You know who gets one big name? Rockstars get one big name. We’re talking show-stopping, stage-rocking, mind-blowing rockstars that know how to shake up their genre and make audiences think and feel in new ways. These are the stars that possess so much raw talent and energy they only need the one name to stake a claim in the hearts and minds of everyone they meet. Think Beyonce, Lizzo, Eminem. Forsyth.
For those of you who haven’t met Forsyth Alexander yet, you’re in for a treat! Forsyth approaches storytelling for business with a fun, can-do attitude that gives her platinum-artist status at 2A. She’s a whirlwind of smooth jazz, bubbly pop, and marimba beats wrapped up as a storyteller extraordinaire. Thinking that sounds eclectic and interesting? That’s not even half of it!
DJ of technical writing
From a young age, Forsyth knew she wanted to be a music DJ and a writer—in that order. She got her degree in radio/television and motion pictures at University of North Carolina while working as a DJ at night and taking as many creative writing classes as she could. After graduation, Forsyth landed a job at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (now called the Horton Museum), where she became the go-to person for IT, editing, and design questions.
These experiences helped her realize her love for learning about new technologies, and her gift for editing other people’s writing to help them sound like the best version of themselves. Armed with this newfound awareness, Forsyth went on to build a vibrant career as a one-of-a-kind tech savant and writer, working for organizations across industries—from an engineering group to a home furnishing catalog company to a tech startup.
Today, Forsyth offers 2A clients her expertise in explaining different technologies as well as skillful guidance on positioning emerging capabilities. Like a rockstar DJ, who knows how to appeal to the audience in the club, Forsyth uses playful words and smart metaphors to draw in her reader and make new ideas stick like fresh melodies.
Spoken word poet
All great artists attribute stars that came before them, for Forsyth there’s no one main influence. “My music playlist looks like I blew up a record store, and it landed on my Spotify account,” she likes to say. But given her time as a DJ and her ability to transition seamlessly between industries, organizations, and writing voices, it’s no surprise that she thrives in variety. From Rolling Stones to Talking Heads to REM, Forsyth’s got great tunes to share, but my favorite Forsyth original is the song she sings about her home.
If you haven’t heard it yet, just ask her where she lives. In her smooth southern accent, she’ll tell you, “I live with eight cats, three dogs, two chickens, two ducks, and a bunny in a big old stone house on an acre of land.” There’s no pear tree in this version, but the rhythm sticks with you all the same.
Forsyth. The woman. The storyteller. The legend. Let her shine for you!
“Stop drinking Cokes, Jane,” they say…but how can I when Microsoft has entered the chat? Coca-Cola signed a $1B, five-year deal (partially funded by me) to use Microsoft’s cloud computing and AI services. “But how can this poisonous drink get any better?” you may ask. Don’t worry, the amazing taste that lights up your entire brain and sends your pancreas into a tailspin won’t change—they’ll just be summarizing emails and whatnot.
Telefonica Germany is moving one million 5G customers to AWS. This is the first time an existing mobile operation has switched its core network to a public cloud. I bet the AWS person who led that deal gets drunk at bars and screams at locals, “DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO I AM? I GOT THE TELEFONICA DEAL…IT’S THE FIRST…YOU PEOPLE DON’T KNOW…you don’t know….” ::sobs into melty gin and tonic::
And what timing: AWS signed a multi-year deal with Mavenir—a cloud-native network infrastructure provider for networks—“to create a new telco-grade deployment model.” I still miss the good old days of Bananaphone. (Tell me that won’t be in your head for the next week.)
Like AWS, Microsoft is going heavy on industry. It recently developed copilot templates, integrations, and capabilities for areas such as manufacturing, retail, agriculture, and energy. Several industry players have announced deals this past month: Anglian Water in the UK is moving several workloads to Azure; Hexagon, a German manufacturing intelligence company, is rolling out applications using Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service; and UK electrical retailer Currys is moving to Azure.
In an article written by a journalist who ignored 50 out of my 50 pitches while I worked in the depraved world of PR, we learn that News Corp has made a deal worth $250M with OpenAI. Per the five-year agreement, ChatGPT will use content from the empire that brought us Alex Jones. Reddit has a similar deal with ChatGPT, so fasten your seatbelts!
Bright Machines, a software and robotics company serving the manufacturing industry, is collaborating with Microsoft to create a software-defined manufacturing environment that spans the entire manufacturing lifecycle. I asked ChatGPT to write a joke about this and I got: It’s like giving your factory a software upgrade—now it can finally stop asking for a break every five minutes! 👀👀👀
MongoDB and Microsoft announced an alliance with its MongoDB AI Applications Program, a “one-stop shop” for businesses wanting to build generative AI solutions.
Media and technology company Axel Springer is working with Microsoft “to support independent journalism around the world” (sureeeee) through AdTech and other AI-driven experiences for users, once referred to as “readers.” In the meantime, news publishers are concerned that Google’s new AI-powered search will be “catastrophic” to their website traffic.
If Broadcom dumped AWS, then AWS is out at the club with IBM taking selfies and posting them on Insta to make Broadcom jealous. The two have taken their relationship to the next level by “streamlining access to AI and hybrid cloud solutions.” How? IBM’s software products will be available in 92 countries through AWS Marketplace. Analysts view this as a “significant development” in the cloud industry.
AWS and CrowdStrike are speeding up their cybersecurity consolidation. AWS will integrate CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform for advanced security while CrowdStrike will leverage AI tools from AWS, including Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker, to develop generative AI capabilities for its solutions.
World domination
In a huge commitment to France, Microsoft will invest $4.3B in the country’s AI sector (which includes datacenter infrastructure and renewable energy). The goal is to attract foreign investment and establish an AI skilling initiative to train one million French peeps by the end of 2025.
Coming to Germany by 2025: an AWS “sovereign cloud,” which will be “physically and logically separate” from AWS regions. This will help AWS customers meet the country’s comparably stricter data-residency requirements, and hopefully persuade reluctant public agencies to move to the cloud.
When I visited Wisconsin, the best thing I saw was Katy Nally. The second-best thing I saw was a 12-person, 5-foot-tall beer bong, followed by a 50-pound cheese wheel. I guess Microsoft realized these advantages when it decided to invest $3.3B in a regional cloud-computing and AI hub (ChatGPT, show me how to set up this bong. Include the number of beers I’ll need to fill it.). Some money will also go to a manufacturing-focused AI Co-Innovation Lab at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
Microsoft is collecting datacenters like Pokémon cards. In a continued spending spree/unhinged datacenter obsession, Microsoft purchased more land outside Columbus, OH; is launching an Azure cloud region in Queretaro, Mexico; and is opening Thailand’s first regional datacenter. (But Microsoft is closing its Africa Development Centre in Lagos…without providing a reason.)
Amazon is spending almost $9B to expand its cloud infrastructure in Singapore, part of its larger investment in the Asia-Pacific region.
AWS has launched datacenters in Israel and plans to invest $7.2B through 2037. This will allow the Israeli government to migrate workloads to the cloud, run applications, and store data using in-country datacenters.
Gossip (for nerds)
After Uncle Sam essentially issued an ultimatum to Microsoft about its AI and cloud-computing base in China, Microsoft has asked nearly 1,000 of its China-based staff, who are largely Chinese engineers, to relocate to the US, Ireland, Australia, or New Zealand. Since New Zealand is utopia, I have a plan: My husband and I will stack two-high in a trench coat and then travel to China to romance one of these engineers, who will then marry me (but kind of us; he’ll find out later), and then we can all get New Zealand citizenship! FLAWLESS PLAN.
Broadcom, which now owns VMware after a $61B deal, is moving its VMware workloads to Google Cloud—AND decided that it will take over sales of its VMware cloud product on AWS (among other policy changes that make me think Kendall Roy has taken over). This uber pissed off AWS, which sells a VMware Cloud on AWS service. As a result, AWS is incentivizing users of its own VMware Cloud on AWS service to move. This is a juicy drama and something I can get behind. I’m invested in this hot mess, and I’m ready for the next punch to be thrown between these two, because I’m a suburban working mother over 40 and I need this.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is also offering incentives to VMware customers that migrate and run their workloads using the Azure VMware Solutions service.
Last quarter, Microsoft brought in $26.7B in revenue (from cloud alone). Microsoft saw a 20% rise in share price…before announcing these figures at the earnings call. When you have that much money, you can afford to build a datacenter out of 50-pound cheese wheels. I’m just saying, you know, ideas.
On its quarterly earnings call, Amazon announced 17% revenue growth YoY for its cloud unit.
Is there…hope? Microsoft banned US police departments from using its Azure OpenAI Service for facial recognition via its terms of service. As someone who lives in a state where face masks could soon be banned in public FOR ANY REASON without exemption, I appreciate this solid, Microsoft. 👊
Eight newspaper publishers are suing Microsoft and OpenAI over copyright infringement. The papers, which include the Chicago Tribune and the NY Daily News, claim that the tech companies reuse the papers’ articles without permission and incorrectly attribute inaccurate information to them.
The Storytelling team at 2A is growing to love Perplexity AI, a search engine that reduces the work of Googling. But Microsoft has banned its employees from using the platform (which also happens to be a huge Azure OpenAI customer). Here’s why.
New stuff
Microsoft launched Phi-3 Mini, the first of three “lightweight” AI models the company plans to release. What makes it teeny? It’s trained on a comparatively smaller data set than its bigger GPT cousin. In this case, it learned from children’s bedtime stories—but hopefully not that creepy one,Love You Forever, where the elderly mother straps a ladder to her car and drives to her fully adult son’s house in the middle of the night so she can climb through his window to cradle him. Anyway, these models are appealing because they’re cheaper to run and perform better on personal devices. Microsoft also released the new iteration of its ChatGPT offering, GPT-4o. It supports text and image, shifting how the model interacts with multimodal inputs.
Amazon Q Developer is now generally available. In a jargon-ridden post that would endlessly frustrate Forsyth Alexander, AWS announced this game-changing reimagining of the software development lifecycle. Amazon Q in QuickSight is also available and offers generative business-insight capabilities, such as answering questions the dashboard doesn’t explain and generating reports and executive summaries.
Don’t forget Amazon Q Business, which helps employees access company data, view summaries, and gain other business information by connecting to enterprise repositories.
Google thinks it can get more customers with honey than vinegar, so it has announced that it will support Azure and AWS clouds, letting businesses manage their security solutions across clouds.
After partnering with NVIDIA on integrations, the cloud giant is offering customers an AMD alternative for AI chips. AMD and NVIDIA are competitors, and this contentious move from Microsoft resulted from difficult-to-obtain (and costly) GPUs from NVIDIA. Perhaps this chip polyamory will be short lived once Microsoft starts selling its custom Cobalt 100 chips, which it directly compared to AWS Graviton chips.
Users can now import their own custom AI models into Amazon Bedrock. It’s only in preview, but tbh, I don’t know anyone who needs this today, so we’re good.
Professional pivots
For no obvious reason (unless I’m dense), AWS CEO Adam Selipsky is leaving AWS and will be replaced by Matt Garman, SVP of Sales, Marketing, and Global Services. And Baskar Sridharan, formerly an engineering VP at Google Cloud, is now VP of AI/ML services and infrastructure at AWS.
Jason Taylor went from Meta to Microsoft. As corporate VP and deputy CTO, Taylor is responsible for pushing forward the next set of AI systems.
Ma’am, I’m going to have to call security
Two congressmen on the House Homeland Security Committee have requested Brad Smith, vice chair and president at Microsoft, to testify at a public hearing—part of the government’s investigation of historic nation-state attacks. Anyone wanna play a drinking game where you take a shot every time Brad says, “I don’t recall”? (Or do you want to live?)
The company just released new Zero Trust guidance for its Department of Defense customers…. Weird, that’s the same amount of trust I have in the DoD! (I was a military wife, so I get a free pass on this statement.)
Best Friends Forever
Siemens has expanded its partnership with Microsoft to make the Siemens Xcelerator as a Service portfolio of industry software available through Microsoft’s cloud and AI platform.
Cloud-computing services provider Rackspace Technology’s Foundry for AI has gained several new Microsoft specializations, including Analytics on Azure and AI and Machine Learning.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will work with AWS to offer generative AI solutions to customers. But first, TCS must learn how to do that, LOL. That’s why AWS will help train “25,000 TCS employees [on] the latest cloud and GenAI skills.”
Generative AI copilot provider Moveworks has partnered with Microsoft, bringing its copilot to Microsoft Marketplace and integrating with Azure.
Platform engineering company Xoriant earned its Analytics on Microsoft Azure Advanced Specialization.
NVIDIA Healthcare integrated with Amazon SageMaker and AWS ParallelCluster to streamline ML model deployment and management. NVIDIA customers can also access prebuilt pipelines on AWS HealthOmics. (Don’t worry, if you’re a woman, doctors will still just tell you it’s “stress.”😒)
Book out your next few months. 2A is filling your TBR (to-be-read) list with fantastical fiction, memorable memoirs, tearjerker tales, and nail-biting novels.
When I asked the team at 2A for their fiction and non-fiction recommendations, I should have known the suggestions would be as creative, diverse, and thoughtful as our talented team. And also, sometimes, really weird. (Okay, fine. Guilty.) So no matter what you’re into, we’ve probably got it. Cooking? Check. Video games? Yep. Mortality and existential dread? Um, sure, if that’s what you’re into. The concept of grief as explored by a robotic hive mind from the distant future researching human emotion? You get the picture. Enjoy!
P.S. Consider buying from your local bookseller. With Libro.fm (for audiobooks) and Bookshop.org (for physical copies) you can find a comprehensive selection of books—and the profits go to a bookstore of your choice. Find a bookstore near you, or filter your search results by BIPOC-owned, queer-owned, and more.
Fiction faves
Dead in Long Beach, California – Venita Blackburn Psychological fiction A bestselling sci-fi writer discovers her brother’s body following his suicide and, in the thick of grief, begins texting people from his phone, pretending to be him. A raw, heartfelt, and often very funny story that made me think in completely new ways about how we grieve and remember. Also, the book is narrated by a robotic hive mind from the distant future researching human emotion, so. -Jack Foraker
Binge: 60 stories to make your brain feel different – Douglas Coupland Short stories I’ve been a fan of Douglas Coupland since Generation X, and I find myself referencing and re-reading Binge again and again. It’s funny and smart, and the short stories are the perfect low-commitment reading snack. This book makes me laugh out loud, and I can guarantee you’ll never look at a car’s rooftop cargo carrier the same way again… -Andrea Swangard
Heaven No Hell – Michael DeForge Comic anthology This collection captures some of Michael DeForge’s best work yet. His writing makes me laugh in a way few writers can, and I’m always surprised how his evolving illustrative style still manages to challenge me. (His drawings have evolved dramatically over the last decade.) Michael DeForge continues to push what is possible in the genre, reveling in the vulgar without ever seeming crude, and exploring complex themes (identity, class, sex) without feeling pedantic. -Brian Dionisi
White Noise – Don DeLillo Postmodern literature Ever found yourself zoning out in front of a toothpaste section at the neighborhood CVS wondering why any of this matters? I’m doing it right now. This story takes a deep dive into the heart of our consumer-crazed, media-drenched world, mixing existential dread with the constant hum of the capitalist machine. This is the perfect read for your hipster pal or near-burn-out fintech bud questioning the sales-pitch reality and the layers of our buy-now culture. Therapy not included. -Felip Ballesteros
Maame – Jessica George Contemporary fiction This book reminded me of my early 20s, discovering the world and who I am in it. I see myself, my girlfriends, and so many of my life experiences in the protagonist. It’s hilarious, heartbreaking, silly, and most of all honest. -Sal Hill
Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver Literary fiction Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver is my favorite book of all time, but I have to say that this one was almost as engrossing and had a less tragic ending (the tragic part is in the middle). Based on David Copperfield, this is a story about a really blighted area of the South where North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee all meet. Industries have left and drug addiction is high due to despair. This is a long sad book that’s uplifting at the end, and I loved every word because I could hear the accent of the narrator throughout the whole story. -Forsyth Alexander
The House in the Cerulean Sea – T.J. Klune Contemporary fantasy I was charmed, outraged, and completely rooting for all the beautifully developed protagonists from Linus, the curmudgeon with a heart of gold to the charming unidentifiable green blob. Best of all, the sequel is coming out this year! -Annie Wegrich
The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories – Jamil Jan Kochai Short stories A short story collection with the cohesiveness of a well-executed concept album. Pure perfection from the opening sequence to the final note. And in the predictable midsection where the bridge tends to sway? Only depth and dimension. This book set a new bar for the possibilities of storytelling. -Madeline Sy
Chain-Gang All-Stars – Nana Kwawe Adjei-Brenyah Dystopian fiction No words. Go read it. And know I cried like a li’l baby at the end. -Ashley JoEtta
The Three Body Problem (trilogy) – Cixin Liu Science fiction [Forgive me Timothée Chalamet *prayer hand lipstick emoji*] Forget about Dune for a minute and dive into something truly out of this world with Chinese sci-fi legend and Hugo Award winner, Cixin Liu. The story takes you from the Red Revolution straight into the next 400 years, an upgrade on the Western-styled space drama. It’s thought-provoking and made me question: Will we ever be ready for what’s out there? -Felip Ballesteros
The Tatami Time Machine Blues – Tomihiko Morimi and Emily Balistrieri (Translator) Science fiction When our unnamed protagonist finds a time machine, it’s clear what he must do: Go back in time 24 hours to heroically prevent his “worst friend” (a brilliant descriptor) from spilling Coke on his dorm’s AC remote control. Nothing hits quite like weird fiction, and thankfully, Morimi’s unusual story elements and out-there humor are captured perfectly in Balistrieri’s translation. -Carolyn Lange
Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting – Clare Pooley Contemporary fiction I read another Clare Pooley book first, The Authenticity Project, which I enjoyed because of the characters and their struggles to be authentic in a book where authenticity was key. So, when Annie recommended this one, I ordered it right away. It’s a wonderful redemption tale for a cast of characters who become unlikely friends on a commuter train with a poignant twist at the end. –Forsyth Alexander
Black Sun – Rebecca Roanhorse Fantasy What does it mean to be a hero? What does it mean to be a villain? Are you good? Are you bad? Are you an outsider or an insider? Generational trauma? Bisexual mermaid/siren/sea-captain? When you open your eyes, maybe you’ll be a god. -Ashley JoEtta
Remarkably Bright Creatures – Shelby Van Pelt Contemporary fiction I was not prepared to fall so deeply in love with an octopus. -Annie Wegrich
Non-fiction picks
Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere – Maria Bamford Memoir Maria Bamford’s book plays cleverly with the memoir format while talking us through her mental health challenges and the many “cults” she’s joined over the years: 12-step programs, public speaking courses, and even, as she says, her own family. As with her comedy, I love Maria’s empathy and willingness to let her freak flag fly. Also, it’s funny as hell. -Nora Bright
The Kindness Challenge:Thirty Days to Improve Any Relationship – Shaunti Feldhahn Self-help Do you want to feel at peace and happy? Who doesn’t!? The Kindness Challenge covers how you can transform your heart and any relationship through kindness. It also explains the eight types of kindness and seven ways you may be unkind and never realize it. I challenge you to do the 30-Day Kindness Challenge! -Liz Mangini
Being Mortal – Atul Gawande Health & wellbeing This is a must-read if you plan on getting older. It explains how the body changes as you age and examines the options when you can no longer take care of yourself. -Laura Templeton
The Many Lives of Mama Love – Lara Love Hardin Memoir You know those books where y’know it’s gonna be good from the first sentence? This is one of those books. The real-life story of PTA mom turned inmate turned ghostwriter. “Escape was always my real addiction, the one true high. Books were just my gateway drug.” -Madeline Sy
Doppelganger – Naomi Klein Social & political analysis This book got me thinking a lot about twins, doubles, and the hidden versions of ourselves. Not really sure how Klein jumped from COVID conspiracies to fitness influencers to WWII history, but she did, and I loved it. -Jack Foraker
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture – David Kushner History & Industry Centering on the scrappy development of Doom in the 90s, Kushner weaves together the stories of two tech whiz-kids: analytical programmer John Carmack and charismatic software designer John Romero. A fascinating, fun, and in-depth look at creativity, teamwork, and the swift advancement of technology that’s thoroughly entertaining far beyond “how they made one game.” -Thad Allen
Gender Magic – Rae McDaniel LGBTQIA+ Therapist Rae McDaniel guides readers through various gender journeys with a gender-expansive, queer-supportive approach. They provide therapeutic exercises, offer actionable advice, and define key terms for transition, gender exploration, and trans and gender-nonconforming freedom. -Ren Iris
James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon – Julie Phillips Biography This biography was mesmerizing. Alice wrote science fiction in the 70s. She couldn’t get her work published as a woman, so she created the pen name, James Tiptree, Jr., then submitted and published the same stories. James was hailed as “a brilliant writer with a deep sympathy for his female characters.” Alice’s cover was blown at age 61. She was an artist, chicken farmer, WWII intelligence officer, CIA agent, experimental psychologist, and more! -Liz Mangini
How to Taste – Becky Selengut Cookbook Perhaps the only cookbook that you will laugh your way through. And the only chef who admits that Doritos are perfectly flavored. Becky walks through the 6 different tastes and when and how to best use them, with a big side dish of humor. -Laura Templeton
Every year at 2A, members of our team share their favorite album of the year—and last year we started compiling a playlist so folks can dance along. This year’s soundtrack is a vibrant tapestry made up of everything from ambient chill to Bollywood beats, experimental sounds to indie anthems, each chosen by a music-loving 2A-er.
One thing that’s for sure is our eclectic playlist matches the diverse backgrounds of the team members who contributed—including a former journalist, small business owner, nonprofit director, and cupcake baker. Our hobbies range from fly fishing, making miniature models, filming shorts, DJing for community radio, to beer brewing! We’re a talented bunch and we’re all bringing a different flavor to the table. So if our playlist feels a little all over the place, it should!
Happy listening—and we hope you enjoy our wild music mix!
Metro Boomin Presents Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse (Soundtrack) – Various Artists (curated by Metro Boomin)
With a great franchise comes great responsibility, and Metro Boomin delivers! The entire album showcases Metro’s super-producer abilities to weave a sonic web of synths and strings into a cohesive universe of sound. In an album packed with rap heavyweights, it’s the production on the quiet, more intimate songs that grip my attention, like “Hummingbird” and “Calling.” – Madeline Sy
I Killed Your Dog – L’Rain
L’Rain’s album I Killed Your Dog fuses experimental sounds with soulful melodies, creating an experience that is as haunting as it is beautiful. Each track is a blend of eclectic rhythms, bold textures, and L’Rain’s rich, emotive vocals. We’ve had this one on repeat. – Mitchell Thompson
New Blue Sun – Andre 3000
While New Blue Sun is not the rap album many waited 17 years for from Andre 3000, it still delivers. If you are anything like me, you have been following the Andre 3000 seen with flute sightings, a la Where’s Waldo, on social media. Andre 3000 channels Coltrane and other experimental jazz greats with his improvisational flute playing and adds atmospheric ambient layers to bring you along on his recent travels and latest inspiration. This album tells a story without using any words. Be ready to read the energy to follow along on the journey. – Alyson Stoner-Rhoades
Suntub – ML Buch
ML Buch (pronounced “book”) is a Danish musician whose sound is very hard to place. Her music is both naturalistic and uncanny, analog and electronic, radiantly warm yet detached, and reminiscent of 90’s alt rock while ahead of its time. She manages to accomplish the rare feat of making something entirely new, challenging, yet completely accessible. – Brian Dionisi
Everyone’s Crushed – Water from Your Eyes
The first time I heard a song from Everyone’s Crushed I instantly perked up and focused—I’d never heard anything quite like it. The albums has off-tune singing, dissonant sounds, and intricate and strange textures. Occasionally, a beautiful pop moment emerges from the chaos. Water from Your Eyes makes you work for it and it’s so worth it. – Nora Bright
Principia – En Attendant Ana
Parisian indie outfit En Attendant Ana effortlessly merges sweet, pop melodies with a garage punk sensibility on their third album. Take a dash of the Velvet Underground, mix it with heap of Stereolab, a pinch of krautrock, a drizzle of early French pop, et voilà—you’d have something that sounds like Principia. – Suzanne Calkins
Nothing for Me, Please – Dean Johnson
The 15-years-in-the-making debut album from Seattle bartender/musician will have you wondering if maybe you, too, are in fact a cowboy ‘neath faraway skies. Folky, alt-country tunes paired with a unique voice. It’s either the soundtrack to your neighborhood dive bar, or some ranch in Wyoming, or maybe both. But either way, an all around lovely set of songs. – Mike Lahoda
Mo Lowda & the Humble – Mo Lowda & the Humble
There is no such thing as too many indie rock bands in the world. Mo Lowda & the Humble bring a cool mix of moodiness and freshness. Caiolas’ vocals? They’re like a rollercoaster—sometimes contemplative, kinda mournful, then suddenly triumphant, all with a catchy vibe. – Michelle Najarian
Flaws in Our Design – ODESZA, Yellow House
ODESZA can do no wrong in my book, and their collaborations are no exception. A slight departure from their typical moody electro sound, this EP with Yellow House is bright, upbeat, and the perfect soundtrack to a summer day (or for channeling summer feels in the depths of winter!) – Andrea Swangard
Cracker Island – Gorillaz ft Tame Impala
The Gorillaz keep the core of their sound while expanding into a slightly more commercial approach, incorporating collabs with artists like Beck, Tame Impala, and Stevie Nicks. It gives each song a slightly different bent, though it keeps them all recognizable to Gorillaz lovers. Some songs are lazy and dreamy, and others you can dance to, but they’re all easy listening. What’s not to like? – Jane Dornemann
Rush – Måneskin
“I’m still rock and roll!” I whisper to myself as I stand in my kitchen after getting my kids to bed, grab a soapy spatula, and treat my dog to evening Måneskin kitchen karaoke. It’s a little rock. It’s a little punk. It’s a little pop. It’s very glam. I love bopping around to “KOOL KIDS” and “SUPERMODEL.” – Erin McCaul
Rush – Måneskin
I fell in love with Måneskin because of “SUPERMODEL,” which was released last year but was added to this year’s album called Rush. But I now think all their songs are great. Their sound reminds me of the rock of the late 1960s and early 1970s when the Rolling Stones, the Hollies, the Doors, and Led Zeppelin were raw—but there’s some grunge in there, along with bands like the Damned. That kind of popular music was my first love, and it really takes me back. Interestingly, the leads of the band were born in 1999 and 2000. – Forsyth Alexander
Paathan (Soundtrack) – Vishal-Shekhar, Sanchit Balhara and Ankit Balhara
More than just a comeback vehicle for one of the biggest stars in Bollywood, the success of the song “Jhoome Jo Pathaan,” and the film, were a testament to India’s enduring love of Shah Rukh Khan despite all the right-wing attempts to kill his career. The album flies in the face of bigotry, embraces love across the border, and celebrates spectacle both through the music of the talented duo, Vishal-Shekhar, and singers Arijit and Shilpa Rao. And of course, the syncopation and scattered Spanish influence makes the album eminently danceable in true Bollywood style. – Richa Dubey
Pizza Tower (Soundtrack) – Various Artists
Pizza Tower was a surprise favorite video game for me this year, a weird little indie game with style and character to spare. But what really enhances its gonzo cartoon nature is the soundtrack, a wild and funky electronic blast of energy. The music team blends golden-age hip hop samples, 90s house beats, and 00s video game chiptunes into an eclectically-textured high-NRG soundscape that is just as engaging to listen to outside of the game. – Thad Allen
The Maine – The Maine
After 16 years as a band, The Maine has released a self-titled album and they’ve never sounded more like themselves. You can tell they have honed their craft over the years and are enjoying the ride with this ninth LP added to their discography. This album is introspective and honest but still has some really fun beats to get you grooving. – Julianne Medenblik
From buzzword-filled eBooks to websites that use more words than necessary to explain a simple concept, we have all been on the receiving end of marketing fluff. As a marketer with a multicultural background, I’ve spent my career recognizing the impact that words can have (or not have), particularly in creating lead-generating assets for clients. While fluffy marketing exists in every industry, tech is especially prone to weak messaging. Technology products often involve complex and rapidly changing components that may be difficult for marketers to explain to a broad audience. This leads marketers to rely on aspirational messaging and emotional appeals instead of technical details.
So, I joined our skilled storytellers in pinpointing the top four tips for writing about technology in a way that is both informative and fun to read.
1. Get factual with your figures: Want to make a bold statement about a tech product or service? Back it up with facts and figures. Use data, case studies, and research to support your claims and show your audience what makes your technology special. “Let’s say a process used to take 24 hours to complete, but now because of [enter tech solution] the process takes you one hour. Run the math on time saved as a percentage, and voila, you’ve got yourself a metric,” says our Editorial Lead Forsyth Alexander.
Don’t forget to place numbers in your titles, too (see what we did here?). “People like to see real numbers to denote benefits, improvements, or value, which increases your click rate,” Forsyth adds. Using this tactic is how we beef up case studies and eBooks to get more eyeballs on our clients’ stories. And they get a lot of eyeballs.
2. Buzzwords can be buzzkill: The tech industry has its own language, and it can be tempting to use buzzwords to sound like an expert. But resist the urge! When words are overused, our brains tend to skip them. Instead, explain complex concepts in plain, easy-to-understand language that everyone can follow. As 2A Storyteller, Richa Dubey, notes, “You might think you’re getting everyone’s attention by using buzzwords, but the reverse might be happening, and it can be counterproductive.”
For example, instead of describing something as agile or data-driven, demonstrate how your product or service enables those approaches.
3. Keep it short and sweet: No one likes to read a long-winded case study, especially when it comes to tech. Be concise and use examples to illustrate your ideas. As the 2A tech news troubadour, Jane Dornemann, puts it, “Fluff, to me, is too high-level and takes too long to get to the point. Don’t waste time explaining a scenario your audience is very familiar with. You don’t need to define CI/CD to developers, for example—just explain how you solve their problems, and don’t spend so much time expanding on what the problem is. They already know what it is.”
And, if you must use highly technical terms but don’t want to shut out a broader audience (like an IT lead), briefly explain them in simple terms, make them somewhat understandable in context, or link to another resource with more details—but don’t use precious real estate defining things that your reader likely already knows. It just becomes filler and makes your target audience feel like the content is meant for someone else.
4. Honesty is the best policy: Technology is amazing, but it’s not perfect. Don’t underestimate your readers’ ability to sniff out bravado. Avoid exaggerating the capabilities or benefits of a product or service and be transparent about its limitations. Our Managing Senior Storyteller Kimberly Mass suggests keeping it real. “Words have meanings. When you use precise language—exactly those words that mean what you intend to say—you have a much better chance of being understood and believed.”
For example, is your product really “leading edge,” as in “at the forefront of technological development,” or would it be more honest to simply call it new or upgraded? Your audience will appreciate your honesty and trust your brand more in the long run. Acknowledging a product is in beta and that not everything is going to run amazingly is OK, friend.
Ready to create content of substance and sizzle? Contact us.
“Leveraging best practices for synergistically delivering elasticity across the content value chain to ensure that the asset is delivered to the client as committed priorly”—a gem that popped up in the 2A storytellers chat—makes as much sense as this line from a classic Bollywood film song: “You see, the whole country of the system is juxtapositioned by the hemoglobin in the atmosphere because you are a sophisticated rhetorician intoxicated by the exuberance of your own verbosity.”
And that, dear reader, is what we in the trade call a run-on sentence.
Our storyteller team chat is called the Storyteller Shuffle. Here, we dissect sentences, punctuation, usage, style guides, and grammar. We also like our wordplay, so the shuffle often turns into a rumba…
This is where we take a break, have fun, ask for, and receive, unstinting help from each other. Writing can be a solitary activity, which is why the wisdom, support, and camaraderie we find here is so important. The Shuffle is also where we collectively make your asset shine. If you’re wondering at the ‘collectively,’ try proofing an eBook you’ve written without going cross-eyed. You need a fresh pair of eyes.
Holding each other up, learning together, and having fun is at the core of our little group. Witness this (not entirely) imaginary chat: “I’m slammed for capacity. Can anyone help me with this case study?” Katy Nally, Director of Storytelling par excellence, jumps in, “Sure, I’ve only got a million things to do. But I can take this. And let me fix your calendar so that you’re not overloaded.”
Stuck for punctuation? Kimberly Mass generously weighs in on a hot debate about the merits of commas versus em dashes in a sentence.
Looking to sharpen your interview skills? Shadow Mai Sennar who, with her background in theater, exudes calm confidence while drawing out even the most reticent clients.
Wondering how to write about a completely new technology? Get a load of BB Bickel’s confident, successful approach.
Need to pin the client down to answer tough questions? See what happens when Editorial Lead, Forsyth Alexander, wields her trademark Southern charm to soften critiques as she reviews a section of Gandalf’s CV.
Description of the battle with the Balrog in Lord of The Rings, The Two Towers, Book III, Chapter 5, The White Rider: “I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountainside where he smote it in his ruin. Then darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell.”
Forsyth marks it up and inserts a comment in the Word document: “Your story is utterly gripping! I was wondering, though, can you explain this gap in your resumé?”
As you can see, it falls to us ask the hard questions. You can also count on us to coax answers out of interviewees, keep your head in the cloud (and feet on the ground), and match the perfect storyteller to your project.
We’ll dot your ‘i’s And cross your ‘t’s We’re better than fries We’re the bees’ knees
Your content, we’ll align And be sure to make it shine We’re the bounce in basketball So don’t you wait—just give us a call
I look forward to coffee shops a little more as we head into fall, my favorite of the four seasons. Something about pants, a warm sweater or light jacket, and a walk to Ampersand on Alki Beach for a half-caf Americano with one cream and one sugar. And on the weekends, I treat myself to the homemade biscuit, egg, and bacon breakfast sandwich. Battling the dad bod, I limit myself to one per week.
As we continue to face the challenges with COVID-19, we continue to support and enjoy our local coffee shops. Masks, takeout, outdoor seating. In fall, we get to enjoy the walk. Not too hot. Not too cold. A little exercise. A little coffee. Two wonderful things to keep you moving.
My local favorite is Ampersand on Alki Beach in West Seattle. I like the Kona beans, the chef’s homemade biscuits, and any of the food he makes.
2A employees are in the Seattle area but also reach other parts of the country. Let’s look at some of our favorite coffee shops from Seattle and beyond. Give them a try!
203 Degrees Fahrenheit (Kirkland, WA) – Cozy place to study, outdoor seating by a fire and fun specialty drinks like a Latte with Rachel’s Lavender. – Tammy Monson
Alexandras Macarons and café in Capitol Hill (Seattle, WA) – Alexandra herself is super nice. The croissants are fresh-baked every morning – and if you catch ‘em right out of the oven you will never look back. Plus, on Thursdays they have amazing pizza. So basically, good coffee and bread-based things, all I really need in life. – Guy Schoonmaker
I want to second Alexandras and say that their focaccia is the best! – Sarah Silva
Caffé Fiore in Sunset Hill (Seattle, WA) Granted it was the closest coffee shop I could walk to, but it is a cute little corner coffee shop at the top of the steps to Golden Gardens Park. It had delicious drip coffee and a variety of tasty treats. They have nice big Adirondack chairs out front that you can sit in and enjoy a pick me up. – Rachel Adams
The Coffee Scene (Fayetteville, NC) Indoor and outdoor seating, great coffee drinks, great snacks, and a bonus for hot Fayetteville – gelato! – Forsyth Alexander
Cultivate Coffee & Tap House (Ypsilanti, MI) An amazing place to work quietly on your own projects or meet up with friends from morning ‘til night. My go-to coffee drink there was a black walnut latte, which I had not seen before and have not seen since. – Kimberly Mass
Fresh Flours in Phinney Ridge (Seattle, WA) Nourish with my fave granola, treat with a citrus-forward macaron, indulge in a green tea muffin, and caffeinate in all the ways. Ted and I are boring and just get Americanos. But I see people getting very fussy with their oat-golden-milks and… smells great. – Annie Wegrich
Kaladi Brothers in Capitol Hill (Seattle, WA) the vibes are amazing, the baristas are cooler than you will ever be, and the playlist is great. Very queer + trans friendly. Based in Alaska. – Annie Unruh
Luck Bros Coffee in Grandview Heights (Columbus, OH) Here’s a C-bus local. Small-batch roasted coffees run by a serious coffee enthusiast. – Kelly Schermer
Espresso Vivace in Capitol Hill (Seattle, WA) My fav! It’s just a coffee sidewalk bar focused entirely on making the best cup of espresso. – Daniel Schmeichler
