The heroes of audio – the short stack

Friends, 

What makes a hero? 

You might get 20 different responses depending on who you ask. To me, the core of it is about lifting others up – putting them before yourself in an extraordinary way. 

To be clear, none of the following should be confused with who we more commonly think of as a hero – the firefighter, the ER doctor, etc.; goes without saying, that’s a different breed/level. That said, in the context of facilitating great stories and information that elevate people’s lives, our industry’s heroes are indispensable. 

It’s come up in a few ways for me over the past weeks. We had our all-company summits – one last week in Pittsburgh for North American Stackers, and one the prior week for our engineer Stackers in Bucharest. At both, I marveled at how much we’ve grown over the past two years. But when I thought about what the entire global team has accomplished in that time, I actually didn’t marvel at all. Given every single person’s intense dedication, thoughtfulness, and fantastic spirit, the company’s success – dramatic revenue growth, expansion to a full-circle audio tech provider, and industry reputation as both innovative and supremely human – all makes perfect sense.

Why does our team focus so much on service? Because they know that, even with the best innovations, powering a podcast or radio-related business can be super complex. The double-edged sword of our industry’s explosion over the past several years – particularly in podcasting – is that all the technology that’s built to make you more profitable and efficient can be really hard to wrap your head around. So, to our partners, our above-and-beyond employees are heroes. 

The idea also came up at Advertising Week NY a couple weeks ago. In Rockie Thomas’ panel discussion with Ira Glass (This American Life) and Scott Davis (NPR), the conversation turned to the idea that, in a nutshell, those of us working in audio are still “fighting” for audio. A recent eMarketer study updated an ear-opening (😀) metric that’s been circulating for a few years: audio now accounts for around 21% of daily media consumption, but only 4.5% of media spend.

Why all that consumption? Ira, Scott, and Rockie all called it out. From its ubiquity – “audio is with us all the time” (Davis) – to its intimacy, to powering “the theater of the mind” and more, people get its unique power. It’s worth fighting for. And as we do, it’s important to keep in mind that’s just as much about fighting for people. From the storyteller, to the evangelist helping educate brands, to the accounting associate in a podcast network, there are a lot of folks working really hard to ensure that audio continues to make everyone's lives better.

Who are the heroes of audio? All of us. 

Best,