About
Working in the
translation gap
between what matters
and who needs
to know it.
I'm trained as an anthropologist and a museologist. That sharpened my insider-outsider perspective. I understand what organizations want audiences to know, what audiences actually care about, and how to bridge that gap. That bridge is the brand.
I keep brands sounding like themselves. For ten years I've built the voice and editorial standards across ads, web, email, and social, then written the copy myself when it has to land. At Life After Hate, We. Communications, Wildwood Flower Farm, and POSSIBLE (now VML). The editorial system is what keeps a brand sounding like itself. When the copy has to count, I write it.
Based on Bainbridge Island, WA.
A few principles
- Constraint is the strategy. What you can't say sharpens what you can.
- Voice is governance. A brand sounds like itself because someone is holding the line.
- Edit harder than you write. The standard isn't what gets drafted; it's what ships.
- Be specific. Vague is unkind. It wastes the reader's time and your credibility.
- If you can't measure it, it's decoration. Creative has to earn its budget.
- Do the work, not just the deck. Strategy that doesn't ship is a memo.
- Trust the human truth. It does the work for you.
Selected organizations
- Life After Hate
- Wildwood Flower Farm
- We. Communications
- The How Skills
- Boys & Girls Clubs of King County
- MOHAI
- POSSIBLE (now VML)
- Colorado State University
- Henry Art Gallery
- Smithsonian Institution
- Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa