I've taught eight roles of storytelling in workshops for thirty years. Then Jack Martin said something on tape that handed me a ninth — and quietly changed the framework I'll use from here on out.

Terry Flannery has been the first person to hold her job three times over. The campaigns everyone remembers — Fear the Turtle, Wonk — looked bold from the outside. What you don't see is the discipline underneath. A conversation about the work behind the work.

Three theologians walk into a bar. It actually happened. AMA 2025. Devin Purgason, Mallory Willsea, and me. And the thread we pulled on — about what seminary trains you to do that marketing school doesn't — changes how you hear everything Devin has to say about his work. He'd never put it together before. Neither had we.

If you work in higher ed advancement today, there's a very good chance you are running plays written by Ashley Budd. But while the industry happily copied her digital tactics over the last 15 years, they almost entirely missed her underlying argument.

Joe Master knew he was a writer in third grade. Mrs. Spicer made popcorn to prove it. Some 30 years later, the instinct that made a classroom lean in is the same one that makes institutions finally sound like themselves.

Tracey Halvorsen has been breaking the rules of higher ed web design for 25 years. Beautifully. Deliberately. Well. Here's what I took away from the conversation.