I want to know who the audience is before I create anything. Research isn't separate from the work. It is the work.

That means thinking about who's receiving the content, not just whether the words are right. It means understanding how decisions get made in an organization, and what it actually takes to communicate across different teams, stakeholders, and contexts.

I've done that work across a lot of environments — government, agencies, corporate — and the through-line is always the same: understanding people first.