Root Causes 294: Root Causes Honored by Webby Awards

Hosted by

Tim Callan

Chief Compliance Officer

Jason Soroko

Fellow

Original broadcast date

April 13, 2023

The Root Causes podcast has received a Webby Honoree award. Jason and Tim briefly celebrate and discuss the challenge of operating a niche, homemade podcast while being directly compared to professionally produced podcasts on mainstream topics from media companies. Plus, Tim's new Root Causes t-shirt.

Podcast Transcript

Lightly edited for flow and brevity.

Tim CallanThis hopefully is a short one and we will try not to be too self-congratulatory about it but we are excited because we are a 2022 Webby Honoree.

Jason SorokoWebby Honoree. I have heard of the Webbys. I know that they have been around a while. I think that if you are honored by those folks, it’s because you are doing something really cool on the web. Can you tell me more about it?

Tim CallanSo, the Webbys are damn near the most prestigious set of awards that are given to online/social media activity and properties and they have a variety of different categories and they have categories for social media campaigns and categories for YouTube channels and things like that and we were in the podcast category and so, Root Causes - - This wasn’t you and me individual, it was the Root Causes podcast. But the Root Causes podcast was in the technology category and it was considered in the technology category and in that category what they do is in every category they pick five finalists that people vote on and then if you are not a finalist, you are what they call an Honoree. And there were four Honorees and so we were not one of the finalists but we were an Honoree but just to put things in perspective, I think they considered a total of 12,000 podcasts when they looked into the Webbys so being an Honoree is quite an honor and I’m really excited about it.

Jason SorokoGeez, Tim, that’s great. When we first saw this, we both agreed we wanted to thank the audience. We certainly wouldn’t be continuing this unless we were getting the listens that we do. So, for those of you who are listening in, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are the heart of why we are doing it. But on the other hand, I think it’s also important we thank some of the guests we’ve had on who’ve made it a compelling podcast, to be able to get a recognition like this. It’s interesting whenever I watch something like Academy Awards or whatever it is or something, like, geez, how in the world do you recognize art and measure against on another? How do you do that?

Tim CallanIt’s hard.

Jason SorokoBut I think that it’s a real testament to the quality level that we at least we aspire to, Tim. We are at least at some level and, geez, the types of organizations that we are named as peers with is really something.

Tim CallanAbsolutely. I mean that’s one of the things that was surprising or I’d say, not surprising, but noteworthy to me when I looked at this is the five finalists – let’s say something about the five finalists. The people who beat us out to be finalists. All of them are professionally produced, for starters. So, they have professional staff or they are just plain pure podcasts. That’s all they do or they are media companies. All five of them are professionally produced. Two of them are from Tech Crunch. One of them is from The Verge. One of them is from Mozilla. So, these are the people we are up against.

Also, the topics. So, two of them are focused on artificial intelligence specifically as a topic and one of them is dedicated to cryptocurrency specifically as a topic and, these are topics with a great deal of mainstream appeal. And this is what we were up against. How do you beat Tech Crunch if you are not a professional media company? And so, that was just deeply heartwarming to me when I looked at just who we were being put in the same category with.

Jason SorokoNeither of us went to communication school or audio engineers. We have very, very demanding day jobs and, here we are.

Tim CallanProsumer level equipment. I’m standing in my basement right now. Yes. Absolutely.

Jason SorokoAnd all of that plus, as you said, a lot of mainstream appeal by professionals who know exactly how to target a market for getting podcasts out there. We are niche. We are as niche as it is.

Tim CallanWe are a freaking PKI podcast and we are up against AI and bitcoin. I mean, come on!

Jason SorokoSo, it is surprising. It is.

Tim CallanIt’s not a level playing field at all. So, that was all just really exciting. And, the other thing though – you talked about the listeners. I just want to say that, too. By the time this airs, I expect we will have had a quarter million downloads. You and I are recording it. We are just shy of a quarter million. By the time it airs, we will probably be over a quarter million. We are nearing our 300^thepisode. Like, we are not doing this because nobody is listening. I was just out at CloudFest and I had two different people just grab me while I was walking around the convention floor to tell me that they listen to my podcast. Our podcast. Your and my podcast which is crazy.

Jason SorokoCloudFest being out in Roost Germany, a big web event. A lot of people go there and thank you so much for reaching out to Tim and recognizing his voice and making the comment. Another big security conference coming up, RSA, you showed me some cool merch you are gonna be wearing. I don’t think we have any for sale but you got a shirt on and - -

Tim CallanI made a Root Causes t-shirt. I’m gonna walk around in my Root Causes t-shirt and I’m gonna see who talks to me and I’ll come back from RSA with my RSA report, just like we did last year and I’m hoping, crossing my fingers, that somebody brings it up because I made a button that I’m gonna wear on my coat all the time and then one of the days I’m gonna wear my t-shirt. So, we will see what happens there.

Jason SorokoI can’t wait to hear. Probably a lot of you who listen to this podcast will be over at RSA. I’m hoping. Please go say hello to Tim and mention the podcast. So, thank you so much.

Tim CallanThat’s our massive marketing budget by the way. It’s $22.00 for a t-shirt and a button plus I think about $7.00 for shipping. So, let’s round it up to $30.00. So, there you go. Let’s do a dollar for dollar comparison to those folks from Tech Crunch and The Verge and we’ll who has a more efficient marketing spend.

Jason SorokoIt’s laughable. Like those guys, there’s whole entire team, their entire existence is about being a media company and here we are.

Tim CallanSo, anyway. Just super excited. I guess it did get self-congratulatory. We didn’t want it to but indulge us. Anyway, thank you listeners. We’ll make this a short one. We will let you get back to your busy, busy days, but we couldn’t pass this up. Anyway, very excited.

Jason SorokoTim, last comment maybe, Tim, it is inspiring to me; I’m sure it is inspiring to you, too, Tim, to just keep digging and keep wanting to do this because now if the listenership is there and the recognition from large organizations who have the capability of making these kinds of honors then it’s just very inspiring to make us just want to keep doing it and be doing it even better.

Tim CallanAnd totally. That’s the reason. I mean this is a pain in the butt. You and I would have quit a long time ago if it weren’t for the listeners. That’s the only reason we do it and, I’m not stopping this until I have to. I mean this is just the thing to do.

Jason SorokoIt really is and we were just talking before this podcast, Tim, to let people in on the process. Very short conversation about how these kinds of honors, what they are really gonna help to spur is perhaps some additional things we will do around the podcast. No promises right now but, if more is more then you might get more which is great.

Tim CallanThat would be nice. And also just things like this of themselves have the potential benefit of expanding the audience, of helping people who don’t know about the podcast learn about it and I think that’s a big plus, too.

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