Root Causes 384: So What Is a Senior Fellow Anyway?

Hosted by

Fellow

Original broadcast date

May 7, 2024

Jason has a new title, Senior Fellow. In this episode Jason explains what his new focus will be and how this will be good for Root Causes.

Podcast transcript

Lightly edited for flow and brevity.

TCTim CallanSo Jason, I said Senior Fellow at Sectigo. That is different from what I have been saying for a couple of years. And you've got a new focus and a new direction. Right?

Jason SorokoI do, Tim. And I think this is a great, great sign of good things at Sectigo. You might have seen a press release that came out of Sectigo recently about Dena Bauckman. And yes, she is the new Head of Product Management at Sectigo. So congratulations to Dena. She comes to us with a lot of experience. She's a pro in terms of product management and you're right, I no longer hold that seat. So we're gonna have to use a different title for me at the beginning of this podcast.

TCTim CallanYes, we are. And I'm gonna have to get in that habit. I might say the wrong thing and have to correct myself. But anyway, Jason, and you've already told me this, but for the sake of the listeners, so what's your focus in this new role? What's your focus? What are you going to be doing?

Jason SorokoYeah. So the new title is Senior Fellow. And, you know, in a lot of organizations that are in business, it's really, interestingly, not really a lot different than what it means in academia. It really belongs in the topic of research but there is a lot of synthesis resulting from that research. That's the big difference between what goes on in business and what goes on in academia. So what it really means, Tim, is, as the senior leadership, maturation process of organization progresses, sometimes you need somebody in the organization who is driving strategy overall. And what I love about this is we're going to have an organization, it’s gonna be small to begin, grow slightly, it's called Sectigo Research, and Sectigo Research is going to be myself and a fellow podcaster who sometimes is a guest, our CTO, Nick France.

TCTim CallanNick France. I do a lot of webinars with Nick. Yep.

Jason SorokoYep. You certainly do. And, obviously, a colleague that I work with very closely as well and we're going to have a few new team members coming up in the future. So what you're going to see from me is a lot more of what you already see from me, which is this kind of thing, Tim. You and I talking on podcasts. You and I talking on webinars. You’re going to see a lot more written blogs. You're going to see a lot more external communication from me. And that obviously is an output from research, and, ultimately, strategy. And not just marketing strategy, but also, you know, education. So there's gonna be a lot of training externally, internally, and that's gonna be another big pillar of what I do.

TCTim CallanAnd Jason, dare I say, if I may, one of the things that you've always done as long as I've been here, and we see the results of this in this podcast, among other things for the listeners, is, you've always viewed your mandate, whether you were told to or not to be thinking forward in terms of technology to say, where's it going? Not only what is there today, but what will that be in a year? And what will that be in five? And I would guess, correct me if I'm wrong, that you now have more liberty to do that than you did before. And maybe an opportunity to uncover, examine, research and have I want to say a - I don't know if deeper is fair - but a deeper and more detailed viewpoint on technology trends. Would that be true?

Jason SorokoThat is 100% true, Tim. I don't think you can ever break me out of the crow's nest. That's where I live.

TCTim CallanI mean you do that anyway. You would have done it anyway. And if we talk, if we look at something like, you know, when you first brought the concept of quantum computing, and the quantum apocalypse into our podcast, which I think if I recall was our episode six, you, nobody was talking about it. I mean, nobody was talking about it. And that's the kind of thing that you've always had a predilection to do anyway. And I would think that now, we're just going to kind of get that on steroids.

Jason SorokoThat is exactly what Sectigo and the rest of the industry will benefit from because I'm going to be able to put my energy into that. Hey, product management, I gotta tell you, that is some tough business.

TCTim CallanIt uses all your brain power and all your cycles and all your time. Yep. Absolutely.

Jason SorokoExactly, exactly. And so therefore, that energy can now be devoted to exactly what you just said, more and more and more of that, Tim, and, hey, this podcast - even stronger. I think - - hey, I can nobody's listening, because I'm going to say something here. I think you and I are going to start to do some video versions of this in the future, Tim, and there’s just going to be more Root Causes.

TCTim CallanI’m looking forward to that. Yeah, absolutely. Right. And right, I think that's another point, you know, anybody who is a regular listener, you know, in general, I don't like to talk about the podcast. I want to talk about the subject matter of the podcast, but today, we kind of don't have a lot of choice in that. I think one of the other opportunities here is that you and I have an opportunity to try to ask ourselves, what do we do to make this a better asset for our audience? You know, you and me getting in front of microphones once a week and just talking about what we know, has gotten us as far as it's gotten us. And it's been great. It's been a great ride. But as we start to say, how do we make it into an even better tool, I think maybe, again, you'll have some amount of attention and time to work on those problems and hopefully, we can just up our game even more.

Jason SorokoYes, people want to consume this kind of content in different ways. I think we were on to a good form factor for content in this podcast. I think there are others, and we're going to explore those. So keep in touch with us.

TCTim CallanOkay. So I guess that's it. You and I talked about this, and we just felt that since your title was changing it was going to be kind of a gee whiz. When my title changed, people sent me LinkedIn messages and said, hey, what's up with that? So, um, you know, we just wanted to tell people what was going on so everybody knew and again, hopefully, all of you the listeners will reap the benefits of this.

Jason SorokoExactly. Folks, I am thrilled, and thank you, Sectigo.

TCTim CallanMe too.

Jason SorokoThat's it, Tim. Thank you so much.

TCTim CallanAll right. Thank you, Jason. This has been Root Causes.

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