Rob Greenlee, from the Podcast Hall of Fame

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Rob Greenlee, a 2017 Podcasting Hall of Fame inductee, discusses how he helped rescue and revive the Podcasting Hall of Fame after it went dormant during the pandemic. Originally started by Podcast Movement, the Hall of Fame ceremony has now found a new home at Podcast Expo in Orlando, with the next induction ceremony scheduled for January 17th, 2024.

The conversation reveals the challenges of making the Hall of Fame truly international, as it has historically been US-centric. Greenlee acknowledges this limitation and describes efforts to diversify both the board and voting pool by including representatives from different countries. He mentions Gautam from Hub Hopper as the first non-US board member, with plans to add more international voices.

The discussion also touches on the nomination and voting process, highlighting the difficulty of recognizing international pioneers when voters may not be familiar with their contributions. Greenlee explains that while international candidates have been included on recent ballots, they often struggle to get enough votes due to the current US-dominated voter base, something he aims to change through expanding global representation.

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Episode Transcript

Sam Sethi (00:12):
Hello and welcome back to Plug News Newsweekly.
I'm joined today by a friend ofthe show. His name is Rob
Greenlee. Now most people willknow Rob. Across the podcast
industry. He's been around for20 plus years. He's a Hall of
Famer himself from 2017. Rob,hello. How are you?

Rob Greenlee (00:29):
It's great to be here, Sam. I appreciate you
inviting me to come on to talkabout the Hall of Fame, so I'm
excited about it.

Sam Sethi (00:34):
Now, look, for those of you who don't know, let's
first of all, what is the Hallof Fame?

Rob Greenlee (00:41):
Well, it's a ceremony that was started by
podcast movement Dan and Jared.
And they actually started it incombination with a podcast
awards that they started back inthat same timeframe. So they
were doing a podcast Hall ofFame and an awards podcast
ceremony, kind of similar towhat the zombies are. So over a
period of time they did that fora few years and then the

(01:03):
pandemic hit and then theystopped doing events for a year
or two and then just over abouta four year period of time, they
just didn't hold the Hall ofFame at the podcast movement
event or the awards. So theyactually dropped all that. And
then just a few years ago, we asinductees wanted to take it back
from podcast movement and keepit alive. I think people

(01:26):
understand that if they gotinducted in the Hall of Fame,
they want to be inducted into aHall of Fame that died. Right.
So it's not a good thing. And Istarted to get involved at that
point because I was working forLipson at the time and was
working with some other folksthat had an interest in keeping
it going as well. And so if youfast forward to today, we took
it back from podcast movementand now it's part of a

(01:49):
partnership with podcast that'sgoing on down in Orlando in mid
January here. So that's whenwe're going to do the 2024 Hall
of Fame induction.

Sam Sethi (02:00):
Now they've just announced the Hall of Fame
inductees. Give us some namesoff that list.

Rob Greenlee (02:06):
Yeah. So there's a good group of folks. I mean,
I've been around this podcastspace since it started and have
perspective on being able to seepeople that have had a
significant contribution overthe many, many years. And that's
part of the challenges the Hallof Fame is facing right now, is

(02:28):
that there are a lot of peoplethat had significant early
contributions to what we seetoday as podcasting and that
needed to be recognized for thatand brought into the Hall of
Fame. And so we're still in thatphase of bringing in people that
were very foundational to thecreation of this medium that we
all love. And, you know, likeguys like Tom Webster, Twila

(02:51):
Dang, who's been working inpublic media for a long time,
and she has her own company now,and she helps with a lot of
other creators. And then JessicaKupferman is another one who
started the SHE podcast alongwith LC, who's also in the Hall
of Fame. So these people andjust the first three here I've
mentioned, have had asignificant contribution to the

(03:12):
growth and the development ofthis podcast medium.

Sam Sethi (03:16):
So, Rob, if I want to find out about all the current
inductees, where would I go?
Where's the website?

Rob Greenlee (03:22):
Yeah, I would just go to podcast hall dot com and
go to the inductees page on thatsite. It's that podcast hall dot
com forward slash hall dash or Fdash fame.

Sam Sethi (03:34):
And would I be able to see all the previous
inductees as well. On that oneyes yeah.

Rob Greenlee (03:40):
Yeah. It's all below. Just keep scrolling down
the page and you should be ableto see them all now.

Sam Sethi (03:45):
James Cridland, co-host of the podcast, said
very well on putting his dailylook. Everyone's an American, so
how are you going to make that?
Sounding slightly facetious, theAmerican Hall of Fame, the
Global Hall of Fame. How are yougoing to bring the world into
this?

