In Conversation: How Being an ISA Member Helped Me Become a Thought Leader

Today on Interchange, the ISA team sits down with Jeff Winter, ISA member and director of the Smart Manufacturing and IIoT Division.

As a business strategist and Industry 4.0 / digital transformation enthusiast, Jeff has recently been named the #1 Industry 4.0 Influencer for 2023 by Onalytica.

He credits his success in part to his active engagement with ISA. Read on to discover more and to get additional tips about how to raise your thought leadership profile and get the most out of your engagement with ISA.

Interchange: Jeff, how long have you been an ISA member, and why did you first join?

Jeff: I have been an ISA member for about six years, but my original reason for joining was a lot different than my desire to become very active.

When I first joined, I was looking for a community of like-minded people whom I could network with on my subject of interest, which at the time was industrial safety. So, I joined the Safety & Security Division and participated as an average member, mostly to consume content and network.  

It wasn’t until the very beginning of 2019 where my role changed away from industrial safety, a topic I knew very well, to Industry 4.0, a topic I knew literally nothing about. It was my job at the time to figure out what this “Industry 4.0” thing really was all about, and how the company I worked for at the time, a controls systems integrator, could take advantage of it.

My approach to figuring that out was to become a thought leader in Industry 4.0. This meant I needed to fully immerse myself in the world of Industry 4.0; read books, take classes, join associations, participate in standards development, write, speak, post on social media – you name it! So, I scoured the internet looking for all the places I needed to be to help me with my personal goal. This is where ISA came into play.

After looking at ISA’s reputation, marketing presence (which is significantly higher than most other associations in the space), and breath of industry engagement (e.g. sections, divisions, magazines, books, standards development, etc.), I knew they would be one of the best places for me to learn, network, and make an impact.

I saw that the newly formed Smart Manufacturing & IIoT Division (SMIIoT) was getting started, so I reached out the divisor director at the time Sujata Tilak, and asked how I could get involved. At the same time, I reached out to ISA leadership (staff and volunteers) and explained my goals to see if they had recommendations on people to meet or places within ISA I could get involved. Luckily everyone was very friendly and helpful and I was able to find my ISA groove quickly.  

Interchange: That’s great to hear! It sounds like you really got involved in a lot of different ISA activities. Can you give us some more details on the ones you found were the most helpful as you were growing your career and presence?

Jeff: ISA really helped me in four ways:

1. Opportunities to learn: Industry 4.0 being a new subject to me at the time that covers lots of different technologies and processes, I needed a place where I could stay current on current trends, but also learn some basics and fundamental in areas where I wasn’t as strong. InTech magazine, com, and attending ISA events gave me a chance to stay current with trends and best practices, while ISA’s training programs and vast collections of books helped me with the technical detail. The book “Manufacturing Execution Systems: An Operations Management Approach” was a great example of helping to bridge these worlds. This book was just released at the time and bridged a world I was more familiar with the newer technologies as part of smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0. Since all of the creators of this material were members of ISA, it was also easy to reach out and ask questions and develop a new network of contacts.
2. Opportunities to contribute: I enjoy speaking, educating, writing, and places where I can roll up my sleeves and help make a difference. ISA gave me all those opportunities. Not only was I able to speak and write multiple times on subjects of interest, but because they have so many other affiliations in the industry, I was able to contribute in many ways. As an example, Purdue University was looking for some industry experts to help review their new Smart Manufacturing undergraduate degree and they looked to ISA for those experts. As a fellow Purdue graduate, I thought this was a great opportunity to give back to my alma mater, all while helping a cause I am passionate about!
3. Promotional channels: ISA is a marketing powerhouse. Not only do they have more subscribers and followers to their content channels than nearly every other association in the space, but they also very much enjoy promoting their members, their contributions, and their accomplishments. Knowing promotion was important to me, ISA staff got me plugged in immediately to the editorial teams, social teams, and content teams looking for ways to collaborate together.
4. Network: With over 14,000 members globally, there is no shortage of people to meet! It was easy for me to find subject matter experts on nearly every topic I was interested in. Often times, these network connections became friendships that still continue to this day!

Interchange: How did getting involved with the SMIIoT Division help you learn and grow?

Jeff: When I started my Industry 4.0 thought leadership journey, I established 3 specific goals for myself:

1. To become one of the top Industry 4.0 thought leaders in the world
2. To network and meet with all the other top Industry 4.0 thought leaders and subject matter experts in the world - basically to know the “Who's Who of Industry 4.0.”
3. To roll up my sleeves and make an impact on the industry by advancing the industry and inspiring others to get involved.

The Smart Manufacturing & IIoT Division was the perfect place for me to invest most of my time with ISA. First, I really liked the fact that the division was new and growing, and that meant I could make an impact on its trajectory and value to ISA and the community.

Second, the topics of Smart Manufacturing are very hot in the industry right now, and most people interested in the subject are all in the same boat: We all want to figure this out. Compared to more established and regulated/standardized subjects, Smart Manufacturing was new and ripe for leadership, and I believed ISA could fill that void.

