From Capitol Hill to the hills of Vermont, the prevailing thread throughout my career has been distilling large amounts of information into digestible communications. I will never forget the first time Luke Albee, Senator Leahy’s then chief-of-staff, called me into his office to review a letter I had drafted to a Vermont constituent about changes to Medicare.After a few minutes of small talk, Luke asked me about my grandmother—what she was like, her state of health, my relationship with her. Once he was certain I had my grandmother firmly in my heart, he asked how the letter I had drafted would make her feel. What moments before had seemed smart, well-researched, and concise was now cold, academic, and unfeeling.Fast forward a few decades, and here I sit at my office in Stowe, Vermont with that lesson as relevant today as it was more than twenty years ago. Human-to-human communications, not business-to-consumer or business-to-business, is the way good marketing affects what people think, how they feel, and what they do. We are, after all, just people talking to other people. Since 2002, I have consulted with companies large and small to develop strategic communications plans, strengthen relationships with stakeholders, create compelling content, and prepare for communications crisis. My clients have ranged from cheesemakers to changemakers, product innovators to non-profits, and for a few years a surf camp in Costa Rica that inspired this Vermonter to take up surfing in her forties...but that’s another story.