Welcome, Bodacious Brains! My name is Nancy Martira.

I’m an amateur fiber artist, a devoted student of Golden Age mystery fiction, and someone who follows her curiosity in the hopes that it leads to a good story.

(That’s a clue behind the name Clew.)

I’m also a fantastically engaged and effective communications consultant. You could take my word for it, check out my C.V., or ask someone who has worked with me. I spent 10 years working in social media and digital strategy for big-name brands before taking on in-house communications roles. But my job has always been the least interesting thing about me. Recounting my professional experiences doesn’t get to the heart of who I am, what I stand for, and why you should listen to me.

People with nonlinear career paths are my favorite kind of people.

Clew Brandmark aqua colored ball of yarn with curly tail

I like people who take big swings and fail, people who know when quitting is the most productive choice, and people who can admit when they are wrong.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to be right. But I’ve also learned to love being wrong. I think people who change their minds are the only people who should be leading anything.

In communications work, we start with the audience. I was trained to make Audience Personas and Journey Maps to understand who these people are, how and when they consume information, what they want to hear, and what they need to hear. I spent months researching the target audience for my consulting work: their pain points, aspirations, and values. I went back to the drawing board again and again to develop products and offers to help overwhelmed entrepreneurs understand the why and the how of brand strategy.

I sifted through the competitive landscape and found a sea of sameness. I bored myself. I was miserable.

To create something new, I needed a new approach. I threw out the audience. Instead of starting from an external point on the horizon, I took a self-inventory of the characteristics that make me a good creative partner, strategist, and human. The six skills below are the foundation of my personal and professional resilience. Like many traits that women exhibit, they are widely devalued, dismissively called “soft skills.”

I call them “The Good Stuff.”

Last year, I felt a restlessness to make something new, build something different, and write about the ideas that light me up like a pinball machine.

Illustration of an arrow hitting the bullseye of a target

Find My Writing Elsewhere

In addition to the Clew blog and the Wonder Work newsletter, I also publish about topics outside of Clew’s purview. You can find my writing on these miscellaneous topics on LinkedIn and Substack.

The Good Stuff

  • Illustration of a person with high, floppy hair holding onto a scribbly heart

    Empathy

    Seeing things from another person’s perspective without layering in our own more judgment.

  • Illustration of a person holding a book. The book is so large you can't see the person's face, but the book has a curious expression on the cover.

    Curiosity

    Actively pursuing learning and the possibility that we might be wrong

  • Illustration of a person running with a giant magnifying glass and applying it to an internet search bar

    Discernment

    Questioning bias and examining how narratives shape our sense of what is true.

  • Illustration of a person with a large cardboard box on their head and a slot cut out for their eyes. They are running towards adventure.

    Creativity

    A drive to create and a meaningful understanding that failure is essential to the process

  • Illustration of a person standing at a switchbreaker, connecting fuses to light up a lightbulb in the shape of a fist

    Ingenuity

    Turning problems into puzzles and generating a high volume of solutions without self-censoring

  • Illustration of a person sitting down with an abstract monster with horns to share a cup of coffee

    Insight

    Going deep to find authentic common ground with anyone and everyone

Illustration of a six-pointed star with legs wearing sneakers walking through an open door

“Wonder Work” is the name I’ve given to the philosophy that underpins everything I do.

It’s my personal practice for cultivating empathy, curiosity, discernment, creativity, ingenuity, and insight. It’s the foundation of every strategy I deliver and the heart of every story I write. And now, it’s a monthly email newsletter.

About Nancy

I have one of those nonlinear paths. I’ve been a Senate Page, a barista, a nanny, and a bank teller. While I was working an admin job at a global PR firm in New York, I noticed a gap in their offerings. In 2008, “Mommybloggers” were suddenly everywhere, exercising tremendous influence over their devoted readers. After watching some brands underestimate these women, I developed a protocol for brands in good faith to engage this audience respectfully. Today, we call that Influencer Marketing.

I worked in social media and digital strategy for big name brands, then on to Deloitte’s Digital Studio in Seattle. There, I led the creative planning team and honed my chops in brand strategy. I left agencies behind to move to New Mexico for a different quality of life. It turns out that New Mexico is the kind of place where you can send a Twitter DM to the Governor’s staff and offer your services. Somehow, I ended up as the Director of Communications for the New Mexico Public Education Department during a global pandemic. (Yikes.)

In 2020, the life I was trying to lead, the one with time and space for hobbies, art, connection, and impressing your nieces by throwing unicorn-themed tie-dye parties, went away. Oh, and the chronic stress was killing me. At the height of the pandemic, I folded my hand and resigned from the Public Education Department. (Sorry, Gov.) I knew that quitting a high-visibility job during a time of great need would put an end to my career in public service. But I also knew that if I stayed and made it through to the other side of the long-term crisis, there wouldn’t be much Nancy left.

I have been happily self-employed since October 2020.

Composite of snapshots of Nancy Martira through the years, as a child in a school picture, a young adult in Italy, and as an adult browsing in a bookstore

“Why do we call our generous ideas illusions, and the mean ones truths?”

— Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth