A. The challenge for humans seeking attention is to distinguish themselves from their manufactured counterparts. And while traditional pageants provide prizes and professional development known to genuinely boost the careers of young women, those opportunities would be lost if the concept becomes the stuff of virtual worlds.
Do we really want to aspire to look like AI models? As if women didn’t have a hard enough time measuring themselves against portrayals of super-slim models whose images are manipulated by photo editing tools, Miss AI contestants display unattainable beauty standards. It’s well-documented that adolescent girls transfixed by body images on social media suffer psychological damage. AI can bring on a new level of emotional harm. But pageant organizers claimed that their aim is to advance technology and celebrate the technical skill and work behind digital influencer personas from across the world. Kenza Layli isn’t human, but she gave an acceptance speech:
“Winning Miss AI motivates me even more to continue my work in advancing AI technology. AI isn’t just a tool; it’s a transformative force that can disrupt industries, challenge norms and create opportunities where none existed before. As we move forward, I am committed to promoting diversity and inclusivity within the field, ensuring that everyone has a seat at the table of technological progress.”
What does this mean for the future of our creative industry? You tell me!
Leave a comment and subscribe to https://lnkd.in/gpQBUbtP
#ai #artificialintelligence #creativity #waica #fanvue
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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.