I have a friend. Let’s call him Ryan. I respect Ryan, and we talk about a lot of things: work, religion, technology, politics, bikes, the truck he’s always working on—you name it, and we both have an opinion, sometimes strong opinions. Our problem is, we don’t always speak the same language (well, English, but that’s about it), so sometimes it takes awhile for me to figure out what Ryan is really getting at. And judging from his sometimes dazed expression when I talk, he feels the same.

That’s because communication is hard! Really, really hard. But talking—and by that I mean really talking—is how we get stuff done... at work, at home, in our personal lives, and in government. Although we may argue that we do talk, it’s usually along the lines of we said stuff to Bob, and Bob said stuff to us, and maybe we were talking about the same thing, but who the heck knows? We barely remember what he said.

Oddly, we do remember exactly what we said.

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