“I like niches because niches allow you to carve out an area to focus on and to explore. But I’d argue the things I focus on are pretty broad topics,” he says.
This includes topics such as enterprise, cloud, 5G and artificial intelligence (AI) – all topics that have been in the headlines for several reasons in recent months and years.
No silver bullet
Kirstel boasts 345,000 followers on Twitter, but he says there is no “silver bullet” to achieving such a social media milestone. Rather it involved curating and putting out content at scale over a period of many years.
“It’s been a long journey,” he says. “I’ve worked almost 30 years in enterprise tech and telecoms with many different vendors, startups and blue-chip companies. It’s the accumulation of decades of experience, knowledge and audience building.”
Kirstel says since building his following, he leveraged his audience in order to build a community. In turn, this helps his clients with exposure, gaining a greater reach on social media channels such as Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Audience engagement is key to Kirstel, who joins Twitter Spaces on a near daily basis to discuss key trends in tech and telecoms. He then serves clients including the likes of Ericsson, Samsung, IBM and Microsoft, before creating his own content through live streams, interviews and tweets, to name a few.
“Using the written word, podcasting or video as the modality and then there are lots of in-person events, like International Telecoms Week, that I may go to and add colour commentary, moderate panels or support clients,” he says.
When he is not working, the Massachusetts-based influencer loves water-based activities, music and history. Kirstel also lists travelling as one of his favourite things, and something his role as a tech influencer certainly permits.
“It’s nice getting back to normal,” Kirstel says of events returning after the two-year hiatus caused by Covid-19.
While helping people is a big part of his job, Kirstel is also a commentator, adding his perspective to several key stories across the tech and telecoms landscape.
“I love to interview thought leaders in the space and get their insights and learn from that,” he says. “It’s a big job. It isn’t just promotional. It’s also about educating people.”
This is a two-way street for Kirstel, as he is continuously learning from key members across the space.
Kirstel lists the wireless space as his favourite segment in telecoms. His first job out of college was in the paging infrastructure arena, then he moved into mobile infrastructure.
“So, anything with wireless technology and telecoms or 5G is of particular interest to me. We’re even putting a 4G network on the moon,” he laughs.
Looking to the future
Moving forward, Kirstel believes AI will continue to dominate the landscape. He believes ChatGPT’s next iteration will be an “exciting horse to watch” and will make waves across the industry. He adds the event he is most looking forward to is Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
“Hopefully, we’re going to see some kind of new device or glasses, or something new and different that might shake up the virtual reality and augmented reality world. And if we know Apple, they’ll bring some special magic to it.”
On his predictions for the coming months, Kirstel says the smart home will almost certainly “get a lot smarter”.
“We’ve seen a lot of movement to make smarter, more interoperable homes,” he says.
He believes there will be more interconnected devices allowing users to bring their homes to life in unique and interesting ways.
Finally, Kirstel looks forward to better broadband being available “everywhere and anywhere”.
“We’ve seen what’s happening in satellite with SpaceX and Elon Musk’s global footprint, and I think that’s going to be coming at scale to more consumers and businesses in the future,” he says. “I think SpaceX is going to be fun to watch with their next series of launches.”
