About
I’ve always been fascinated by what makes people care.
The small things. The quiet things. The way a sentence can make someone feel seen—or the way silence sometimes does it better.
That curiosity became a way of life. I started looking for meaning in unlikely places: in conversations, in work, in the space between what we say and what we mean. Eventually, it even led me to marketing.
Not because I wanted to sell things, but because I wanted to understand why anything moves us at all.
Over time, I’ve come to believe that clarity, empathy, and story aren’t just tools for persuasion—they’re ways of caring. Done well, marketing can be an act of kindness. Done poorly, it’s just noise with better fonts.
I’m Stephen Boudreau, a man in lifelong pursuit of goodness—not because I’m especially good at it, but because I think it matters. I write about clarity, kindness, and the absurd ways humans try to get both right.
I’m regrettably sarcastic, perpetually optimistic, and (allegedly) willing to change my mind. Fair warning: I’m a recovering know-it-all. Please forgive me when I lapse into old habits.
Professional
By trade, I work in marketing—though not the kind that promises happiness in twelve easy payments.
I’ve spent most of my career helping organizations that do good work say what they mean—and sound like themselves while doing it. The point is to help people see what’s true and move toward it.
These days, I serve as Chief Marketing Officer at Avid, where we help nonprofits raise more money and have fewer migraines in the process. Before that, I co-founded an agency, helped build brands and products like RaiseDonors and Virtuous, and learned that “strategy” is mostly the art of turning good instincts into shared conviction.
I like the messy parts of the work—the tension between meaning and message, heart and headline. Every now and then, a phrase hits right, a room goes still, and someone finally feels understood. That’s the part that keeps me here.
Personal
At home, I’m surrounded by three people who keep me honest: my wife, Shelley, and our two sons. They’re smarter, funnier, and significantly less interested in my metaphors. Most days, I’m just trying to keep up.
Our life isn’t particularly glamorous—mostly dinner debates, misplaced homework, and the occasional breakthrough moment when everyone’s laughing at the same thing for once. But those moments feel like the whole point.
Somewhere along the way, I realized my philosophy of life could fit on a sticky note:
Love your family.
Love your friends.
Do what’s in front of you.
It took me a while to get here.
I don’t always get it right. But I’m trying. And if my writing sounds like I take myself too seriously, just know it’s usually written by a man in pajama pants, over-dramatizing something small, and calling it insight.
Clarity
For a long time, I thought clarity was about being right.
Now I think it’s about being kind.
The older I get, the more I realize that most confusion isn’t a failure of intelligence—it’s a failure of care. We rush, assume, skip the slow work of understanding. Clarity, in that light, isn’t just a communication skill; it’s an act of love.
That’s the idea at the heart of Schmarketing, too. It started as a joke about jargon, but underneath the humor is something much simpler: teams that speak clearly are teams that trust, forgive, and move forward together.
That’s what I try to do here. To make sense of things. To name what’s good, what’s hard, and what’s worth holding onto. Sometimes it’s through work. Sometimes through writing. Always through trying.
Likes
Friday nights, Telecasters, Shelley’s spaghetti, audiobooks, Everton, Alaska, sunglasses, sweaters, Dumbledore, old buildings, technology, magic, The Lasso Way, beets, Uno, lists.
Dislikes
Being late, regret, me monsters, half-assing, dogmatism, toe-shoes, pranks, ricotta, people eating on podcasts, typos, captcha forms, complaining, the texas longhorns.
Music
Music has always been a quiet kind of joy for me. When I was younger, I even imagined doing it for a living—proof, I guess, that optimism can get out of hand.
Life moved on, as it does, and music stayed. These days it’s more of a beloved side project than a profession. Still, there’s something sacred about it. Writing or playing with friends—creating something that didn’t exist five minutes ago—it feels a little like cheating reality.
It’s not perfect, and that’s what makes it perfect.
It’s real magic.
Christmas Songs
For a decade, my wife and I wrote and recorded original Christmas songs—one each year, like a holiday tradition that got slightly out of hand. They’re funny, a little sentimental, and still some of my favorite things we’ve ever made together.
We haven’t written one in a while, but the door’s not closed.
In the meantime, please enjoy these ten songs. They’re among the most joyful, ridiculous, and unexpectedly meaningful moments of my life.