Sam Sethi: 0:12

Hello and welcome back to Plug News Newsweekly. I'm joined today by a friend of the show. His name is Rob Greenlee. Now most people will know Rob. Across the podcast industry. He's been around for 20 plus years. He's a Hall of Famer himself from 2017. Rob, hello. How are you?

Rob Greenlee: 0:29

It's great to be here, Sam. I appreciate you inviting me to come on to talk about the Hall of Fame, so I'm excited about it.

Sam Sethi: 0:34

Now, look, for those of you who don't know, let's first of all, what is the Hall of Fame?

Rob Greenlee: 0:41

Well, it's a ceremony that was started by podcast movement Dan and Jared. And they actually started it in combination with a podcast awards that they started back in that same timeframe. So they were doing a podcast Hall of Fame and an awards podcast ceremony, kind of similar to what the zombies are. So over a period of time they did that for a few years and then the pandemic hit and then they stopped doing events for a year or two and then just over about a four year period of time, they just didn't hold the Hall of Fame at the podcast movement event or the awards. So they actually dropped all that. And then just a few years ago, we as inductees wanted to take it back from podcast movement and keep it alive. I think people understand that if they got inducted in the Hall of Fame, they want to be inducted into a Hall of Fame that died. Right. So it's not a good thing. And I started to get involved at that point because I was working for Lipson at the time and was working with some other folks that had an interest in keeping it going as well. And so if you fast forward to today, we took it back from podcast movement and now it's part of a partnership with podcast that's going on down in Orlando in mid January here. So that's when we're going to do the 2024 Hall of Fame induction.

Sam Sethi: 2:00

Now they've just announced the Hall of Fame inductees. Give us some names off that list.

Rob Greenlee: 2:06

Yeah. So there's a good group of folks. I mean, I've been around this podcast space since it started and have perspective on being able to see people that have had a significant contribution over the many, many years. And that's part of the challenges the Hall of Fame is facing right now, is that there are a lot of people that had significant early contributions to what we see today as podcasting and that needed to be recognized for that and brought into the Hall of Fame. And so we're still in that phase of bringing in people that were very foundational to the creation of this medium that we all love. And, you know, like guys like Tom Webster, Twila Dang, who's been working in public media for a long time, and she has her own company now, and she helps with a lot of other creators. And then Jessica Kupferman is another one who started the SHE podcast along with LC, who's also in the Hall of Fame. So these people and just the first three here I've mentioned, have had a significant contribution to the growth and the development of this podcast medium.

Sam Sethi: 3:16

So, Rob, if I want to find out about all the current inductees, where would I go? Where's the website?

Rob Greenlee: 3:22

Yeah, I would just go to podcast hall dot com and go to the inductees page on that site. It's that podcast hall dot com forward slash hall dash or F dash fame.

Sam Sethi: 3:34

And would I be able to see all the previous inductees as well. On that one yes yeah.

Rob Greenlee: 3:40

Yeah. It's all below. Just keep scrolling down the page and you should be able to see them all now.

Sam Sethi: 3:45

James Cridland, co-host of the podcast, said very well on putting his daily look. Everyone's an American, so how are you going to make that? Sounding slightly facetious, the American Hall of Fame, the Global Hall of Fame. How are you going to bring the world into this?

Rob Greenlee: 4:02

Well, I think one of the big challenges and I've been really facing this very consciously and also getting feedback from others to the outside of the United States and get their perspectives on how this might work. But I think very fundamentally and I think James Cridland is a very good example of what I'm talking about here, is that the history of this medium pre James Cridland was very isolated to its view of a U.S. centric medium. Right. And I think we all know that the rest of the world has been supporting podcasting all along. It's just that the country knowledge has really been centered on the United States when it comes to the medium, and that's really unfair. And this is a similar challenge that I faced when I was working in the podcast Academy, too, with the Amber Awards is that you have this challenge of making something global which can be an overwhelming challenge because it's a lot easier to say, well, it's an international award, whatever, but it's a whole nother matter to actually make it happen and also to make it fairer, right? And also to have that institution have international knowledge. And I think James Cridland has done an amazing job of making this medium visible internationally. But that's only been a recent thing. So, sure, James has been involved in the medium and to be quite honest with James probably deserves to be in the hall of Fame and I think he will very soon. So it's really a matter of expanding the board, right, to include people that represent pretty much all the countries of the world. So this is going to be a pretty good sized board. And then also having a much larger pool of people to vote, because one of the issues that I have is I can add a bunch of international podcasts that were very pioneering in the medium in the early years. But the problem is I can put them on the list. But if most of the voters are from the US, they're not even going to know who they are or what they are. I mean, I do put a lot of information in there about each nominee's background and things like that, but it does get back to borders. Vote on name familiarity to some degree. It's it's human nature. That's the challenge that I face. But expanding the voting pool is the biggest thing and bringing in voters from countries all around the world is really the only way I can do a farewell.

Sam Sethi: 6:21

Say recently you did expand the board, so you've gone. Name some of the people who've joined the board and let us know.

Rob Greenlee: 6:29

So trying to name everybody, you know, like Ty Cochrane, Dave Jackson, Gloria Petrucci, Glynn Washington, Danny Pina is on the board, the CEO podcast is on the board. And Gautam, the founder of Hub Hopper is on the board too, and he's the first one that I've added to the board so far. That's from outside of the U.S. And so he's going to be one of of many that I'm going to tap into various parts of the world to add to the board. And then they're going to help me come up with nominees, which they've already started. You know, my contacts outside of the U.S. is going to give me nominees from people that were very early in the podcast medium, even as far back as like 2005 or whatever, that had a significant contribution to developing podcasting in that country. Right. And to build awareness there that we just don't have this ability to. So it's really a matter of me and the board and the organization having visibility to these people that are outside of the U.S. that had those major contributions to the growth of podcasting in the early years that we just don't know about.

Sam Sethi: 7:38

So and again, when people get to nominate next year, how will they be able to do that? Is it user generated nominations or is it board generated nominations? I'm curious to understand how people get nominated.

Rob Greenlee: 7:53

Well, up to this year, it's been basically funneled in through all sorts of different sources, people sending me emails recommending people. The board has recommended people, past inductees. I've recommended people. So you can already see that there is somewhat of a regional bias just based on human knowledge. Right. And so expanding the sources of those those not nominations is the biggest thing in that's kind of already started. I had people on the list that did pioneering things outside of the U.S. on my ballot this year. But the problem is they didn't get voted in. Right. And I think it's fundamentally because there's not enough people voting that are from outside of the U.S. that have that knowledge like who they are and what their significance was. So, yeah, having a much more public nomination process and then also expanding that pool of voters that would vote from that list, I'm hoping that it will be a fair thing, to be honest about it. I'm not exactly sure that it will be as fair as it needs to be this next year. But if we start that pathway towards making it a much larger thing and including the significant regions of the world in this pool, then it might be possible. Yeah.

Sam Sethi: 9:13

Rob me man. About Podcasting Hall of Fame inductee from 2017. Thanks a lot. Remind everyone one more time. Rob when is the event and where can they go and find out more about the event?

Rob Greenlee: 9:25

Yeah, I think the best thing to do is go to podcast hall dot com and the ceremony is being held on January 17th at 7 p.m. Eastern in Orlando, Florida at the Podcast Expo. So if you want to find out about the conference, it's a podcast expo dot com and we are selling tickets to the in-person ceremony and it will be recorded. It's going to be put out on YouTube and online, the full ceremony recording on January 20th. So that's what the current plan is right now. Last year we tried to do it live, but it didn't work out that well, so we're just going to try and record it and then put it out at a later date and hopefully it will be perfect.

Sam Sethi: 10:08

Well, good luck with it, Rob, and congratulations for bringing it back to life.

Rob Greenlee: 10:12

Well, thank you, Sam, for having me.