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Shirley Halperin
Executive Editor, Music at Variety
Professional Background
Shirley Halperin is a distinguished figure in the music journalism landscape, currently serving as the Executive Editor for Music at Variety, where she continues to shape the narrative of the music industry through her insightful reporting and editorial leadership. With an extensive career spanning over two decades, Shirley has cultivated a reputation for her deep knowledge of the music scene, artist profiles, and industry trends.
Before her current role at Variety, Shirley made significant contributions as the News Director and Music Editor at Billboard, a leading publication in the music business that has defined the industry for generations. Her tenure at Billboard was marked by her ability to navigate the rapidly changing landscape of the music industry, particularly during the rise of digital platforms and new music consumption models. She was instrumental in covering pivotal moments and trends that resonate with music enthusiasts and industry professionals alike.
In addition to her accomplishments at Billboard, Shirley has held prestigious positions at other notable media outlets. She was the Music Editor at The Hollywood Reporter, where she helped bridge the gap between film and music, highlighting the intersection of these two powerful entertainment sectors. Her experience with top-tier publications extends to her role as a Senior Writer at Entertainment Weekly (Time Inc.), where she crafted compelling narratives about popular culture and the entertainment industry as a whole.
Shirley's early career included a diverse range of roles that equipped her with a versatile skill set, including her time as a Blogger at the Los Angeles Times and as the Entertainment Editor at Wenner Media. These experiences enriched her understanding of multimedia storytelling and the importance of engaging readers across various platforms.
Education and Achievements
Shirley Halperin proudly studied at Rutgers University, where she laid the foundation for her illustrious career in journalism. Her time as a student empowered her to explore the intricate relationship between music and culture, which has remained a significant theme throughout her professional life.
Throughout her career, Shirley has received recognition for her journalistic excellence, exploring topics such as the evolving nature of music production, digital transformation within the industry, and the social impact of music. She has also contributed thought-provoking commentary and analysis, demonstrating her ability to articulate complex ideas with clarity and insight.
Notable Contributions
Shirley Halperin is not only known for her writing but also for her keen editorial instincts that have helped shape the narratives that define music journalism today. Her ability to identify emerging trends and artists has afforded her the opportunity to work with some of the most influential voices in the industry. Her work not only informs but also inspires, making her a sought-after expert in her field. Through her dedication to journalism and her commitment to excellence, Shirley has established herself as a trusted authority in music reporting, guiding readers with her nuanced perspective on the industry.
In conclusion, Shirley Halperin's vast experience in music journalism, bolstered by her solid educational background from Rutgers University, paints a vivid picture of a professional deeply rooted in the intersection of music, culture, and media. Her ongoing contributions at Variety and previous roles at leading publications underscore her passion and expertise, making her a prominent figure in the world of music journalism.
Highlights
Felt compelled to write about the yearbook controversy at my alma mater, East Brunswick High School (thank you Jewish Journal) https://lnkd.in/gjDMTiFR
This part was cut (understandably) but wanted to shout out some fellow EB success stories....
As a suburb, East Brunswick Township, NJ is positively unspectacular, but it punches above its weight in residents who’ve gone on to big careers in entertainment. Among them: ‘The Social Network’ star Jesse Eisenberg, who this year produced a stunner of a film, Sasquatch Sunset, which screened at Sundance Institute and SXSW. As it turned out, a consultant for the movie, The Ape Initiative director Jared Taglialatela, is also from East Brunswick (class of ’93). Elsewhere in the industry, class of ’79 grad Matt Pinfield went on to become a major-market radio DJ (currently on the air in Los Angeles), as did Paul "Cubby" Bryant (New York’s 106.7), and several more graduates from that era ended up in senior executive roles at Universal Music Group and Sony Music. One EB resident is a legit pop star — Jax, of American Idol and “The Dress” fame (yellow or blue?), is signed to Atlantic Records and had a Top 40 hit in 2022 with “Victoria’s Secret.”
I like to think the seeds of their successes were sown by the years spent in East Brunswick and that their ambition was nurtured by the EAST BRUNSWICK PUBLIC SCHOOLS system’s teachers, some of whom we admired to their end. Like longtime IPLE instructor John Calimano. When he died of cancer in 2019, former students gathered in the classroom where he taught to hold a debate that was true to “Cal” form. I tuned in via Facebook Live from L.A. and felt my heart swell more than once hearing his acolytes’ thoughtful tributes. An open ear was all Cal ever asked for, and if he were leading a debate on Gaza and Israel today, he’d blast an unflinching “point of order!” if one student group tried to hijack another’s assigned seat at the dais. There’s space for everyone.
Ahhh, to be whisked away to a faraway place ... Los Angeles Magazine’s May issue is all about #travel with Priceline ambassador Kaley Cuoco sharing her tips on flying with kids (and pets!) and juggling mommy and work duties as an actress and podcast host. Read Whitney Friedlander’s excellent cover story here >> https://lnkd.in/ghJEdsjw
📸 Photographed: Irvin Rivera 📚 Deputy Editor: Jasmin Rosemberg 🎨 Creative Direction: Ada Guerin 🖊️ Cover Story by: Whitney Friedlander 📱Social Media/Digital: Andrew Curry 👗 Styled by: Brad Goreski 💇 Hair: Marilee Albin 💄 Makeup: Jamie Greenberg 💅 Manicurist: Caroline Cotton 📍 Location: Malibu Beach Inn Hotel and Spa 📰 PR: Viewpoint
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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.