While podcasting has matured as a medium over the last 15 years, the infrastructure supporting it is often still a work in progress. Aseloka Smith is changing that. A university database manager by day and a dedicated podcast listener by night, Aseloka realized there was no central resource to track the "cross section" of a show’s success across various awarding bodies like the Webbys, the Signal Awards, and the Ambies. This realization led to the creation of the Audio Awards Archive, a curated database designed to be a reliable historical record for the industry. This conversation explores the "spirit of the spark," which is the drive to build a solution for a community need even when starting from scratch with lean resources. KEY TOPICS The Missing Link in Podcasting: Why the industry lacked a single source to aggregate nominations and wins across different organizations. The Intersection of Data and Story: How Aseloka’s professional background in database management at a university informed her approach to creative information. Building Lean and Programmatically: Developing a technical resource without "enterprise level money" by finding efficient, scalable ways to connect the dots. The Power of Human Curation: Choosing manual oversight over AI and LLMs to ensure data reliability and prevent "hallucinations". Future Scaling and Sustainability: Plans to build out historical data sets and establish the archive as a self sustaining tool for the creative economy. The Importance of Process: Why structure is essential for long term sustainability in creative projects based on first hand experience. FEATURED GUEST Aseloka Smith: Creator of the Audio Awards Archive and University Database Manager NOTABLE QUOTES "I realized like there was no place for me to go and see like the cross section for a particular show... it was just wild to me that I couldn't go anywhere and find out this sort of information." — Aseloka Smith "As someone who works in technology, I know that [LLM] models lie, they hallucinate and I wanna make this reliable." — Aseloka Smith CONNECT Audio Awards Archive: https://aaainfo.link/cbpc⁠ Newsletter: https://aaainfo.link/cbpc-nl⁠ Follow Could Be Pretty Cool: @couldbeprettycool | couldbeprettycool.com | couldbeprettycoolnews.substack.com KEYWORDS Audio Awards Archive, Aseloka Smith, podcast awards, creative economy, podcasting infrastructure, data management, Webby Awards, Signal Awards, Ambies, Black Podcasting Awards, media database. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices