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Karen Hawkins
Co-Publisher + Co-Editor in Chief at Chicago Reader
Professional Background
Karen Hawkins is an accomplished award-winning reporter, editor, and entrepreneur with an impressive array of experience in journalism and communications. Her diverse career includes positions with major media outlets such as The Associated Press, where she honed her skills in storytelling and reporting, the Windy City Times, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Her extensive skill set extends beyond reportage, having served in pivotal roles that shape public narratives and influence community engagement.
With a deep commitment to advocacy and community awareness, Karen has also been the co-host of the insightful podcast "Of Course I'm Not OK," which addresses pertinent issues surrounding mental health and personal challenges in a candid and engaging manner. This platform allows her to combine her profound knowledge of journalism with her passion for mental health discourse.
In her professional journey, Karen held the role of director of communications for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, where she was instrumental in developing communication strategies that aimed to enhance the agency's outreach and visibility. This position showcased her aptitude for organizational communication and further illuminated her dedication to public service.
Education and Achievements
Karen received her Bachelor's degree in Journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a program renowned for cultivating innovative and ethical journalists. She later pursued a Master’s degree in Journalism at Northwestern University, where she deepened her understanding of investigative journalism and multimedia storytelling.
Throughout her illustrious career, Karen has been recognized with multiple awards for her contributions to journalism, underscoring her commitment to excellence and the integrity of her reporting. Her understanding of journalism is further complemented by her certification as an Inbound Marketing professional from HubSpot, which illustrates her adaptability and awareness of the evolving digital landscape.
Professional Affiliations
In addition to her roles in various media organizations, Karen is a national board member for NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists, demonstrating her dedication to supporting and amplifying the voices within the LGBTQ+ community. Her leadership in this capacity reinforces her commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in journalism—an important facet of her career philosophy.
Karen's career has also included impressive tenures in numerous editorial positions. As the co-publisher and co-editor-in-chief at the Chicago Reader, she led initiatives that revitalized this iconic publication, ensuring it remains a staple of journalistic integrity in Chicago. Previously, she served as the co-editor-in-chief and digital managing editor, where her strategic vision and keen editorial sense greatly contributed to the publication's reach and relevance. Her time as the Rebelle in Chief at Rebellious Magazine for Women further reflects her commitment to championing women's issues and narrative authority.
Notable Contributions
Karen's advocacy extends beyond journalism into areas such as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), feminism, and mental wellness. She frequently speaks on these topics, sharing her insights and personal stories that inspire audiences and contribute to essential conversations around these themes. By engaging in public speaking and community events, she works to highlight the importance of mental health awareness and the intersectionality of identity in journalism and media.
Further showcasing her versatility, Karen has served as a senior content creator at Yodelpop, Inc. and has been an organizational transformation and communications consultant at Infosys. These roles have enriched her understanding of the business side of media and provided her with a platform to merge content creation with strategic organizational communications.
Her experiences in editorial roles, combined with her commitment to fostering inclusive dialogue in media, exemplify her dedication to creating a society where all voices are heard. Karen is not only a journalist but also a catalyst for change, using her platforms to advocate for marginalized communities and drive forward essential discourse within her fields of expertise. She continues to explore ways to amplify underrepresented voices and push for equitable representation in all aspects of media coverage.
Overall, Karen Hawkins embodies the values of commitment, integrity, and passion that are essential to journalism. Her impressive body of work and her dedication to advocacy make her a esteemed figure in the media landscape.
tags':['journalism','reporter','editor','podcast','LGBTQ+ issues','mental health','feminism','DEI','communications','Inbound Marketing','Illinois','awards'],
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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:
- 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
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- 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.
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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.
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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.