The biggest challenge I had with my beginning days of the SMIIoT division was around figuring out how to take advantage of so many people who were eager to learn and contribute, but on very different topics. This is when the idea of “Technical Committees ” came to existence, where we created 8 technical committees to address individual technical topics, while still maintaining the traditional division board around the border topics.

It may seem like an insignificant task, but it took a good amount of research and planning to figure out how to organize all these topics. But going through this exercise not only helped me be able to better article the main components of Smart Manufacturing, but also ensure that I was very familiar with the market demands and trends of the subject.

Since I was also so new to the subject myself, I knew the best way for me to learn was to dive in headfirst. I signed up to write my first article for ISA: “What is Industry 4.0?” At the time, I didn’t know the answer to this very question, so needless to say it took quite a while to write. But, this is the fastest way to learn – sign up to write, speak, or teach on a subject you don’t know!

Interchange: Tell us more about what it means to be a thought leader. How did you measure your progress?

Jeff: Becoming a top thought leader requires a good vision with a solid strategy, time, commitment, and aligning yourself with the right groups, people, and tools. My goal to become a top thought leader was a very deliberate initiative with a clear vision. Over time the strategy was refined and modified as situations changed, and I continued to learn new things about effective thought leadership.

A few of the most impactful decisions I made that helped me be recognized as a top thought leader in Industry 4.0:

• Attach yourself to the right organizations that will help support your goals. For me, this was mostly done through industry associations outside of the company I worked for (which changed during my industry 4.0 thought leadership pursuit). In total, I became officially affiliated with 6 non-profit industry associations and companies, and informally affiliated with another 4. Each affiliation has served a different purpose. ISA was the affiliation that I invested the most amount of time with, as it checked the greatest number of boxes to help me with my personal goals. And in hindsight looking back on the main contributors to being recognized as a top thought leader, I can confidently say it wouldn’t have been possible without ISA.
• Find the right promotional tool to share your thoughts and opinions with the world. For me, this was LinkedIn. During the heart of the pandemic everyone was working on their computers at home. Networking, education events, and conferences were all shut down. I turned to LinkedIn as my source to build new relationships with Industry 4.0 experts, and use it as a tool to help educate a world that at the time was thirsty for knowledge and was limited to digital formats for answers. I made a concerted effort to connect with as many people as possible and post often on all things Industry 4.0. Not only did this help give me publicity, but it also further helped my learning.
• Learn how to share my learnings and knowledge in bite size chucks that are easy for others to consume. This included writing short blogs, making posts on LinkedIn, creating short (<2 minute videos), etc. Of course I still did the big presentations and helped write lengthy documents, but I couldn’t produce those on a regular basis.
  
  

Interchange: Can you tell us a little more about Onalytica and what this specific recognition means?

Jeff: What makes this recognition so impactful is how it is calculated. Unlike a lot of other awards, which are based on votes or judges, this recognition is mostly based on an algorithmic ranking of over 1 million influencers that Onalytica tracks. Each person is scored based on engagement of posts and relevancy of posts to each award group. So, of the 13 recognitions and awards I have received so far in my Industry 4.0 quest, I would put being recognized by Onalytica as #1 carries the most weight and is the most prestigious.

I think it is also pretty cool that I am not the only one from the ISA SMIIoT Division who made the list this year! Others on the Top 50 include:

Author and thought leader Mike Nager, #21, who works in business development at Festo Didactic – North America. Nager demystifies the world of smart manufacturing for educators and public officials with workshops, books, and lectures. He wrote All About Smart Manufacturing, which is a picture book for children; The Smart Student’s Guide to Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0, which is for students and parents; and Smart Manufacturing Terms You Need to Know!, a book for industry professionals.

Content creator and thought leader Ryan Treece earned spot #37 on the list. Treece serves as a business development manager in IIoT at Telit. He also is Tech Committee Chair – Edge & Cloud with ISA. He wrote a piece for InTech magazine called “Making Best Use of Computing Resources Where They Are.”

Interchange:  What suggestions do you have for others who want to become a thought leader in their space?

Jeff: I have three main suggestions:

• Consistency is key. Try and do a little bit all the time, instead of one or two big things a year. Not only does this help with social media algorithms and SEO ranking, but it also gets you in a habit of developing and sharing thought leadership content.
• Don’t expect overnight success. Becoming a thought leader takes time and patience. From the day I made Industry 4.0 my subject, I didn’t earn any sort of recognition for the first 2.5 years. It was only the last 1.5 years when all the cards fell in place, and I earned most of my recognition.
• Being a thought leader is a social game. You can be the smartest person in the world, but if no one knows who you are, then you aren’t a thought leader. Getting involved with well recognized and respected associations and being active on social media are two of the main ingredients in the recipe for building a thought leader!

Want to hear more from Jeff? Follow him on LinkedIn here.