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Barry Atkinson
Director, Location Lead - Cloud, DevOps and Security at Slalom Build
Professional Background
Barry Atkinson is a seasoned technology leader with an impressive career spanning over 20 years, where he has made significant contributions to the fields of e-commerce, consumer electronics, hospitality, healthcare, telecommunications, aerospace, travel, and entertainment. His extensive experience has equipped him with a rich understanding of various industries, which he leverages to design and implement innovative products and services that enhance operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Over the last five years, Barry has honed his expertise in Cloud Architecture, Cloud Strategy, Platform Development, and Mobile Strategy, focusing on key areas such as Microservices, API Design, E-commerce, High Availability, Migration from Legacy Systems, System Simplification, and Cost Reduction. In this rapidly evolving technological landscape, Barry continuously adapts to emerging trends and methodologies to drive business success.
Currently, his focus has shifted towards IoT-based Commercial Automation, where he envisions integrating smart technologies into commercial spaces, such as hotels, enhancing the user experience and operational function. Additionally, he is deeply engaged in Cloud-based Platform Architecture, promoting data collection at scale and real-time data analysis through state-of-the-art Cloud Analytics Services. Barry's commitment to innovation not only reflects his industry knowledge but also his passion for enabling businesses to thrive.
With a profound obsession for User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) Design, Barry ensures that every product is user-centric, which significantly enhances usability and customer engagement.
Education and Achievements
Barry's academic background laid a strong foundation for his illustrious career. He began his studies at Rolling Hills High School before pursuing a BPhil in Communication Systems, Radio/Television/Film at Northwestern University. Further advancing his education, he studied Computer Science at the esteemed University of California, Santa Barbara. This combination of communication and technical skills has enabled him to bridge the gap between technology and user experience, making him an influential figure in his field.
Throughout his career, Barry has accumulated a wealth of experience in various prestigious roles across multiple organizations. He is currently serving as the Director and Location Lead for Cloud, DevOps, and Security at Slalom Build, where he leads teams to develop secure and scalable cloud solutions for clients.
Previously, Barry held the position of Vice President of Technology at Evolve Controls, where he was instrumental in driving technological innovation and strategic direction. At OpinionLab, a subsidiary of Verint, he contributed as the VP of Technology and Operations, ensuring operational excellence and advancement in technology-driven analytics. Barry also served as the Chief Architect and Director of Platform and Services Architecture at Gogo, a recognized name in in-flight entertainment systems, where his architectural insight facilitated the development of robust digital solutions.
In addition, Barry's entrepreneurial spirit led him to co-found SportSync, where he worked diligently to develop new products and services in the tech realm. His leadership experience extends to roles at Matrx Broadband Technology, where he served as both Director of Software Development and Director of Systems Development, and at Chrysalis Development, where he held the position of Director of Software Development.
Beyond his roles in the corporate world, Barry has also carved a niche for himself in journalism and thought leadership. He was a former editor and contributor to the print version of Boing Boing and wrote a column entitled "Wireless World," showcasing his expertise in technology and innovation. His involvement with the APEX Technical Committee from 2014 to 2016 speaks to his dedication to advancing industry standards and fostering collaboration within the tech community.
Achievements
Barry's career is marked by several notable achievements that highlight his technical prowess and strategic vision. He has successfully led multiple IDEO engagements, reflecting his ability to integrate human-centered design into technology solutions. His disciplined approach to technology and innovation has garnered respect and recognition from peers within the tech industry.
Barry is renowned for his specialization in a diverse array of fields, including Cloud Architecture, Serverless Architectures, Web Services, REST Microservices, API Design, Agile methodologies (Scrum and XP), Enterprise Architecture, Systems Architecture, and Mobile Development. He has also made significant contributions to E-commerce, IT Strategy, Architecture Strategy, and Enterprise Security.
Moreover, Barry possesses a solid background in High Availability Architectures, Web Application Development, In-Flight Entertainment Systems, Object-Oriented Design and Analysis, Streaming Media, Digital Rights Management (DRM), and Wireless Communication technologies. His extensive knowledge of networking protocols, including 802.11 and 802.15.4, as well as his expertise in RFID and Wireless Sensor Networks, enables him to tackle complex technological challenges with confidence.
As Barry continues to innovate and inspire within various sectors, he remains focused on creating smart, efficient solutions that enhance user experiences while driving business growth. His unwavering commitment to excellence and passion for technology cements Barry Atkinson as a leading figure in technology leadership, a trailblazer in cloud architecture and IoT, and a pivotal contributor to the future of commercial automation.
Barry's ability to merge technology with user-centered design principles positions him as a vital asset in any organization and makes him a sought-after expert in his field.
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Clay 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, Clay centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Clay 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.
Clay 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
Clay 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, Clay 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 Clay 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 Clay 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.
Clay 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. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay 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.
Clay 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. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay 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. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Clay'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.
Clay 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. Clay'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.
Clay 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. Clay 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, Clay 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.
Clay 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.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay 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. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay 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 Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay 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, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay 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. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay 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.
Clay 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 Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay 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, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay 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.
Clay'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. Clay 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 Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay'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, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay 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 Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.