Strategy Is What You Do Next
Using strategic thinking to rebrand, regain and renergise
When many people see or hear the word “strategy,” they might picture something like this: enterprise boardrooms thick with tension, slide decks bristling with SWOTs, or those ambitious five-year roadmaps, you know them, the ones that quietly gather dust after year two (or sooner!). At times strategy feels corporate, institutional, ‘enterprisey’ and removed from the messy reality of everyday problems.
I’ve always thought that strategy is for everyone: a creative pursuit, about exploration and bold choices, imagining a different future, so much so I even created a whole workshop and template on the topic!
But more than that it’s about deciding where to focus your energy, what to let go of without guilt, and how to create momentum when everything feels a bit stuck. Whether you’re running a large company or (as in this case) breathing life back into an AI community meetup.
When good intentions aren’t enough
AI for Deep Learning in Enterprise (AIDLE) was a community run by an ex-colleague and friend of mine, Hugh Evans. It had been going for quite a few years, with thousands of people signed up on Meetup, but despite hard work and dedication leading to some some high points in 2023, a trend was beginning to emerge: the numbers turning up in person were dwindling and by early 2025 were down to hardcore base of around 20 people. That from an occasional high water mark of 70 or 80.
In truth some things were easy to identify than others, as the symptoms were very visible. The brand felt a bit like a leftover from a very academic conference; volunteers were getting harder to come by and speakers were becoming thinner on the ground; the community itself had just gone quiet and the buzzing energy had taken a significant dip.
This ‘energy crisis’ is something I’d seen before. Not just with meetups, but with products, teams, even entire companies. All the right pieces in place, but something fundamental was missing. The machinery was running, lots of tactical stuff going on but no clear direction and momentum.
So the first task was clear: to really understand what was going on and ‘diagnose the drift’.
The power of pausing
Steve Pearlman of the Critical Thinking Institute points out that our brains are wired to scan for signals of threat and reward before deciding how to act.
In many ways, that’s the foundational first step in strategy: what’s going on here, and what does it mean for us?
When Hugh first asked me to help with his community event, the easy move would have been to jump straight into promotion ideas or growth tactics. But the more useful move was to slow down and ask critical questions: Why are people turning up? Why aren’t more staying? What’s working and what isn’t?
That act of pausing to observe and challenge assumptions gave us clarity on the real issues and from there, the strategy almost emerged naturally. Critical thinking might sound abstract, but in practice it’s what stops you from playing the wrong game.
“Before we fix anything,” I said, “let’s figure out what we’re actually trying to fix.”
The questions weren’t particularly complex:
- Who is this really for now, in 2025?
- What brings people to these events — and what might keep them away?
- What are your biggest bottlenecks and pain points?
- What’s it like for people turning up for the first time?
Where to play, how to win
Roger Martin reminds us that strategy isn’t a grand vision document, but a set of choices we make about where to play and how to win. When Hugh and I stepped back to look at AIDLE, those two questions gave us the structure we needed. Instead of leaping to growth hacks or cosmetic fixes, we asked: in the crowded world of AI meet ups, where can this community genuinely play? And given available strengths and limitations, how can we win there?
The answers shaped everything from our rebrand, to how to create a ‘volunteer army’, to the way we thought about speakers and formats.
Here’s a summary of our thoughts from an early Miro board:
Where We Can Play?
- Community for serious, inclusive, non-hype AI conversations.
Serves multiple audiences:
- Curious tech professionals
- ML/AI builders
- Career restarters in tech
- MLOps/Data Scientists
- People using AI tools commercially
- Opportunity to create a welcoming, non-intimidating environment for connection.
- Strong YouTube archive to leverage.
How We Can Win?
- Rebrand strategy: a warm, professional identity focused on thoughtful AI exchange.
Build a simple website to:
- Host events, videos, speaker info
- Serve different user groups (attendees, speakers, sponsors)
- Move beyond Meetup limitations
- Refresh speaker process to encourage practical, real-world talks — not academic papers.
- Reframe events to be inclusive and conversational, not intimidating.
The name AIDLE had to go as it was a little clunky and easy to forget. After brainstorming many options we landed on something simple: AI Signals. Which we felt represented momentum without the jargon. It suggested how we are all trying to pick up the same transmissions from an increasingly noisy world.
We created a winning aspiration statement. This is something that doesn’t have to be perfect, but gives us a ‘North Star’ to help guide subsequent work.
Our aspiration is to be the leading AI community for deep learning in enterprises, offering must-attend events for technical leaders with high-quality talks and positive learning experiences.
Additionally we rewrote the value proposition. Instead of “deep learning for enterprise professionals,” we positioned it as “AI insights, a welcoming community monthly event for professionals and academics who want to share and listen to real stories from people building with AI across industry, research and personal projects.”
Designing a digital home for the community
As part of that work, we also realised the community needed a proper digital home. Meetup was fine for listings, but it wasn’t built for the different kinds of people turning up at AI Signals. Someone coming for event details, a business interested in sponsorship, a potential speaker, or a volunteer all had very different questions in mind. So we mapped those journeys and designed a website around them. This involved creating clear, human pathways to the information people actually needed. That small design choice made the community feel more credible and welcoming, and it gave us a platform that could grow with us.
The compound effect of small choices
Six months later, the picture looks noticeably different. Event numbers have climbed steadily, not through any magic growth hack, but because people began to feel comfortable bringing colleagues and friends. The atmosphere shifted too: less formal presentation, more open conversation.
Crucially, a handful of volunteers stepped forward, each adding their own energy and networks. That lightened the load on Hugh and gave the community more resilience. The result isn’t fireworks or sudden virality — it’s something more valuable: a sense of momentum that no single person could have created alone
Strategy as an everyday discipline
Watching Hugh’s community event shift from drifting to thriving reminded me that strategic thinking isn’t a luxury reserved for corporates or quarterly offsites. It’s an everyday discipline, available to anyone willing to pause and ask better questions.
Strategy is an everyday discipline, available to anyone willing to pause and ask better questions.
It doesn’t require consultants or a stack of frameworks. What it does require is honesty about where you are, clarity about where you want to go and the courage to make a few deliberate choices that line the two up.
For Hugh, that meant rethinking the name, the tone, the website, and the way speakers were invited. None of these moves were headline-grabbing on their own. But together, they changed the trajectory of the whole community.
The most powerful question wasn’t “How do we fix this?” It was “What are we actually trying to achieve?” — followed closely by “What could we stop doing without fear?”
Whether you’re running a local meetup or a large company, the lesson is the same: strategy isn’t about being smarter, it’s about being clearer — and bolder. Sometimes the most strategic thing you can do is simply to ask the right questions, and then listen carefully to where the answers lead.
I’m Steve Morris and I run Spark + Forge, helping companies save time and money by improving the way they work together.
I’m also the owner of a generalist utility belt, and occasionally go by the moniker, The GeneralistiMo!
