I find the human story inside complicated things.

I have an MFA in Creative Writing and spent 16 years inside higher education. That combination turns out to be useful. Higher ed is where complex ideas go to become inaccessible — and I spent a long time figuring out how to reverse that.

Along the way I learned that the gap between what you know and what your audience can feel is always a story problem. And story problems have solutions.

That's what I do — in every room, for every audience, across every venture I've built. Make it land.

Ed Buchanan

I started in writing. An MFA from a program that cared about sentence rhythm, about the right word, about why a story works when it does. That sensibility never left — it just found new rooms to work in.

Those rooms turned out to be universities. I spent 16 years in higher education helping institutions do hard things: communicate complex policy to anxious faculty, design learning experiences that people actually finished, navigate the organizational upheaval that comes when a new technology arrives and nobody knows what to do with it.

"Stop chasing interesting. Start choosing impact."

That line came from a specific moment. I was doing work that looked impressive — big scope, complex systems, genuinely hard problems. But I couldn't see the value I was delivering. The work had become interesting without being useful. When that gap gets wide enough, something has to give.

The layoff that followed wasn't a surprise. It was the conclusion of a misalignment that had been building for a while. And it turned out to be the most clarifying thing that had happened to me professionally. I knew exactly what I wanted to build next — and exactly what I didn't want to repeat.

Now I speak at conferences, consult with founders, create content for L&D practitioners, and co-host a podcast about meaning and work. The thread running through all of it is the same: there's a human story inside the complexity, and most people walk right past it. I help you find it.

The brand reflects a person, not a persona.

I work in bursts. A conference in Orlando, a half-day workshop with a corporate team, an intensive consulting engagement — and then I decompress. I'm back at a swim meet, at a Disney park, in the middle of a family week that doesn't have a deliverable.

That rhythm is intentional. The work I do requires full presence in the room. Full presence requires recovery. I stopped apologizing for that a long time ago.

My son Evan is a competitive swimmer. The calendar fills around his meets. That's not a constraint I manage around — it's a feature of how I've built this.

Based in United States
Education MFA, Creative Writing
Background 16 years in higher education
Speaks at L&D conferences, higher ed gatherings, corporate events
Building More Learnable, Signal & Story, Thought Partners
Availability Select keynotes and workshops. Consulting by inquiry.

Where I've spoken.

OLC Innovate

Online Learning Consortium — Ed's highest-rated session: 4.88/5 across 117 evaluations

2026

OLC Accelerate

Online Learning Consortium annual conference

2024 & 2025

NACE Annual Conference

National Association of Colleges and Employers

2024

Let's find the right fit.

Whether you're booking a speaker, starting a consulting conversation, or just curious — the best next step is a short message.