Suggestions
Shannon Whidden
Operations Executive
Shannon Whidden is an accomplished Operations Executive known for her strategic vision, execution skills, and team-building expertise.
With a background in B. Mus in Vocal Performance from Mount Allison University and a Certificate in Theatre Craft from Banff Centre for the Arts, Shannon brings a unique blend of artistic and operational talents to her roles.
Throughout her career, Shannon has held key positions including President at TechLink Writers Group, Interim Director of Operations at Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Executive Director at Ottawa Youth Orchestra Academy.
Her professional journey also includes experiences as a Consultant, Vice President Board Of Directors at Orchestras Canada, Executive Director at Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Manager at NAC Orchestra, Chief Operating Officer at Whidden Technical Associates, Director of Operations at Windsor Symphony, Operations Coordinator at The Phoenix Symphony, and Artistic Administration Assistant at Arizona Opera.
Shannon Whidden stands out for her dedication to shaping organizational strategies, driving operational excellence, and fostering strong team dynamics.
Highlights
Part 2 of 2
I quit drinking in November of 2013, which was a huge step in the right direction. With medication, I was able to manage the symptoms of my anxiety without the booze. But it’s an ongoing challenge. Since the pandemic, I’ve been struggling with my anxiety again. Paired with a diagnosis of GERD, the symptoms of which include frequent and loud throat clearing, and on particularly bad days, dry-heaving, these last few years have been particularly tough. It is difficult, sometimes impossible, for me to be in a social environment, whether that’s a party with friends, going to a movie, or even something as simple as going to the doctor’s office. Driving is also a trigger for me, so whenever possible, I avoid that as well. But that means I’ve downloaded a lot onto my family. Runs to the store, drives to school, anything like that, Anna and Mia have taken over. Going to events has been a huge challenge since the pandemic, so I’ve missed performances that Ethan has had, which kills me.
Part of the challenge with all of this is my ingrained sense that I have to hide this from people. I don’t know if it’s a fear of appearing weak or flawed in front of friends, or colleagues, for all of these years I’ve always felt that I needed to hide my anxiety and the ways that it manifests. I’ve done that because I’ve wanted to shield my friends and family from my issues. At least, that’s what I told myself. In reality, I wanted to hide them from myself. Telling myself that I was protecting my family from my anxiety was just a means to keep from admitting the impact that my anxiety has had on the family I want to protect. It meant that I didn’t have to recognize that I’ve been distant, removed from my wife, my kids. I’ve hidden myself away in my bedroom, shutting them out and me in for days at a time.
That has to stop. Writing this post, being honest with myself, and with the people I know – I’m hoping it’s a start to breaking down the stigma I feel around anxiety and depression. And I’m hoping that it helps other people who might be dealing with mental health issues. If one person reads this and feels that they don’t have to pretend to be okay, then I’ve done something worthwhile.
Part 1 of 2
I want to talk about something that I’ve dealt with for most of my adult life. A few of you know that I deal with anxiety. Recently, I decided that I want to be more transparent about how this has impacted me, and the people around me. In the last five or ten years, there has been a push to recognize and de-stigmatize anxiety, and mental health challenges in general. Even with that push, there is still a sense that people dealing with anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues, must hide the challenges that they face. I’ve certainly fallen into that trap.
I had my first panic attack when I was about 16 years old, though at the time I didn’t recognize it for what it was. I was in a restaurant when it occurred, and this created an association with food and eating and panic. I didn’t feel comfortable eating around people that weren’t my immediate family, eating at a restaurant, or eating before I had to be somewhere. This was really the start of a deeper anxiety disorder, one which would impact me throughout the remainder of my high school and university years.
After university, once I started working, I discovered I could ease those symptoms with a beer or two, and I slowly became more comfortable eating in restaurants, or with other people, as long as I could get that beer, or two, or eventually 5 or 6. Drinks with dinner soon became drinks whenever I had any sort of social interaction, and then drinks any time I had a hint of anxiety. Thus began years of self-medicating with alcohol. From 21 until I was 35, I drank in an increasingly unhealthy way to manage my anxiety. This had a huge impact on my wife and family. And it had an impact on me as well. If I’m being honest with myself, my drinking (coupled with anxiety) was directly responsible for my leaving a job that I loved.
People also viewed
Related People
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.