Making America Communicate Again (MACA) isn’t going to be easy. We’re different; we have distinct priorities, experiences and we’re talking among six generations – Silents, Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z and the Polars. Consider Generation Z, now entering the workforce and getting lots of attention these days.

Explaining how major, controversial decisions are weighed and made, or when and how to clean up groundwater contamination, or any other big complex idea isn’t easy. It may be for you and your learned pals, but you suffer from the curse of knowledge, so you might want to consider the ladder of abstraction next time you have to talk to real folks.

I’ve been prone to point out that government just isn’t very effective in communicating compared to the private sector with their massive advertising budgets and resources all designed to sell us stuff that we probably don’t need or want in the first place. But considering that advertising budgets are trending mostly online, capturing and communicating with a virtual audience is one place where creative public sector talent can actually level the playing field.

At any rate, my point is that informing effectively and communicating with people is core to this work, so I hope some of what you just read is useful and if it’s not, I’m sorry; I’ll try to do better next month. So, don’t go all smellfungus on me.