What a year it’s been.
We’ve seen our subscribers in enterprises around the world rethink their strategic priorities from the ground up in the face of COVID-19, and we’ve seen our clients in the AI events space reimagine their entire business model over just a few months. We’ve also see the rise in new AI consultants spinning out of almost every industry – finding new ways to serve the urgent transformation needs of enterprises in crisis.
But we made it – and now – hopefully with a rare bit of clarity – we can look ahead and forge a path into a world of “new normal.”
Today I wanted to take a moment to share some of our 2021 plans with you, and also share some points of gratitude from 2020.
Here goes!
What You Can Expect from Emerj in 2021
What our subscribers love most about Emerj will remain. We’ll continue to get high quality guests on our podcast (from the Head of AI at Raytheon to ML godfather Stuart Russell, 2020 had no shortage of amazing guests). You can also expect to see 2-3 newsletters per week featuring our latest articles and interviews – keeping you ahead of AI trends and use-cases.
That said – we’ll be putting a greater emphasis on three relatively new additions to the Emerj website and product portfolio:
1. Community
With more newsletter subscribers than ever, and more direct communications with our advisors and readers on LinkedIn, it feels like there’s a critical mass – and a lot of shared excitement and ideas waiting to happen.
One of the best parts of 2020 has been the founding of our Catalyst Advisory Program – where I work one to one with AI services leaders and sales leaders at AI vendor companies to help them go to market and deliver value for clients.
Opening up a Slack channel and live calls with this limited group has been a powerful way to unlock ideas, exchange best-practices, and share AI success stories.
But Catalyst is just one group of Emerj subscribers – we also have enterprise innovation leaders, managers, and more – all of whom could benefit by exchanging ideas.
Our goal in 2021 is to make community into a bigger part of the experience for Emerj readers, including:
- Opening up a private Slack channel for Emerj Plus members to exchange expertise and share ideas on finding AI opportunities and adopting AI successfully
- Having more active Q-and-A topics on LinkedIn, and highlighting top subscriber comments in articles and newsletters
2. Frameworks
We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on our visual frameworks and infographics. Articles such as The Three Kinds of AI ROI and The Critical Capabilities Model of AI Maturity were among the most shared Emerj articles of 2020. These graphics have been created directly from interviews with AI project leaders and Heads of AI at some of the world’s hottest tech firms – and they’re designed to help simplify decision-making around AI projects.
In 2021 we’ll be creating new frameworks, graphics, and playbooks around more critical topics including:
- How to discover AI opportunities
- Measuring and predicting the ROI of AI projects
- Assembling AI project teams
- Communicating the value of AI to leadership
- Developing a progressive roadmap of AI projects
- Building a competitive advantage with AI capabilities
This year, we’ll be having our expert guests break down their thinking – explaining these frameworks in their own works for our readers. This will be part of a complete map of strategic AI insight for project leaders.
3. Video
Yes, video!
We’ve had requests for webinars in the past – and 2021 will see a series of webinars for both enterprise innovation leaders and AI consultants and service providers.
In addition – we’ll be launching a YouTube channel to highlight and simplify AI use-cases and AI best practices.
What Are Your Ideas?
Many of our best ideas for content, research, and features come from email and LinkedIn feedback, and from comments in podcast reviews on Apple Podcasts. Feel free to message me directly on LinkedIn or send us an email at [email protected] with content and topic ideas for 2021 – your opinion matters.
Gratitude for Our Team, Clients, and Subscribers
Above all else – I’m grateful this year for our subscribers and podcast listeners. After the pandemic struck in March, we didn’t have to rely on external reports to determine how business priorities were changing – we simply reached out to the enterprise readers at Emerj.
Between March and May we received hundreds of survey responses about what you – our readers – were struggling with, and what kind of case studies and resources you wanted us to create. I had over 20 one-to-one phone calls with Eemrj Plus and report customers in April alone, which ended up
To our original Catalyst members: Siva, Dan, Scot (and Troy!) – you folks helped us turn the Catalyst program into gateway to some of our best new frameworks, and your shared experiences and enthusiasm showed us the power of community for Emerj.
A special thanks also to our Emerj team: To Denis for creating the infographics that our subscribers have come to love, to Eugene and Rolandas keeping the website up and building out a slew of new Emerj Plus features this year, to our writers and researchers. A special thanks to our Research Fellow Ryan Smithright who stepped up to help with managing client feedback, product strategy, and building out the Catalyst program this year amidst a lot of disruption.
Pulling through 2020 has been a wild ride, and one that’s helped us refine our focus for the year ahead – and the value we hope to add for business leaders like you.
Happy holidays, and here’s to a great 2021,
– Daniel Faggella
