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Dean Murray
IT Project Manager
Professional Background
Dean Murray is an accomplished IT Project Manager with over a decade of experience in leading and managing various IT projects across diverse industries, including healthcare, direct marketing retail, and government services through the US Postal Service. Throughout his career, Dean has adeptly managed projects ranging from relatively small-scale initiatives worth $10K to complex multimillion-dollar operations exceeding $1M. His comprehensive knowledge in project management methodologies including Waterfall, Agile, and a hybrid approach ensures that he identifies the most effective strategy tailored to each project, optimizing outcomes and fostering team collaboration.
One of Dean's standout attributes is his capability as a team builder. He establishes productive relationships among stakeholders, business users, and IT teams to ensure that everyone remains aligned and informed at all stages of a project. His meticulous approach to maintaining project status and managing scope, changes, issues, and risks is complemented by his strategic planning skills for contingencies and releases. This proactive methodology has contributed to his reputation for delivering projects on time, within budget, and with outstanding quality, consistently exceeding expectations.
Education and Achievements
Dean's educational credentials lay a solid foundation for his successful career in project management. He earned his Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from The University of North Dakota, where he gained essential technical skills and knowledge that underpin his project management success. Furthermore, he has pursued specialized training programs at multiple respected institutions, enhancing his capabilities as a project manager.
These programs include:
- CIGNA Training Services
- International Institute for Software Testing, Golden Valley, MN
- Quality Assurance Institute, Orlando, FL
- RMC - Project Management, Minneapolis, MN
- Systemation
- The Westfall Team, Plano, TX
The knowledge and experiences he gleaned from these studies have equipped him with invaluable insights and best practices that he applies to his work.
Achievements
Throughout his distinguished career, Dean has held notable positions, demonstrating his growth and expertise in the field of IT project management. Some of the key roles he has occupied include:
- IT Project Manager at Optum, where he managed complex health industry projects, demonstrating a robust understanding of healthcare technology and compliance requirements.
- Application Development Project Manager at Cigna, leading significant development projects and ensuring alignment between IT solutions and business goals.
- Principal Computer Analyst at Northrop Grumman Corporation, where he honed his analytical skills to solve intricate operational challenges.
- Senior Developer/Webmaster at ClickShip Direct, Inc., contributing hands-on technical expertise while also managing web-based projects.
- Independent Consultant at Dean Murray Consulting, where he continued to lend his expertise to various clients, assisting them in achieving their project goals.
Dean’s extensive experience and training have not only made him a proficient project manager but also a trusted advisor in the realms of IT and project management, where he continues to inspire teams and organizations to achieve their strategic objectives.
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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:
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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