Image by Rachel Adams
The first meeting with Kate leaves you with the sense that she is not just deliberate in her choice of words, but secretly polishes each one to a high shine. She holds it up to the light, and only then, with the satisfied, tiny nod of a true expert, does she slot it into its proper place.
As a language expert, Kate is 2A’s own lexical chef. With a master’s in linguistics, Kate has developed (and trained actors on) an authentic Dust Bowl accent for a play based on Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men; taught English as a second language in both Japan and the US at the university level; worked in academia; and simplified complex scientific and technical research into a comprehensible read for the layperson. All of this, of course, is in addition to excelling at 2A as an in-house storyteller on the agency side and an embedded consultant for Microsoft. As a former employee of both Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS), she continues to dive into technology and produce stellar copy.
Braiding stories from different threads
When it comes to storytelling, Kate pulls three key threads to weave a tale. First, is connection. She knows how to string the right words together to make a good story great. She can connect directly with the reader, so the message makes a place in their mind and heart. And while the message may be interpreted a little differently by each reader, Kate searches hard for the nugget that strikes relevance.
Another strand in the craft of Kate’s storytelling is precision. “How can you use a word so there is no room for ambiguity?” she asks. “Different people use words and concepts differently, so I work to make sure that we’re on the same page with respect to what they’re trying to say, and I’m focused on using direct language.”
The last strand is Kate’s imagination. “I think of things that might not have been considered with respect to the story,” she says. Drawing on the rich diversity of her expertise, she pulls disparate elements together, coaxing them to play nicely, and finally, buffing them to produce a finished product like this piece on AI and mixed reality for Microsoft.
From tech to the deep sea
When she’s not creating marketing content, Kate is kayaking, volunteering for the arts, or walking dogs at the Seattle Animal Shelter. Lately, she’s been settling into her new role as pet parent to her adorable three-year-old Havapoo, Charlie, a rescue who accompanies her on her adventures.