By Jane Dornemann

Image by Evan Aeschlimann

Gossip (for nerds)

• NVIDIA chips have become a hotter item than black market kidneys as companies “go to extreme lengths” to remedy the GPU shortage. In response, AWS is promoting its own AI chips and the adoption of Amazon Bedrock, which bakes chip needs into the offering. Meanwhile Microsoft is offering refunds to customers who curb their GPU usage.
• If you don’t want to return to the Amazon office then get ready to like government cheese. Andy Jassey said that employees should forget about the Amazon mantra of “disagree and commit” for leadership’s push to return to soul-sucking cubicle life. This message was delivered in the bravest of fashions using the good old pre-recorded session.
• SAP’s new global head of AI was previously the Microsoft VP of AI for the business and application platform group. She has a PhD from MIT…how mid.
• A shake-up may be coming to the AWS Partner program. The cloud giant teased changes to partner-to-partner engagement and AWS Marketplace in relation to generative AI. I actually know about one of these changes and while I don’t have a PhD from MIT, I did major in KEEPING SECRETS at life university with a weighted GPA of 4.18.
• Microsoft has changed its policy to allow customers to use Microsoft 365 on Amazon WorkSpaces. Why such a big licensing change now? The report speculates that the move may be a result of pressure from large customers and the EU’s ongoing examination of anti-competitive practices. Amazon WorkSpaces is on a shortlist of software that can now run on Microsoft 365, leaving other big firms, like VMware, to ask when it will be their turn.
• AWS has hired two new executives to its senior leadership team, one for AI and one for EC2 (the third is for Amazon, check out her amazing profile here).
• The whole “I’ll patch it in two years, MAYBE” security approach that Microsoft has had over the years is not flying with customers anymore, including the federal government. A mounting number of infosec professionals and vendors are getting loud about Microsoft’s lack of transparency, lack of urgency, and increasing occurrence of security issues. It’s gotten to the point where the US Department of Homeland Security has opened an investigation into Microsoft’s handling of a major attack on its Azure cloud infrastructure. This will definitely hurt the cloud company’s attempt to position itself as a cybersecurity leader.
• It’s rumored that Google plans to release its contender to OpenAI’s GPT-4, Gemini, this fall.
• More people with a 1.7 GPA in keeping secrets: Microsoft is planning to start selling a new version of Databricks software that helps customers make AI apps for businesses.
  

World domination

• Africa: AWS opened its first international AWS Skills Center in Cape Town, South Africa. It offers free training to help people move into cloud careers. And startups from six African countries have been chosen to participate in a boot camp run by AWS and Harvard Innovation Labs’ NextGen Accelerator. 25 Black-led startups were selected in total, with founders from U.S. HBCUs also in the cohort.
• Asia: AWS APJ is tapping Korean startups to be part of its six-week-long Generative AI Accelerator program. And AWS debuted a new Dedicated Local Zone in Singapore, which will help organizations in the public sector and regulated industries meet regulatory standards.
• Europe: Finland’s Savings Bank Group is moving all of its data and systems to Azure. Boring news from a boring country. I love you Finland, but you are not the Friday nights of countries!

New stuff

• AWS introduced HealthImaging, a HIPAA-eligible service that lets healthcare providers store, analyze, and share medical imaging data at scale. Wait, so I can just…get images? You’re saying, AWS, that I don’t have to call up my old neurologist at NYU and request my brain MRI only to be told I have to make the request in person, so I fly to New York City, sign a release waiver, wait two days, go to pick it up only to find out my other doctor needs it in a different format, then fly back to NYC again, except this time the front desk tells me oh sorry that lady you spoke to was new, we no longer provide imaging in that format anymore and then I just, I dunno, die?
• AWS wants to teach its healthcare customers and partners in Latin America, Canada, and the Caribbean how to build solutions. It will do this through its pilot of AWS Industry Quest: Healthcare, which sounds a lot like you’ll be playing Tomb Raider instead of developing apps.
• Microsoft feels like the one thing missing from this world is another male voice, so it added one to its Azure AI Text to Speech tool.
• AWS launched an EC2 service powered by custom Intel Xeon Scalable processors, otherwise known as Sapphire Rapids.
• Microsoft has announced the general availability of its Azure Operating Nexus for telcos. The explanation of what it does is a real snooze fest and my workday ends in 15 minutes so you’ll have to go without.
• In its ongoing love letter to startups, AWS has unveiled AWS Build, a global program meant to help early-stage startups get their ideas off the ground.
• Can’t leave frontline and shift workers out of the Copilot revolution. It must be high on their list of must-haves, well above cost of living pay raises and sick days, for sure. Fret not field service workers because now there’s a preview of Copilot in Dynamics 365 just for you.

Wheelin’ and dealin’

• Are DDoS days the new snow days? Cyberattacks have increasingly led to lost learning in K-12 schools, so AWS has pledged $20M in grants for cybersecurity resiliency efforts in education. This is part of the White House’s increased federal support for school cybersecurity.
• Digital pathology provider Paige has teamed up with Microsoft to build the world’s largest image-based AI intelligence model for identifying cancer.
• AWS has announced that its Service Catalog now supports HashiCorp Terraform Cloud. This facilitates self-service provisioning with governance so that developers don’t have to wait on cranky IT folks to set their shiz up.
• BMW chose AWS as the platform on which it will develop its next-gen driver assistance system, set to launch in 2025. Qualcomm will also play a role in development.
  • Separately, Qualcomm is touting its growing influence in the automotive sector, including a strategic partnership with AWS.
• Microsoft and AI startup Synthetaic are working together to analyze data from space and air sensors. This was the same company that independently tracked the Chinese spy balloon, something that was on my shortlist of Halloween costumes but is now too obscure.
• Aptos, a blockchain platform developed by a former Facebook employee (I bet it’s a GREAT place for women to work), is partnering with Microsoft to bring AI to blockchain. That includes building tools to help banks explore blockchain on Azure.
• EVERYBODY AND THEIR MOTHERS are helping businesses accelerate AI adoption:
  • LeanIX, which sells a transformation platform that helps companies with visibility and governance, has partnered with Microsoft to launch LeanIX Assistant. The press release goes on to say it’s the first of its kind, but I’m gonna spoiler alert you and let you know that it’s not.
  • IBM Consulting is helping clients implement and scale Azure OpenAI Service. It will guide businesses in defining an adoption strategy and identify use cases.
  • AWS has “let me show you how to use this thing” collabs too! HCLTech will help AWS customers adopt AI using AWS services such as Amazon Bedrock and Amazon CodeWhisperer.
  • And government modernization facilitator CACI struck a deal with AWS to help the Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and law enforcement use AI to do things like share sensitive data to generate insights. SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT IDEA.
  • IT infrastructure services provider Kyndryl is working with Microsoft to launch an AI-readiness program that will enable the ethical adoption of enterprise AI solutions.

Miscellany

• Have you ever offered to do something for somebody, and as soon as it came out of your mouth you were like, why did I just offer to do that? That’s Microsoft this week after saying it will accept liability for any customer’s copyright infringement over material generated by its AI software! The idea is to get more people comfortable with using the software. This applies exclusively to paying customers of GitHub Copilot, which creates computer code with generative AI, as well as Microsoft 365 Copilot, which applies AI to products including Word, Teams, and PowerPoint.
• Amazon has acquired Fig, a startup that produces tools to assist developers. It will be folded into AWS.
• Microsoft has ended unlimited storage for OneDrive business plans because you can never have too much money. It’s also ended Windows support for Cortana in favor of focusing on Copilot.
• AWS is ending its low-code Honeycode service. The end-of-life announcement drew only six replies from customers. Is this like when Phish announced they were retiring in 2004?
• Another reason why Europe offers a better quality of life: Microsoft will stop forcing Windows 11 users into the Edge browser.

Best Friends Forever

• New to Microsoft Azure Marketplace:
  • Globalgig’s Orchestra platform, which helps businesses manage global network services.
  • DeskConnect, an AI/ML solution that extracts and analyzes text from documents, including handwritten ones. I know a former president who hates to read but loves documents who would have liked that about a year ago.
• Red Hat OpenShift for the U.S. Intelligence Community is now available in AWS Marketplace. It will help the government innovate while also maintaining stringent security. Both of those things are new concepts to the government, so take ‘er nice and slow there guys. Also new to AWS Marketplace:
  • SOCi, which offers a platform that helps multi-location enterprises employ automation tools and data management to drive customer engagement.
  • Outreach, an AI-powered sales execution platform.
• PingSafe, a CNAPP provider, has joined the AWS ISV Accelerator and so has ComplyAdvantage, a financial crime intelligence company.
• Alfa, a finance software provider, joined the AWS Partner Network after passing the technical review.
• HashiCorp has joined Microsoft’s Intelligence Security Association.
• Consulting firm Protiviti earned its AI and ML specialization from Microsoft.
• Data science and AI solutions provider Tredence has achieved its AWS Service Delivery designation for Amazon EMR and Amazon RDS. Analytics company SAS achieved AWS Digital Customer Experience Competency. Onebeat, which provides AI-enabled supply chain solutions for retailers, was awarded the AWS Retail Competency. And Zero Trust company Netskope earned its Security Competency status in the Infrastructure Protection category.

By Jane Dornemann

Image by Alejandra Maria Photography

Feedback is the cornerstone of the creative process at 2A, whether it’s an internal discussion on the best way to revise an introduction or debating how to integrate client feedback about a design. That’s why we asked Michaela Ayers of Nourish to lead a workshop on navigating “creative conflict” and constructive feedback at our company retreat this year. Here’s what we learned.

The Thomas-Kilmann Model is a great way to understand conflict management styles. Have you ever had someone steamroll your idea, and you stayed quiet? Or have you and a colleague experienced tension over opposing ideas you were championing, but tried to find a happy medium?  

We all have certain habits when it comes to navigating sticky situations based on our personality and preferences.  Understanding how you and your collaborators instinctively respond to conflict can help you be more efficient in your approach to delivering constructive feedback. (This writer NEEDS the compliment sandwich.)

The Thomas-Kilmann model below states that the way we work with others tends to fall into different behavioral patterns: competing (high in assertiveness, low in cooperativeness); compromising (high in both assertiveness and compromising); accommodating (low in assertiveness, high in cooperativeness); and avoidance (low in both assertiveness and cooperativeness). At the center of this graph is the golden ticket, collaboration. Often, our management styles will shift depending on the context of whom we are working with and what we are working on.  

Image adapted from the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict model

Each of these styles has pros and cons. None of these styles is better than the other, they are simply different, encompassing various “light” and “shadow” traits. For example, an accommodating team member may be able to resolve conflict faster and keep the peace but can later harbor resentment over their unheard opinions. A competing team member is a decisive, efficient problem-solver—but they can be ego-driven and dominating. (Hey, stop thinking of that person. Stick with us for the rest of this.)