Rob Greenlee (04:02):
Well, I think one of the big challenges and I've
been really facing this veryconsciously and also getting
feedback from others to theoutside of the United States and
get their perspectives on howthis might work. But I think
very fundamentally and I thinkJames Cridland is a very good
example of what I'm talkingabout here, is that the history
of this medium pre JamesCridland was very isolated to

(04:27):
its view of a U.S. centricmedium. Right. And I think we
all know that the rest of theworld has been supporting
podcasting all along. It's justthat the country knowledge has
really been centered on theUnited States when it comes to
the medium, and that's reallyunfair. And this is a similar
challenge that I faced when Iwas working in the podcast

(04:48):
Academy, too, with the AmberAwards is that you have this
challenge of making somethingglobal which can be an
overwhelming challenge becauseit's a lot easier to say, well,
it's an international award,whatever, but it's a whole
nother matter to actually makeit happen and also to make it
fairer, right? And also to havethat institution have

(05:10):
international knowledge. And Ithink James Cridland has done an
amazing job of making thismedium visible internationally.
But that's only been a recentthing. So, sure, James has been
involved in the medium and to bequite honest with James probably
deserves to be in the hall ofFame and I think he will very
soon. So it's really a matter ofexpanding the board, right, to

(05:32):
include people that representpretty much all the countries of
the world. So this is going tobe a pretty good sized board.
And then also having a muchlarger pool of people to vote,
because one of the issues that Ihave is I can add a bunch of
international podcasts that werevery pioneering in the medium in
the early years. But the problemis I can put them on the list.

(05:52):
But if most of the voters arefrom the US, they're not even
going to know who they are orwhat they are. I mean, I do put
a lot of information in thereabout each nominee's background
and things like that, but itdoes get back to borders. Vote
on name familiarity to somedegree. It's it's human nature.
That's the challenge that I face.
But expanding the voting pool isthe biggest thing and bringing

(06:15):
in voters from countries allaround the world is really the
only way I can do a farewell.

Sam Sethi (06:21):
Say recently you did expand the board, so you've gone.
Name some of the people who'vejoined the board and let us know.

Rob Greenlee (06:29):
So trying to name everybody, you know, like Ty
Cochrane, Dave Jackson, GloriaPetrucci, Glynn Washington,
Danny Pina is on the board, theCEO podcast is on the board. And
Gautam, the founder of HubHopper is on the board too, and

(06:49):
he's the first one that I'veadded to the board so far.
That's from outside of the U.S.
And so he's going to be one ofof many that I'm going to tap
into various parts of the worldto add to the board. And then
they're going to help me come upwith nominees, which they've
already started. You know, mycontacts outside of the U.S. is
going to give me nominees frompeople that were very early in

(07:10):
the podcast medium, even as farback as like 2005 or whatever,
that had a significantcontribution to developing
podcasting in that country.
Right. And to build awarenessthere that we just don't have
this ability to. So it's reallya matter of me and the board and
the organization havingvisibility to these people that

(07:30):
are outside of the U.S. that hadthose major contributions to the
growth of podcasting in theearly years that we just don't
know about.

Sam Sethi (07:38):
So and again, when people get to nominate next year,
how will they be able to do that?
Is it user generated nominationsor is it board generated
nominations? I'm curious tounderstand how people get
nominated.

Rob Greenlee (07:53):
Well, up to this year, it's been basically
funneled in through all sorts ofdifferent sources, people
sending me emails recommendingpeople. The board has
recommended people, pastinductees. I've recommended
people. So you can already seethat there is somewhat of a
regional bias just based onhuman knowledge. Right. And so

(08:15):
expanding the sources of thosethose not nominations is the
biggest thing in that's kind ofalready started. I had people on
the list that did pioneeringthings outside of the U.S. on my
ballot this year. But theproblem is they didn't get voted
in. Right. And I think it'sfundamentally because there's
not enough people voting thatare from outside of the U.S.

(08:38):
that have that knowledge likewho they are and what their
significance was. So, yeah,having a much more public
nomination process and then alsoexpanding that pool of voters
that would vote from that list,I'm hoping that it will be a
fair thing, to be honest aboutit. I'm not exactly sure that it
will be as fair as it needs tobe this next year. But if we

(09:01):
start that pathway towardsmaking it a much larger thing
and including the significantregions of the world in this
pool, then it might be possible.
Yeah.

Sam Sethi (09:13):
Rob me man. About Podcasting Hall of Fame inductee
from 2017. Thanks a lot. Remindeveryone one more time. Rob when
is the event and where can theygo and find out more about the
event?

Rob Greenlee (09:25):
Yeah, I think the best thing to do is go to
podcast hall dot com and theceremony is being held on
January 17th at 7 p.m. Easternin Orlando, Florida at the
Podcast Expo. So if you want tofind out about the conference,
it's a podcast expo dot com andwe are selling tickets to the
in-person ceremony and it willbe recorded. It's going to be

(09:49):
put out on YouTube and online,the full ceremony recording on
January 20th. So that's what thecurrent plan is right now. Last
year we tried to do it live, butit didn't work out that well, so
we're just going to try andrecord it and then put it out at
a later date and hopefully itwill 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.