2025 SanjMo Newsletter: Constantly Adapt & Advance
Happy New Year from SanjMo!
As we begin 2025, I’m filled with gratitude and excitement for the journey we’ve shared. 2024 was a transformative year for SanjMo, marked by important milestones, fruitful collaborations, and valuable insights that have informed our path forward. I express my deep appreciation to the community for their unwavering support as we navigated a year of contrasting realities: job losses alongside the explosive growth of AI.
I’d like to share a few reflections on our shared journey through 2024.
2024 in Retrospective
In my January 2024 newsletter, I dubbed the year as one of growth. And it sure was one. I expanded my reach, deepened my expertise, and helped my clients build awareness of their technologies, products or categories. Here are some highlights from the past year:
- Client Success Stories: I collaborated with almost 35 diverse clients, helping them solve critical challenges and achieve ambitious goals. Whether it was to refine their go-to-market messaging or improve their standing on an analyst evaluation report, my clients surely kept me on my toes.
- Industry Recognition: SanjMo’s thought leadership was recognized by leading industry publications and conferences. I actively engaged with the community by delivering keynotes, leading conferences, and participating in numerous panel discussions with prominent thought leaders. I also attended nearly 30 industry conferences, further contributing to the industry dialogue.
- Content Creation: I delivered wide-ranging content through my It Depends podcast channel and my Medium blog site. Thanks to the amazing data and analytics community, I managed to double my subscribers for both these sites. The number of public deliverables for 2024 stands at 163, which includes 23 It Depends podcasts and 25 Medium blogs.
This past year was also marked by loss. We said goodbye to some exceptional people, including my former Gartner colleague, Anna Belak, and my dear friend, Justin Mullen, co-founder and leader of DataOps.live. Their passion and contributions continue to inspire me.
Looking ahead to 2025
This is where I get to reflect on our BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals). However, I also want to be realistic about what to expect this year.
I consider myself a content creator, not an influencer promoting others’ content. However, large language models (LLMs) have made content creation so accessible that the market is now flooded with a plethora of polished podcasts and blogs. While LLMs may currently lack robust reasoning capabilities, they will undoubtedly improve. The challenge is that readers are overwhelmed with the sheer volume of available content, making it difficult for writers to make an impact. We’ve always known that AI would disrupt most jobs and we, analysts, are no exception. The thrill lies in figuring out how to stay ahead of AI and build a defensible moat. And when AI catches up, we adapt and advance.
One of my goals for 2025 is to publish my second book. The topic will focus on the practical aspects of Applied AI, including agents, which I believe will become increasingly important.
I also aim to broaden my client base. In 2025, I will welcome my first client based in China and seek to expand into other geographical regions. (As a side note, expanding into the Middle East was also a 2024 goal that I didn’t achieve.)
I’m also eager to collaborate with a more diverse range of experts in their respective fields, fostering continuous learning and enjoyable experiences.
Finally, I’m already expanding the diversity of conferences I attend by participating in activities surrounding the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. I plan to share my learnings and key takeaways from this bucket-list event. In 2025, I also hope to surpass 100 episodes of the It Depends podcast.
Conclusion
Full credit for my 2024 accomplishments goes to the community. So many of you stepped forward to educate me and offered support when I needed it. Some friends even set goals for me and held me accountable.
“After all, a successful life is simply a series of successful days.”
I continue to believe that the most important advice I can give to anyone, especially young adults, is to cultivate a love for writing. It is the fundamental power from which new innovations emerge. So, my question to you is: what will you write next?
As for me, I have a goal to write on a non-technical topic — specifically, how to be better citizens of our fragile world by being more mindful of the environmental impact of our actions.
Wishing you all a meaningful and fulfilling New Year.
Warm regards,
Sanjeev Mohan, Principal, SanjMo
Addendum: I’ve also experimented with using Google NotebookLM to generate a podcast version of this blog post. The results are truly remarkable. Check it out here. You might be surprised by the quality of the AI-generated audio