What does collaboration look like? True collaboration is about working toward a win-win in which everyone feels heard, valued, and uses creative problem-solving. But even collaboration has a downside: it’s time intensive. And effective collaboration requires something that research has shown to be highly important in the workplace, which is psychological safety. Aligned with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, achieving psychological safety builds upon itself through stages—so fostering growth of these elements at work is crucial to effective collaboration based on well-delivered (and well-received) feedback.  

So…how do you build psychological safety? It’s not simple or overly prescriptive, but the overarching idea is to connect with the people you’re providing feedback to; observe their work and feelings; communicate the impact of the recommendations; listen to their thoughts, and then iron out a mutually beneficial solution. In our open discussion, we found that the collegial relationships we’ve nurtured with each other have laid a strong foundation for mutual respect and safety in expressing ideas (which might be why we have five stars on Glassdoor). 

After another successful retreat on the books, we’ve noticed that we’re already putting what we’ve learned into practice. And we bet our clients will notice, too. 

If you’re interested in hosting a workshop like this for your teams, reach out to Michaela. 

By Jane Dornemann

Image by Evan Aeschlimann

Wheelin’ and dealin’

• Multinational IT company Capgemini is collaborating with Microsoft to build an Azure Intelligent App Factory. It will help businesses develop responsible and sustainable generative AI capabilities that will generate “tangible outcomes.” Do they know what “tangible” means? Is the office building going to be smoother? Will the CEO’s skin get softer?
• Occidental, an international energy company, is migrating to AWS. One of the things it plans to do is develop a system for its large-scale carbon dioxide capture plants…HURRY IT UP WE’RE ROASTING/DROWNING/STARVING OUT HERE!!!
• Tackle.io, an end-to-end solution for B2B software companies, is co-selling a solution with AWS that will help ISVs accelerate their move to the cloud. It includes everything from training to system integration.
• “Nonprofit” insurance provider Blue Shield of California has partnered with Microsoft to build a new data hub on Azure. It’s called the Experience Cube (sounds like a weird secret medical experimentation thing). It will bring together provider, patient, and payer data in real time so that services are more personalized. “In the Experience Cube, we want to see how many medical procedures people can withstand without anesthesia, while also remaining alive, so we can personalize approvals and billing,” one Blue Cross employee said, citing pain control for invasive surgeries as a “largely unnecessary” practice.
• Trend Micro has seen sales soar since entering AWS Marketplace. Good for them I guess.
• In a mutually beneficial arrangement, professional services firm Genpact will use Azure OpenAI to offer new capabilities to clients. This includes applications such as “transition management” in which an AI-generated likeness of Gary Busey tells you you’re fired. Anyway, I went through the release to see where Microsoft wins in this, but no dice.
• Observability platform LogicMonitor has expanded its monitoring coverage across AWS services.
• Caylent, a cloud services company, signed a strategic agreement with AWS to expand data and generative AI solutions for its customers. Caylent plans to use this collaboration to scale its Canadian presence, which will include requiring all employees to constantly say thank you, please, and sorry, as well as consume at least 5 pounds of maple syrup and Canadian Bacon (known as “bacon” in Canada) daily until they’re in good with our northerly neighbors.
• Hitachi Vantara, a subsidiary of Hitachi, released its Unified Compute Platform for Azure Stack HCI. It helps businesses manage different environments and hybrid cloud setups.
• The federal government has approved the use of Azure OpenAI service for projects involving highly sensitive data. LOL see you in the security section of this newsletter next week.

World domination

• AWS launched a Local Zone Edge location in Phoenix. It has already melted.
• And then it launched a new infrastructure Region in Tel Aviv, Israel. But that also melted!!
• Brazil’s B3 stock exchange, one of the world’s leading financial markets, is migrating to AWS. AWS is one of the exchange’s three cloud providers (the others being Microsoft and Oracle).
• Feel-good story time! An amazing 13-year-old in Nigeria just wowed the tech world by becoming Africa’s youngest Certified AWS Developer. He studied up to five hours every day for six weeks to pass the certification test. The youngest person in the world to achieve this designation to date is Karthick Arun, a ten-year-old based out of Arizona. Who has his own LinkedIn profile. Sorry about your melted Local Zone, Karthick.
• UK-based Telecom giant Vodafone is expanding its work with AWS (primarily using AWS Wavelength) to bring low-latency services to several locations in Spain.

Gossip (for nerds)

• Google is doing more poaching than a restaurant kitchen at brunch. It has recently hired a total of five big execs away from AWS and Microsoft. See who they are here.
• European Commission has opened a formal investigation into claims that Microsoft breached EU competition rules by bundling together Teams to suites such as Office 365 and Microsoft 365. It’s not so much a bundling as it is more of a…hugging. They’re hugging each other. Don’t be a patriarchal Ken.
• The former Enterprise Executive Strategic Advisor at AWS has jumped to digital transformation services firm GFT, where she’ll be SVP, Global Head AWS Sales and Strategy.
• Amazon’s earnings saw 12% growth YoY in Q2—beyond what analysts expected—largely driven by its AWS division. CEO Andy Jassy said the revenue is coming less from cloud migrations, which many companies have already done, and more from those looking to innovate in the cloud. The other money maker was the release of Amazon Bedrock, which simplifies AI model deployment.
• Meanwhile, Microsoft saw 8% growth in Q2 and a 20% rise in profit. However, it’s never enough for some people, so shares fell 2.1% after investors expressed disappointment about Azure’s slower than desired growth. (Wow this takes me back to 12-year-old Jane at the pediatrician’s office.)
  • Even still, Microsoft says it’s proud of the growth its Salesforce rival, Dynamics, has seen. Dynamics is growing faster than any of the company’s other major product categories. To drive even more sales, it is offering subsidies to potential customers.
• In response to government concerns, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and other large tech firms made a commitment to meet a set of AI safeguards. If this promise to the White House is anything like the promises coming out of the White House, we are in trouble.

