By Forsyth Alexander

Image by Nicole Todd

A few months ago, I read the first novel in a new series by Richard Osman, author of the Thursday Murder Club mysteries. (I highly recommend all his books.) In the first chapter, a criminal mastermind instructs ChatGPT to write emails in a threatening tone using a voice and style that isn’t his own. Since truth is stranger than fiction, I decided to investigate whether generative AI is being used for nefarious purposes in real life. At 2A, we continuously look for new ways to use generative AI for good work. But it turns out other people are using it for bad work. Here’s what I learned. 

Phishing and fooling with gen AI: The personal touch 

Most smartphone users I know have received a text from the “USPS”—from a number with a Philippines country code, demanding their response in 24 hours to receive a valuable package. (Okay, as far as I know, that just happened to me, but I’m sure you’ve gotten one like it.) We’ve been trained to spot these texts because of their strange URLs or international phone numbers and to ignore or report them. Our IT and security friends also remind us not to respond to texts from CEOs or managers telling us to buy gift cards or share account information—without verifying first. 

But now, according to two very different companies—one that builds databases and one that offers networking—hackers are creating deep fakes of voices. These deep fakes create the illusion that a victim of the hackers is talking to a real person. As a result, the victim is more apt to share financial or sensitive information. Some hackers even search for videos of someone online to create a biometric reproduction for illegally unlocking devices and applications that use facial recognition. 

Generating fraud and identity theft with dark LLMs: Isn’t that malicious? 

Large language models (LLMs) enable us to ask questions and have conversations with generative AI. Basically, they’re the reason we can type instructions or questions in a prompt and get answers in our own language and not a computer language like SQL. ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini all use LLMs that are trained not to generate malicious code. Yet, that’s not stopping the bad guys. LLMs are a great way to spread disinformation, which can mislead, harm, or manipulate a person, social group, organization, or country, all because LLMs cannot distinguish between fact and fiction. 

In addition, it’s possible to purchase dark LLMs which, unlike mainstream LLMs, have no restrictions. For example, FraudGPT and WormGPT are used to create deceptive content that fools people into sharing sensitive information. Other LLMs can be used to infect systems and applications. 

Finding a security blanket for your identity, data, and systems 

The good news is that companies from all corners of the tech world are building AI solutions to protect against and defeat these new tactics. A graph database added to an existing fraud-detection application can identify hidden patterns that indicate the use of generative AI to exploit identities and systems. APIs provided by a telecommunications giant use AI to ferret out fake videos generated to unlock systems protected by facial-recognition software. A data and network protection company offers AI-powered solutions for protection against personalized threats from emails, chats, and texts. These are just a few ways our tech friends are improving security and keeping customers safe with generative AI. 

By Forsyth Alexander

Image by Thad Allen

“Let’s focus on the gaming chair in this animation. Let’s give it wings. Or, wait, let’s show it supported by a strong security posture and low latency! Or maybe we can make it wobble and fix itself…” and off she goes, in search of the perfect idea for the perfect script. 

This is Richa Dubey, former school-aged newspaper titan and grown-up entrepreneur—and current 2A storyteller. And it’s just one example of how she brings light, charm, wit, and knowledge to all kinds of marketing content. 

Do you need a snappy headline? She’s on it. Would some rhymes spruce up your blog? She’s your poet in residence. Do you want an eBook that speaks to a skeptical, tech-savvy audience? Go find Richa—she’ll make them all believers. Writing creative and convincing content is in her blood. 

“I think I’ve always been a writer.” 

Richa can’t really remember a time when she wasn’t a writer. Growing up with a father in the Indian army, she moved more times as a child than many of us do in a lifetime. This honed her ability not only to communicate but also to tell stories—some of which she sold to the army base weekly for pocket money when she was a child. 

As an adult, she learned that it was important to her to be her authentic, original self, while doing what she loved. So, she launched headfirst into being a writer. She perfected her talent as a journalist, publicist, social advocate, magazine publisher, media professional, and more. A lot of this work involved the Indian fashion world.

Because I’m fascinated with world fashion, I asked her what that was like. “It was grueling,” she said. But she also told me it gave her a lifetime’s worth of appreciation for the designs in the beautiful textiles woven in her beloved homeland of India. “Paisley! Oh, I could rapturize for days about Paisley!” she added. 

From India to the U.S.: A “never met a stranger” in a strange land 

In 2015, Richa and her family embarked on her latest adventure: a move to the U.S. It wasn’t long before she had set up a business—in her very own “she shed.”  

Richa “never met a stranger”—which is what we in the southern U.S. states say about someone who is friendly with everyone—so she quickly embraced her new home and its citizens. She made friends, carved out a space for herself in the Seattle area, and dedicated countless hours to advocating for the rights of marginalized humans to be heard.  

From blog posts to Bollywood  

Now, more than seven years later, her shed is a modern-day writer’s bungalow. This is where you can find her virtually penning all kinds of content, like case studies about Nasdaq and eBooks that squeeze information about 20 brands in just a few pages. You might also catch her leading a Bollywood dance session for 2A employees. 

Outside her bungalow, she attends karate lessons, participates in community affairs, takes care of her family, and tries as many new experiences as she can. 

“I’m determined to do things people don’t think I should. It’s why I took up scuba diving a few years ago. Sky diving’s next,” she confided. 

It’s all one magnificent textile threaded with gold, storytelling, and passion—it’s the Richa tapestry of life. 

By Forsyth Alexander

Image by Thad Allen

While other children in her Brooklyn neighborhood were on the playground or hanging with friends, Jane Dornemann was busy publishing a newspaper full of stories about what was happening around her. How this journalist grew in Brooklyn and then branched out until she joined the storytelling team at 2A is a fascinating tale of determination, family ties, world travel, climate change, content marketing, and death doulas.

Dogged by climate change

After graduating from Fordham University with a journalism and communications degree, Jane spent a year as a print media buyer in New York before traveling to Florence, Bangkok, and Honolulu to teach English. Her family has strong roots in Hawaii—can you say “kama’aina?”*—and she found a home there for a couple of years. She earned a master’s degree in creative writing at the University of Hawaii while writing and editing for newspapers and other publications.

*Child of the land

Once she earned her master’s, she returned to New York, where she turned her thoughts to meshing her skills with the needs of her family, particularly her son’s health. This entailed working in PR and communications. Eventually, it also meant leaving New York for cities chosen for their weather. But then, as she puts it, they were “chased out by climate change” as smoky conditions became less favorable for her son.

Her adventures in climate change are how she ended up in her current home in Durham, NC, where she works surrounded by posters picked up on the streets during her travels. In Durham, she began applying her writing skills to content marketing and freelancing, which also included ghostwriting.

“I’ve worked in three different areas I see as kind of a triangle”

Jane sees journalism, PR, and content marketing as a triangle, because the three connect. “Look at content marketing. A big part of it is the audience. It’s like pitching a story in PR or creating a messaging framework in communications.” She says they all require asking yourself who the reader will be and what is needed in terms of voice.

She finds a lot of satisfaction in content marketing, which is what 2A clients are looking for when they engage with us. From blogs to eBooks to animations and more—she is adept at using content for awareness and education.

A nugget of goodness in every content bite

Even though she rarely writes investigative exposés anymore and she’s no longer responsible for launching major press campaigns, Jane still uses those skills. Often clients come to us with a need to extoll the benefits of their products and services, and they are looking for a fresh new way to talk about them. If Jane is their storyteller, they will get the freshest of the fresh with added sparkle because nobody knows how to get to the golden nugget of a story and then write great headlines better than a journalist with PR experience.

For example, while writing a blog about the benefits of AI, Jane dug through the client’s interview and found out that the client had developed a first-of-its-kind AI platform. And for a recent case study, she did the math to home in on key numbers that would impress readers and then wrote unforgettable headlines to move the story.

Also, while working on a talk track for a Microsoft conference, she discovered some nuggets about the process itself that she shared in a recent 2A spotlight blog. “Building a talk track isn’t as simple as churning out a few bullet points—it’s more like constructing a house. The presenter and the writer begin with a few ideas, and through an iterative and highly collaborative process, those ideas become a final presentation,” she wrote.

Going for the gusto

Jane’s ability to pull out new and different perspectives from life’s experiences is not confined to delighting 2A clients. Since 2018, she has been a death doula, someone who helps people at the end of their lives—and their families—with the transition. She says that she has learned a lot from her patients. “You should go for the gusto,” she says, “If you are thinking about doing something out of your comfort zone, do it, so you don’t have regrets later.”

By Forsyth Alexander

Image by Brandon Conboy

“I didn’t want to get complacent.”

Ryan Walsh was working as a client services analyst for a financial firm in 2014. He enjoyed asset management and helping customers, his earnings statements were solid, and he had plenty of time off. Many financial analysts in his position would have cruised along, enjoying the good life. But not Ryan. It was time to change things up before complacency set in.

And that’s how he and his wife ended up in Seattle, he as an MBA student and she in the speech pathology program, all part of a new adventure that would eventually lead him to 2A.

Choose your own adventure

Ryan comes by this sense of adventure naturally. When he was young, his mother struck out on a new path with her own medical transcription company, and Ryan learned a lot from her. His love of new and daring experiences plays out in every aspect of his life. It includes enjoying video games full of quests and excursions, and not only trying the different foods available in Seattle with his wife, but also introducing some of it to his two-year-old son. He and his family also take walks all around Seattle just to see what’s out there. Then, there’s his excitement over cutting-edge technology like IoT, digital twinning, and augmented reality (AR).

But his interest in technology is focused on how it can help people and customers. For example, he recently told me, “IoT is an incredibly exciting field – the use cases I’ve seen in my short time here have been incredibly varied, seemingly limitless, and have the potential to solve so many problems and improve people’s health, experiences, and lives.”

“Don’t just stand there, say nice things to me”

This quote from “Push,” by Matchbox Twenty, one of Ryan’s favorite bands, sums up how Ryan took his innate ability to relate to customers and their problems and applied it to his career. With MBA in hand, he embarked on a great adventure with a cruise line. He helped with the launches of the line’s iOS and Android mobile apps, co-branded credit card, gift card program, flight sales tool, and immersive cruises. He also designed and implemented organization-wide customer feedback management capabilities, including improving a web feedback program so that they could research and adjust ways of working based on customer expectations and needs.

When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Ryan led a cross-functional voice of the customer (VoC) team to understand how COVID-19 affected customer behavior and sentiment. This included researching booking, purchase behavior and willingness to travel. He also examined pain points, trends, opportunities, and potential business drivers. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic eventually became too much for the cruise industry.

Welcome aboard, Ryan!

You can’t keep an adventure seeker like Ryan down. In June 2020, he said bon voyage to the cruise line and joined 2A as an embedded consultant, serving as the business manager for two different sales teams in the Microsoft IoT organization. He’s thriving in this role. “I’m assisting the field with reporting and insights, helping drive process and organizational transformation, documenting and communicating best practices so we can better serve our partners, and identifying compelling ways to tell our IoT story. Most of the time, we’re working on 20 different things, and I have to ruthlessly prioritize. I get to identify what’s most impactful and work on that.”

At 2A, we’re glad to have our modern-day Indiana Jones aboard as he designs great adventures for his IoT teams at Microsoft.

By Forsyth Alexander

Image by Rachel Adams

2A embedded consultant Lin Martinez’s three favorite movies are Back to the Future, Parts 1, 2, and 3. How she ended up at 2A has an intriguingly similar storyline. Lin came to the U.S. from Colombia when she was 27. In 2008, she started working for a Microsoft vendor, happily collaborating with clients on clear scopes of work and then focusing on projects. In an interesting twist of fate, she met Renato Agrella, future 2A founder and partner. They bonded over their shared Latin American connection and established a friendly, professional relationship because they kept bumping into each other at events.

During this time, she also met Laura Templeton. Laura is now an ace 2A consultant, but in those days, she was a Microsoft consultant. Laura hired Lin for her contracts, and Lin switched projects. Little did Renato, Lin, or Laura know at the time what this would mean for Lin’s future.

Time for dancing in the streets—or the YMCA

Lin loves music, especially Juanes, Shakira, and Carlos Diva, and she also loves dancing. In a recent conversation, she told me about how, in Colombia, every holiday is celebrated with dancing and music. “In Colombia, we start the party in the day, and before long, everyone is dancing—sometimes in the street—and it doesn’t stop until very early in the next morning, after people run out of energy,” she told me.

So, when a move to California offered an opportunity to use her love of music and dancing in her career, she grabbed it. As a wellness coach in Redwood City, she learned Zumba, became an instructor, threw her heart and soul into healthy living, and began teaching senior fitness classes. This path led her to a role at the YMCA of Silicon Valley, which took her right back to Washington. There she became the Healthy Living supervisor in 2017 and the Director of Health and Wellness at the Greater Seattle YMCA in August 2020. Then, COVID-19 hit.

Making her way back to you, 2A

Running a health and wellness program during a pandemic became pretty much impossible, and the YMCA cut back on staff. But nothing keeps Lin down for long. Throughout her career changes, she had kept in touch with Renato. When he learned she was in the job market again, he offered her a position at 2A. That’s how she ended up back with Laura and back at Microsoft, helping its Dynamics 365 partner team tell stories through customer successes.

“It was amazing. I didn’t meet anyone in person, and I still haven’t, but we get things done anyway,” she says.

Her positive attitude: Es más fuerte, es más fuerte

In Juanes’s hit, Me Enamora, he sings, “Es más fuerte, es más fuerte,” which translates as “it’s much stronger, it’s much stronger.” This describes Lin’s positive attitude perfectly. When the pandemic kept her from her usual health and wellness routine, she found new joy in walking her dogs, Pinky and Hannah, on a trail near her house. Pinky and Hannah are never far from her side—sometimes you can see them in conference calls—and they keep her grounded and smiling.

“You never know what the future might hold. But if you work hard, help people, and enjoy what you do, something good will always be waiting around the corner,” Lin says. 2A couldn’t agree more—it was great that Lin was waiting around the corner to come “back to the future” and join us right when we needed her.

By Forsyth Alexander

Image by Thad Allen

It was Feb. 19, the day of our Elevating Stories and chocolate tasting with Karla McNeill-Rueda and Eddie Houston of CRU Chocolate, and my chocolate had not arrived. Knowing I was going to blog about this event, I wondered if I would be missing something elemental during this talk. As it turns out, the experience was as rich and rewarding as the chocolate I later received and enjoyed.

Caution: border crossing

Karla is from Honduras, a part of the Latin American world that is rich in oral storytelling. My partner has similar skills. He is descended from the pre-Aztec indigenous people who have lived beneath the volcanoes of Citlaltépetl, Iztaccíhuatl, and Popocatépetl in the state of Puebla, Mexico, for centuries, and who speak Nahuatl, an ancient language spoken by Mexicans and Central Americans. Everyone I’ve met from his village of San Miguel are amazing storytellers. My partner’s account of the harrowing trip he took to arrive in the U.S. is a beautiful tale of adventure, suspense, quick wits, and survival. As Karla kept us enraptured with the story of cacao, it dawned on me that it was about crossing borders, too.

We learned that cacao originated in the upper Amazon basin in the Andes; however, it didn’t stay there for long. Just as ancient Andeans left the area that is now Peru to move northward and as ancient people also made their way to the Andes, so did cacao. It was grown and adopted by ancient peoples from Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Honduras, and other Latin American countries. Karla explained that, over time, cacao and the drinks they made with it came to have special meaning to the indigenous people. For some it was ceremonial; for others, it was a way to share a treat with friends and family.

So how did cacao and chocolate get to the U.S. and Canada? Karla said that the conquistadors fell in love with cacao while ravaging and pillaging Mesoamerica, so they took it back to Spain with them. Spain is where they began adding sugar to cacao to make it sweeter, and that was the predecessor for cocoa and, eventually, bar chocolate. When Spanish settlers traveled from Spain to their settlements in the U.S. and Canada, they brought their beloved chocolate.

As I watched everyone on the call try the drinks, I had an epiphany. The story of chocolate is the story of the Americas—one of crossing borders and sharing. Most interesting of all, however, is that the story hasn’t ended.

Coming full circle

I live outside of Clinton, N.C. (population 8,600), a place that for centuries has been dominated by a white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian, tobacco-growing culture. Once perceived as dying, it is now thriving, thanks to Latin American wanderers. On our rural road dotted with family farms, our neighbors on one side are Puerto Rican, and our neighbors on the other side are El Salvadoran.

If you visit El Mercadito Hispano in Clinton, you’ll meet shoppers from Honduras and the Dominican Republic who came here under protected status to work and raise their families. The doctor who performed life-saving surgery on my partner in 2015 is part of a growing Venezuelan community. My partner’s masonry apprentices are Guatemalan. Mexicans from Chiapas and Michoacán work in construction and in the sweet potato fields. They have enriched this area with new traditions and new attitudes.

We are all chocolate

I think more people should get to know the story of cacao. It’s a great example of how our expanding cultural diversity is not a threat but a promise. It’s our nature to wander, no matter our origins, and chocolate reflects that. Think what would have happened if no one had migrated in and out of the Andes. We never would have gotten to experience the joy, wonder, and deliciousness that is chocolate. So, let’s hear it for the wanderers—past and present—who have given so much to this world, and for CRU Chocolate, which uses the history of cacao to shape our experience with chocolate.