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Octavia Hirst
Senior Product Manager at Florence Academy
Professional Background
Octavia Hirst is a renowned EdTech product specialist with a distinguished track record of combining educational theory with product strategy to create impactful educational products for diverse international audiences. With a career spanning various educational sectors, Octavia has gathered a wealth of experience that encompasses preschool, primary, secondary, higher, and lifelong education. Her journey began with roles at notable companies like Kahoot! and Wonderbly, where she was instrumental in developing engaging learning solutions. She later transitioned into secondary education with a major role at Team Satchel, and most recently, she contributed to the higher education landscape at FutureLearn and lifelong learning initiatives at Florence.
One of Octavia’s significant career highlights includes the founding of her own EdTech consulting business, where she has partnered with esteemed organizations such as Pearson College and The School of Communication Arts. Her consulting experience also extends to various charity-funded digital education initiatives, firmly establishing her as a thought leader in the EdTech arena. Octavia's unwavering passion is rooted in the belief that technology holds transformative potential for education, enabling student-led learning experiences and guiding individuals in discovering and nurturing their passions.
Education and Achievements
Octavia Hirst’s educational journey is marked by excellence and a commitment to understanding the educational landscape thoroughly. She studied at Durham University, where she earned a First Class BEng degree in Engineering. This technical foundation has piqued her interest in integrating practical engineering principles into educational technology, resulting in innovative product solutions. Furthering her education, she expanded her skill set by studying facilitating learning spaces at KaosPilot, thereby gaining valuable insights into how learners interact in dynamic environments.
Octavia also pursued performance coaching at the Ministry of Entrepreneurship, which enhanced her leadership capabilities and allowed her to better empower educators and learners alike. By bridging the gap between technology and educational psychology, Octavia has become proficient in creating products that not only fulfill educational needs but also boost learner engagement.
Professional Affiliations and Roles
Throughout her career, Octavia Hirst has held various significant positions that showcase her expertise in product management and user experience. As a Senior Product Manager at Florence, she has helped shape the learner experience to align with the ever-evolving needs of education in a digital age. At FutureLearn, she was pivotal as the Senior Product Manager for Learner Experience, guiding the development of platforms that facilitate lifelong learning for an international audience.
Before her roles at Florence and FutureLearn, Octavia excelled as the Head of Product for homework and behavioral software at Team Satchel. Her leadership in this role greatly contributed to the enhancement of user engagement and satisfaction among educators and students alike. Additionally, Octavia’s capabilities as a UX Product Owner at SportPursuit allowed her to create seamless customer experiences that resonate with users, illustrating her dedication to excellence in user research and product development.
Earlier in her career, Octavia served as a Learning Product Manager at Livity, focusing on products designed for young learners and shaping transformative learning experiences. Her role as a Digital Education Producer & Project Lead at GoodPeople further emphasizes her ability to blend creativity and technology into educational solutions. Moreover, as the founder of the coding school Skillab, she showcased her commitment to equipping learners with essential skills for the future.
Notable Projects and Contributions
Throughout her professional journey, Octavia has led several notable projects and initiatives that have made a significant impact in the EdTech space. For instance, her work at Kahoot! as the User Research and Customer Experience Manager for a global teaching brand demonstrates her capacity to enhance user engagement through research-driven initiatives. Octavia utilized feedback from learners and educators to refine the digital learning experience, ensuring that products delivered meaningful educational outcomes.
As a consultant and founder at Thinklings Ltd, Octavia has further influenced the educational sector by helping institutions leverage technology to improve learning environments. Her strategic thinking and innovative approach have transformed how organizations implement educational technologies, leading to increased accessibility and enriched learner experiences.
Conclusion
Octavia Hirst's extensive background in EdTech exemplifies her commitment to harnessing technology's power to reshape the educational landscape. With a robust educational foundation combined with rich professional experiences across various educational sectors, she is a leader in the field dedicated to promoting student-led learning and innovation. Through her experiences, achievements, and passion, Octavia continues to leave an indelible mark on the education industry, making her a prominent figure for those looking to understand and excel in educational technology.
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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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- 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.
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.