New stuff

• Do hyper-productive Oompa Loompas work at Microsoft? Because the company has announced a bunch of new products, short of a chocolate river flowing through Redmond:
  • Microsoft announced the preview of Azure Application Gateway for Containers and the public preview of Azure Deployment Stacks.
  • It’s also previewing Microsoft Azure Boost, which will improve the performance of virtual machines.
  • Microsoft introduced TypeChat, a library that enables large language model development.
  • It announced a more secure version of its AI-powered Bing chat. “We really need to protect the 17 people who use Bing chat worldwide,” a spokesperson said.
• The “we can do it better than Google Maps” triad of Microsoft, AWS, and Meta has released its first “open map” dataset, which includes four layers: transportation networks, geopolitical boundaries (can’t WAIT to see what they put for Taiwan), buildings, and places of interest.
• In the last cloud cover, I mentioned that Microsoft was partnering with Teladoc to do transcription things. Well, looks like AWS is doing it, too, with the announcement of HealthScribe.
• While AWS and Microsoft have both opened education centers around AI for IT and developers, there is still more ground to cover. Which is why AWS has unveiled its free Skill Builder program for executives on its YouTube channel. Since it’s for executives the first step they cover is how to turn on your computer.
• AWS has unveiled AWS Entity Resolution, which sounds like it’s an exorcist. But it just matches and links disparate records to create a 360-view of customers. This can be used for industries from finance to travel.
• Amazon EC2 P5 instances for AI/ML and HPC workloads is now generally available. A result of the company’s collab with NVIDIA, the solution reduces latency and makes scale-out performance more efficient.

Ma’am, I’m going to have to call security

• Zenbleed, which sounds like a Buddhist monk with a papercut, is a new vulnerability that could touch 62% of AWS environments. AWS is working on fixing it, but in the meantime, Google has released patches.
• Tenable’s CEO is calling attention to Microsoft’s four-month-long process of releasing a still-nowhere-to-be-found patch for a vulnerability in Azure. He had some choice words for Microsoft, which you can find here. Cage fight!
• Bad people have been controlling AWS System Manager agents by using a separate, maliciously owned AWS account. I feel like I maliciously own things, like my Brita that always, always needs to be refilled. Forever, until I die.
• Check Point Research says Microsoft is THE most imitated brand used for phishing attacks (we’ve all danced with Microloft, haven’t we?). In a highly American move, Microsoft said it’s Russia’s fault, as it crushed a Bud Light can against its forehead while riding a tractor that mows down poor people. But one Senator disagrees, and is calling for a Justice Department investigation into Microsoft’s “negligent cybersecurity practices”—citing the company’s role in a recent disastrous attack by Chinese hackers.
• Hacker group TeamTNT started targeting AWS environments before it expanded to Azure and Google Cloud. The TeamTNT has been improving their attack scripts over time to do everything from mining crypto to conducting straight up data theft. There are suspicions that the hackers are preparing to release an “aggressive cloud worm.” I WANT AN AGGRESSIVE CLOUD WORM. I’d dress him up in a little scarf and coat and he could sleep on a flower and maybe then he’ll turn nice.

Best Friends Forever

• AWS has named CrowdStrike the 2023 US ISV Partner of the Year.
• AWS needed more Cowbell and that’s what it got. SMB cyber insurance provider Cowbell (they HAD to know what they were doing) is now part of the AWS Cyber Insurance Partner Initiative.
• ML tooling company Edge Impulse has joined the AWS ISV Accelerate Program while data protection and management solutions vendor Commvault has joined the AWS ISV Workload Migration Program.
• Aquia, a SaaS company headquartered in the well-known and often-talked-about city of Millsboro, Delaware, has achieved Advanced Tier Services Partner status within the AWS Partner Network.
• Skyflow, a data privacy vault company, has joined the AWS Partner Network and is now in AWS Marketplace.
• Digital transformation firm Grid Dynamics has become a member of Microsoft’s Azure Migration and Modernization Program.

By Richa Dubey

Image by Suzanne Calkins

Equal parts passionate and intentional, Felip centers everything he does around building community and cultivating a shared understanding. “When I think about my profession, I don’t really think in terms of content or interactions with clients. It’s more about how I can use the skills and experience I have to align with their goals. This helps me better support their organizations and initiatives.” 

And it’s easy to find something to relate to when you’ve had such eclectic experiences. While still in school, Felip cared for dying Benedictine monks in Bavaria. He also co-started a tech education nonprofit for kids of color in Seattle.  

As a trade unionist, his father advocated for worker rights, and that helped inform Felip’s career trajectory. Working in economic development for the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Felip focused on diversification and training local startups in technology and entrepreneurship. “I see the results of that effort in the culture there today, and I am grateful to have played a small part in developing it.” 

From there, his next step was helping to navigate change at Microsoft. Felip worked with Microsoft 365 to review product changes with security and communication teams before rolling them out to millions of users. It was challenging, but it was core to the person that Felip feels he has grown into. “It’s a big part of who I am now. It taught me how to bridge cultures, navigate differences, and build empathy. That mindset is crucial for creating plans and roadmaps to move projects forward.” 

