The distance between a story and its impact

I learned the weight of storytelling in a small newsroom in Ouray, Colorado, where the distance between a written word and its impact was often no more than the length of a grocery aisle. The people we wrote about were our neighbors. Their lives shaped our pages, and our pages shaped their days.

That experience still shapes how I approach the work. Start with people. Understand what matters to them, what they need, and what research and audience data can tell us. Then find the right way to reach them. Sometimes that means telling a story that moves people. Sometimes it’s creating an experience that changes their perspective. And sometimes it’s building the teams, systems, and creative culture that make ambitious work possible.