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Vanity Metrics - Cary Johnson on Why Benchmarks Fail and Baselines Matter
Subscribe on your favourite platforms and visit https://linktr.ee/riskycreative for more of ∠The Awareness Angle.
This week on The Awareness Angle Interviews, Ant sits down with Cary Johnson, founder of Phishbusters, for a straight talking conversation about security awareness, human risk, and why so many programmes struggle to prove real impact.
This episode strips away dashboards, buzzwords, and vendor narratives to focus on what actually reduces phishing risk. Cary brings a science led perspective to awareness, challenging engagement metrics, benchmarks, and the idea that looking busy means you are becoming more secure.
We get into phishing as a measurement tool rather than a content engine, why repeat clickers are not all the same, and how poor measurement can quietly create fatigue, resentment, and false confidence across organisations.
If you work in security awareness, human risk, or phishing defence, this conversation will challenge how you think about success.
We talk about
- Why engagement does not equal impact
- Benchmarks versus baselines, and why the difference really matters
- Phishing as the number one human risk
- Repeat clickers, learners, and where risk actually sits
- Why overtraining creates fatigue and resentment
- Verification skills and keeping awareness simple
- Compliance theatre and the danger of vanity metrics
- Vendors marking their own homework
- How to test whether your programme is genuinely working
This is a calm but challenging discussion that says the quiet part out loud. It shows how easily good intentions can turn into noise when measurement is flawed, and how much simpler awareness can be when we focus on proof instead of performance.
Let me know what it gets you thinking about.
Stay aware, stay secure.
Previous Episode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EntRmhcDOBM&list=PLEsOj51Q0PfA0qX6BRlNnyD7lG8JlijRf
Links
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@riskycreative
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/riskycreative
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/riskycreative
Website: https://www.riskycreative.com
Contact: [email protected]
Intro and outro music
16! by falling forever
https://fallingforever.bandcamp.com/track/16
License: CC BY 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
View all episodes
By Risky CreativeSubscribe on your favourite platforms and visit https://linktr.ee/riskycreative for more of ∠The Awareness Angle.
This week on The Awareness Angle Interviews, Ant sits down with Cary Johnson, founder of Phishbusters, for a straight talking conversation about security awareness, human risk, and why so many programmes struggle to prove real impact.
This episode strips away dashboards, buzzwords, and vendor narratives to focus on what actually reduces phishing risk. Cary brings a science led perspective to awareness, challenging engagement metrics, benchmarks, and the idea that looking busy means you are becoming more secure.
We get into phishing as a measurement tool rather than a content engine, why repeat clickers are not all the same, and how poor measurement can quietly create fatigue, resentment, and false confidence across organisations.
If you work in security awareness, human risk, or phishing defence, this conversation will challenge how you think about success.
We talk about
- Why engagement does not equal impact
- Benchmarks versus baselines, and why the difference really matters
- Phishing as the number one human risk
- Repeat clickers, learners, and where risk actually sits
- Why overtraining creates fatigue and resentment
- Verification skills and keeping awareness simple
- Compliance theatre and the danger of vanity metrics
- Vendors marking their own homework
- How to test whether your programme is genuinely working
This is a calm but challenging discussion that says the quiet part out loud. It shows how easily good intentions can turn into noise when measurement is flawed, and how much simpler awareness can be when we focus on proof instead of performance.
Let me know what it gets you thinking about.
Stay aware, stay secure.
Previous Episode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EntRmhcDOBM&list=PLEsOj51Q0PfA0qX6BRlNnyD7lG8JlijRf
Links
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@riskycreative
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/riskycreative
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/riskycreative
Website: https://www.riskycreative.com
Contact: [email protected]
Intro and outro music
16! by falling forever
https://fallingforever.bandcamp.com/track/16
License: CC BY 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0