That emphasis on empathy and diversity anchored one of the biggest wins of Felip’s professional life: co-leading strategy at Purple Group. At this multicultural marketing agency, Felip and his team collaborated with multiple stakeholders to execute a five-year communication and outreach plan for the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). At over $2 billion, the Red and Purple Modernization (RPM) Phase One Project is the largest capital project in CTA history.

Whether working with the community or within the technology industry, Felip excels at finding a common ground across peers and stakeholders. It’s no surprise we love having him at 2A, and the feeling is mutual. “I love the people here. Everyone is very capable, and that pushes me to be better. And it’s beautiful to see that capability buttressed by empathy and collaboration.” 

By Jane Dornemann

Image by Evan Aeschlimann

Wheelin’ and dealin’ 

• Tax, audit, and advisory firm KPMG has made a multi-billion-dollar commitment to Microsoft (OMG who got that sales comish?! Maybe that person can just buy Florida and put us all out of our misery already). The company will use the Microsoft Cloud and AI services to do things like run smart auditing, get more integrated access to data, and create specialized client solutions. 
• Teladoc Health plans to integrate Microsoft’s AI-enabled notetaking tools for clinical documentation so physicians can auto-transcribe things like patient visits. OH NO, what if someone comes into the ER and says on arrival, “I’ve got a high temperature!” and the transcription doesn’t work so when the doctor says, “Patient said on arrival they were hot” turns into “Patient dead on arrival, they were hot.” Then someone goes out to tell the family the terrible news except the patient isn’t actually dead, it’s just a fever, and then in the courtroom during the ensuing lawsuit, the doctor is accused of sick thoughts for thinking a dead person was sexually attractive. Maybe we should hit the brakes on this one. 
• Lacework, which always makes me think of grandma’s doilies, is expanding its partnership with AWS to offer anomaly detection with composite alerts linked to Amazon GuardDuty findings. It also includes integrations with Amazon Security Hub. 
• In its “growing partnership with Meta…as a preferred partner,” Microsoft and Snowflake announced their support for the Llama 2 family of large language learning models (LLMs). Available on Azure and Windows, this will help developers build generative AI-powered tools. (Not to be confused with AI power tools, which don’t exist but should.) 
• Snowflake and Microsoft are also working together to simplify their joint customers’ AI projects. The two are working on integrations with Microsoft products like Power Apps and Azure ML. A bigger deal is that joint customers will be able to use Azure OpenAI Service with records stored in Snowflake.  
• Dell thinks Azure, Microsoft 365, and Dynamics 365 are too complicated to use together, so it’s offering professional services to show businesses how to do so successfully.  
• Data development platform provider MongoDB is expanding its global efforts with Microsoft to include integrations, service options, and joint marketing initiatives. 
• Splunk announced it will build its new cloud solutions natively on Azure. Splunk is also previewing its AI Assistant, a generative AI chat interface that is an improved version of the former SPL Copilot. 
• Global banking firm BBVA will use AWS to deliver advanced analytics and data services in the cloud as part of its data and AI transformation process. Automated insights! Unified data! I can hardly contain myself over this new look. I LOVE makeovers and think this should be a reality show. It would be a Queer Eye meets The Office meets Billions meets Silicon Valley.  
• In a new collab with Microsoft, Teradata is bringing its VantageCloud Lake to Azure, which will broaden Teradata’s generative AI use cases. 
• French company Teleperformance, which provides digital communications services to businesses, is using Azure OpenAI in a $185M deal to improve its business communication services. 

World domination 

• The ability to leave Ohio is no longer the best thing about it—AWS is investing $7.8B to expand its central Ohio data center.   
• AWS has launched a CloudFront edge location in Lagos, Nigeria. It’s the first one in the country. 
• In a pioneering act for Japan, banking firm Mizuho is rolling out Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service to 45,000 employees. Staff are pitching ideas on how to use it, but some have already been using it for things like scanning wealthy client portfolios. I wanna scan wealthy client portfolios!!  
• Leading African payments technology company Flutterwave is working with Microsoft to build its next-gen platform on Azure. 

Gossip (for nerds) 

• Just as Microsoft dropped a hefty price tag for its corporate AI tools, AWS says it’s focusing on lowering the computing costs customers will need to implement AI, including the price performance of its chips. 
• It’s a LinkedIn key party! Raejeanne Skillern is now AWS VP and CMO; former AWS data center exec Chris Vonderhaar is now VP of demand and supply management at Google; and once-AWS CMO Rachel Thornton is CMO at Fivetran. 
• Analysts have no doubt that AI will be Microsoft’s cash cow, driving a potential $100B in revenue by 2027. That is like, 100 Kardashians. In turn, expect the stock price to jump about 25%. Within this broader AI push are six money-making strategies, which include AI APIs, telecom, “bringing Copilot to the masses,” and generative AI for government. (In fact, the company did just add AI tools for Azure Government.) Bing was also cited as a driver but hey, analysts can’t get it right all the time. 

New stuff  

• Time to learn good! AWS is investing $100M in a generative AI center that will teach businesses how to create and deploy AI projects. The center is already working with companies like Ryan Air and Lonely Planet. 
• At Inspire, Microsoft said some AI features are headed to Azure, most notably Vector Search, which uses ML to understand the meaning and context of unstructured data.  
• AWS announced the General Availability of AppFabric, a no-code service that stitches together SaaS applications and security tools. Eventually, AppFabric will get AI capabilities powered by Amazon Bedrock, where The Flintstones live. 
• Microsoft thinks people are a bunch of AI dumb-dumbs and that we need to get smart on the technology, so to motivate our lazy asses the company is doling out grants, courses, and toolkits for teachers.  
• Laminar, which sounds like a cheap finishing that goes on my kitchen cabinets but is actually an agile data security platform, co-built a security solution with AWS. It automatically installs, configures, and integrates with native AWS Cloud Foundational Services across multiple domains. 

