In the evolving world of communication in geology and geoscience,  the importance of dialogue leads the way to deal with some of society’s grand challenges. Iain Stewart is at the forefront, helping build effective communication strategies to advance the global geoscience mission. We also explore an example of empathetic, community centred dialogue with Kate Moore.  A two-way conversation is critical to building the mines of the future, supplying the energy transition and supporting a broad range of geology-related societal challenges.   Iain Stewart is the El Hassan bin Talal Research Chair in Sustainability at the Royal Scientific Society (Jordan) and Professor of Geoscience Communication at the University of Plymouth (UK). Iain has spent decades honing his communication skills, including a 15-year partnership with the BBC, but his thinking around communication continues to evolve.  We talked to him about how he arrived at an approach of seeking to understand what people want to know, ultimately summed up by the question ‘how can we help?’.  Importantly, he recently published a paper , Three Horizons for Future Geoscience, that uses the dialogic tool of the three horizons as a framework for thinking about systemic change and what pathways we can use to move away from the ‘business as usual’ approach.  The paper evaluates the current state of geoscience, particularly in advanced economies, and poses one narrative that can be used to reimagine the global geoscientific mission.  There aren’t easy answers, but there are ways in which we can build dialogue and seek solutions together.   Dialogue and asking the question ‘how can we help you?’ was fundamental to Kate Moore’s team on the large EU Horizon 2020 project, IMPaCT.  Kathryn Moore, Senior Lecturer in Critical and Green Technology Metals, Cambourne School of Mines, was part of the team that worked with Mineco, a small mining company operating in Bosnia. Success in the project required multidisciplinary dialogue, across all technical disciplines and with the local community.  One of their big challenges was also to create enduring and effective public outreach.  Through both creative thinking and a series of fortuitous and challenging events, the final product was a thoughtful and provocative book entitled ‘Of Earth, For Earth.’   The book was published by the University of Exeter and is available from a variety of sources. Our theme music is Confluence by Eastwinds.