Ma’am, I’m going to have to call security 

• It was not a great month for Microsoft security. Orca Security, forever the Microsoft tattletale, disclosed two vulnerabilities in Azure Bastion and Azure Container Registry. 
• An Azure Portal outage affected 77% of users due to a DDoS attack led by the hacker Anonymous Sudan. But before you’re all like, stop being a jerk Sudan, it was actually Russia. ::Feigns shock:: 
• Then, a Chinese cyber-espionage group known as Storm-0558 breached the emails of 25 organizations, INCLUDING the US State and Commerce Department. And Microsoft still doesn’t know how they got a hold of the keys they used to access an inactive Microsoft account. 
• THEN, Microsoft admitted that a Russian cybercrime group called RomCom exploited a vulnerability that is YET TO BE PATCHED in a phishing attack against organizations attending the NATO Summit. The phishing attack “deployed payloads called RomCom Backdoor” which just…takes on a whole different vibe.  

Best Friends Forever 

• AWS  
  • Multimodal synthetic data generation platform Gretel is now on AWS Marketplace. Can you imagine how boring a marriage to someone would be who works at a multimodal synthetic data generation platform company? I would DREAD the obligatory “what happened at work today?” question. Ugh, prepare my gallows. 
  • Planetscale, a serverless database management company, has joined the AWS ISV Accelerate program. 
  • Digital product engineering company Simform has achieved SaaS competency status with AWS. 
  • Snowflake achieved the US Department of Defense Impact Level 4 Authorization on AWS GovCloud. Sounds scary! Do they get to see Area 51, or what? If not, then ignore this news because it doesn’t matter.  

• Microsoft 
  • Vector database company Pinecone is now available on Microsoft Azure.  
  • UK-based Sandbox provider NayaOne has arrived on Azure. It helps banks to accelerate solution discovery, prototyping, and scaling. 
  • Whatfix, a digital adoptions platform, is now listed on Azure Marketplace. 
  • Mobile app defense company Appdome has integrated its Cyber Defense Automation Platform with Microsoft Azure DevOps. 

Miscellany 

• TCS is training 25,000 of its engineers to certify them in Azure OpenAI.  

By Mike Lahoda

Image by Brian Dionisi

I’ve recently taken up fly fishing and it’s more complicated than I expected. There’s a whole host of variables to factor in: stream flow, temperature, depth, seams, riffles, pools. Not to mention a dizzying variety of flies and the puzzle of selecting one that effectively imitates a particular insect. It’s a mixture of relaxation and frustration. Connecting with nature and cursing at knots. Muttering absurd phrases like “that looks like some fishy pocket water, maybe I’ll try a hopper dropper with a chubby Chernobyl and a bead-headed pheasant tail” while standing alone in a crystal-clear mountain stream.  

There’s one variety of fly called a streamer, which mimics small fish the bigger fish like to eat. When fishing with a streamer, you make your cast, let the fly flutter in the current, and strip it back to tempt an opportunistic trout. One tip for increasing your odds? Add a little wiggle action to the fly during your retrieve. Fish love the wiggle.  

As it turns out, the humble wiggle can also be a successful tactic in your social media marketing. In a stream of static social posts, a touch of motion can be just the thing to motivate scrollers to bite on your content. At 2A, we call these posts wiggles. These short GIFs perform exceptionally well at reeling in traffic and linking to long-form content. A recent series we created for the Microsoft Power Platform team gained a cascade of impressions on LinkedIn and Twitter—and no one had to put on waders or spend hours standing in a cold river.  

Looking to cast your content further on social? The marketing guides here at 2A know how to read the water and help you land the big ones.    

By Annie Wegrich

Image by Suzanne Calkins

Win more efficiently: hire our agency. 

Let’s get right to it. Things are looking up, but the 2023 macroeconomic climate started less than peppy. Tech layoffs in the first four months of 2023 exceeded 168K—that’s higher than all of FY 2022. Many business investments are paused. Yet, regardless of the size of your payroll, you can’t skimp on innovation. You can’t deliver less to your shareholders, customers, and team. So how do you do more without investing in a new tool or hiring an FTE? You need a cheer squad that can put that “rah rah” back in your workload. Need to do more with L-E-S-S? Now is the time to hire the B-E-S-T.  

You’re busy. TLDR, it’s a good time to reach out to 2A:  

1. We have the experience you want to hire:  
   • Engage with a professional team of B2B tech experts, no employee onboarding required. 
   • Work with storytellers, designers, consultants, and expert program managers that are handpicked for your project. 
   • Rely on our practiced, tailored approach to asset and campaign creation.  

2. We have the time you don’t: 
   • Tell us what your marketing goals are, then sit back and trust the guidance of your 2A consultant.  
   • Your consultant will bring you in at each stage. We’ll show you what we’ve been working on by set deadlines.  
   • We thrive on feedback and can iterate with stakeholders or meet with SMEs for you.  

3. We’re here when you need us (and only when you need us): 
   • Connect with our bi-coastal team for breezy collaboration across time zones. You pick the platform (Microsoft Teams, Amazon Chime, Zoom, Slack).  
   • Add more assets to our workstream or change priorities. We’ll work with you to get it done.  
   • Reach out any time—we’re waiting for you.   

Resources might be limited, put us in, coach.  

At 2A, our expert team of creatives, project managers, and consultants form the perfect pyramid to power your marketing with fresh eyes and a lot of experience. Our number one passion is supporting the tech marketing goals of our clients and cultivating top talent by making 2A a great place to work. 2A is woman-owned business with a cup-winning culture. And, at our virtual table, everyone can sit with us. Let’s get started.  

Ready to rumble? Reach out to the 2A squad.  

By Jane Dornemann

Image by Evan Aeschlimann

World domination 

• AWS plans to invest nearly $13B in its presence in India, a key overseas market for the cloud provider, by 2030. It will create jobs in engineering, construction, and telecom.  
• Next door, Southeast Asia is seeing a surge in public cloud adoption. Get ready for those 1 a.m. meetings, Seattle. I’m gonna have to take my mouthguard out and everything.
• Latin America is also on the AWS radar. While Brazil is its biggest market, the company is driving digital transformation through channel partners in Chile, Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico. 
• Now let’s travel to the crumbling late-stage capitalist house of cards known as the United States. Originally, Oregon wanted to stick to its sustainable ways and was mulling whether or not to approve some more AWS carbon-spewing, energy-sucking data centers. Not only did Oregon approve five of them, but it also threw in $1B in tax breaks. ‘Cause it’s too late anyway, guys. It’s too late. 
• Microsoft has made concessions to appease EU regulators following complaints from Slack. The cloud giant will now charge different prices for Office with Teams and without Teams. 
• Good lord, the EU is on Microsoft like white on rice because all their competitors are tattling. Next target is Microsoft Azure, which has received a variety of complaints that include price gouging and restrictive licensing terms.  

Gossip (for nerds) 

• Microsoft announced that “due to tough economic conditions” (which somehow include surpassing analyst expectations on the most recent earnings??) there will be no raises this year. But there will be bonuses, stock awards, and promotions.  
• These tough economic conditions for Microsoft must also include the $69B Activision Blizzard acquisition, which was FINALLY approved. The green light came after Microsoft agreed to some notable concessions. 
• Google doesn’t want to feel left behind following Microsoft’s Chat GPT/Bing integration. After the little (and by little I mean outrageously expensive) snafu with its AI, Google is now rolling out its AI to its core search engine, making this writer wonder how much meth the Google chef is sprinkling on all that free food. It’s like Salt Bae, but with meth. 
• If Google won’t be responsible then Microsoft will, surely. After gutting what was essentially its responsible AI team, the company wants to…hire a responsible AI team? I’m serious.  

Wheelin’ and dealin’ 

• Scepter—a self-proclaimed air monitoring entity—and ExxonMobil are working with AWS to develop a data analytics platform for measuring methane emissions in the United States. Since an oil company is involved, I feel completely confident that these measurements will be honest and exact. Because really, isn’t that what Exxon is known for? Honesty?  
• Enterprise cloud data management company Informatica is expanding its partnership with AWS to include GTM efforts, vertical solutions, and more integrations across data, analytics, and AI. 
• Microsoft is making like Amazon and doling out cloud credits to startups. “Pegasus” is an extension of Microsoft’s Startup Founders Hub and is a two-year program that goes beyond credits and into advice and stuff. Lots of advice. And sales help.  
• NVIDIA’s hardware has powered the rise of generative AI, including for Microsoft, but now the cloud giant is looking to get cozy with AMD to improve GPU capability. The details are scant but I SHALL keep an eye on this. 
• Time for a four-way starring Microsoft, Dell, VMware, and Red Hat. The foursome wants to help improve multi-cloud management and mobility of distributing apps and data via Dell’s Apex multi-cloud services portfolio. 

New stuff  

• AWS has improved the price performance of its Amazon Aurora relational database and increased cost predictability by optimizing its data input and output operations.  
• Private access to the AWS management console is now in general preview. It’s a security feature that lets users limit access to the console from their VPC. Basically, the bouncer won’t let you into the club without the right IP address.  
• Getting into da club takes me to: IDs may be headed for the circular file. Since we all want to live in Blade Runner 2049, Amazon is preparing to launch a touchless payment device that lets you scan your palm and sign over your soul and alter your DNA for a beer.  
• Small businesses can now use a payment app in Teams. Microsoft says it lets SMBs “collect payments from within Teams on your desktop or mobile device during a meeting.” Uh…what kind of meetings are these? Am I the only one that sees the possibilities or…? I mean…have we all known people who “run small businesses” where they “collect payment” during a “meeting”?  
• Also coming to a Microsoft Teams channel near you is Collaborative Stageview. You’ll be able to open app content in a new window that participants can engage with.  
• Azure Container Storage is now in public preview. Organizations can use this cloud-based service to create and manage block storage volumes for container applications and workloads (how was that not a thing already?). 

Miscellany 

• Antimetal, which is not an indie band but a startup, is going to reduce cloud wastefulness—starting with AWS users. Using a proprietary AI- and ML-based model, it’s promising customers they’ll save on their AWS bills by rooting out inefficiencies. Normally, companies sign yearslong contracts with AWS to bring cloud costs down…but now they won’t have to. In response, Jeff Bezos is currently charting a course to run over the founder of Antimetal with his yacht—the one parked inside the bigger yacht. If he used the bigger yacht, it would be too obvious. He has to use the smaller yacht. Which, again, is inside the bigger yacht. Little known fact: The smaller yacht is enjoyed by a miniature Jeff Bezos that lives inside the Jeff Bezos we all know and love. 

Best Friends Forever 

• Fintech and security were the big winners in this round’s AWS Partner activities: 
  • Global consulting firm Credera has achieved AWS Premier Tier Services Partner status. It can definitely cut the line at the hottest hand-scanning clubs. 
  • Swiss financial software provider Temenos has integrated its core banking solutions with AWS. 
  • FinTech company and SoFi subsidiary Galileo Technologies has added its solutions to the AWS Marketplace. And security and IT solutions provider Claro has put its Enterprise Cloud Connect solution on AWS Marketplace. 
  • New Relic has a new AWS integration that will let users automatically deploy its monitoring infrastructure agent through some AWS…stuff. Benefit: one-time setup with automatic instrumentation.  
  • “Cyber deception technology leader” Acalvio has successfully completed the AWS Foundational Technical Review and joined the AWS Partner Network, so it can unleash its deception in the cloud. 
  • SAP and Microsoft are taking the next step in their relationship to collaborate on generative AI. What that really means is that SAP is integrating its SuccessFactors solutions with Copilot in Viva Learning and Microsoft 365 Copilot. 
• It’s not Suntory time, it’s Microsoft Partners time: 
  • Enterprise AI SaaS company SymphonyAI has launched Sensa Copilot and integrated it with Azure Cognitive Search and Azure OpenAI services. The solution offers sophisticated AI assistance to financial crime investigators. Oof, better stay away from Congress amiright. 
  • Palo Alto Networks unveiled its Next Gen Firewall for Azure as a fully managed service. Only a measly year and three months after it did so for AWS.  
  • Orca Security is the inaugural cloud-native protection platform to be fully integrated with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Chat GPT-4.  
  • Break out the breakfast pastry, because Danish master data management solutions provider Stibo Systems has joined the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program as an ISV. 

Ma’am, I’m going to have to call security 

• Microsoft wants you to know about some stuff TrendMicro found Iranian hackers doing but more importantly, THESE NAMES! Lace Tempest (ooooh!), Mango Sandstorm (ahhhh!), and Evil Corp—leave some cool hacking names for me and Forsyth already. Then there’s the Azure-targeting group, UNC3944, which just sounds like someone who had the last pick of whatever AOL screen names were left over in 1999. 

By Mai Sennaar

Image by Julianne Medenblik

Just like a hearty meal, the impact of a quality interview will continue to reverberate long after it’s over. Meaty interviews generate answers of substance, which we use to build out all kinds of content—from case studies to solution briefs. For case studies, a meaty interview helps us accelerate the timeline by getting to the heart of the matter in minutes. For testimonial videos, they optimize the impact of a product testimonial video or simply leave clients with the assurance that we’ve truly heard them and are the right folks for the job. 

Here are some foolproof methods for conducting an interview (with just about anybody) that will truly stick to the bones: 

• Do a double take: Pay closer attention to interviews on the radio or in podcasts that you enjoy. What about these styles of storytelling appeals to you? Is it the conversational tone? The jokes sprinkled between questions? We integrate some of those techniques into our approach. 
• Know your story: In our initial client calls we clarify what the story should be, and try to gain a clear sense of the client’s intention for the interview. We listen closely, debrief internally to make sure we’re on the same page, and use this information to guide us as we craft interview questions. 
• Strike a balance between questions and conversation: Interviews are not open-ended conversations. They also should not be staid question-and-answer sessions where neither party is really engaged or comfortable. We are intentional about finding a balance. 
• Have empathy: Being asked questions in front of a room of people, even virtually, can be nerve-racking. That’s why we devote some time to breaking the ice. We also try not to cut off the speaker if they begin to veer from the topic. (This is the fastest way to get them to clam up!) Once they’ve completed their thought, simply reframe the question to get the answer you’re looking for. 
• No, really have empathy: Interviewees don’t always answer the questions we ask. Before jumping in to correct, redirect, or insist, we make sure the answer to our question isn’t hiding somewhere in what they are already shared. This is especially critical in video interviews where the person’s comfort level directly impacts the quality of the asset. 

Interviews are ultimately about learning something new and fostering stronger connections with our clients, colleagues, and other participants. This helps us produce the best projects we can, and that’s what 2A is all about!  

By Emily Zheng, Jane Dornemann

Image by Emily Zheng and DALL-E 2

When we shared what our writers learned from using generative AI tools like ChatGPT, our design team naturally decided to use generative AI to create the blog image. That led us down another rabbit hole around the pros and cons of integrating smart platforms into our design process—from choosing amongst the latest offerings, like Midjourney and DALL-E 2, to wrestling with the ethics of them.

As of now, here’s what we know about generative AI for image creation:

These things are freaking fast. When we say we’re wowed by the speed of generative AI, we don’t just mean it can whip up an image in mere seconds—we’re thinking about how quickly it gets our minds going. Working with technology companies means we need to generate images for a lot of abstract concepts versus physical items. How does one depict the Internet of Things (IoT) or access management?

Typically, if we’re really stuck, we might run a Google image search on these terms to get some inspiration. But now, we can just enter those terms into tools like DALL-E and it spits out visual representations. These get us thinking of more original design concepts in a fraction of the time—making it ideal for brainstorming sessions and mood board creation. Kind of like Google…but on steroids.

They ignore a crucial part of our process. One thing the 2A design team treasures and sees as essential to producing a stellar product that aligns with a client’s ask is the feedback loop. No first-crack design, whether human-created or AI-generated, is going to be the final product. Design is a process—and this is where generative AI is of no help.

You can ask the AI to change a shade of blue to be darker or lighter, but that leaves a lot of room for the AI—not you—to choose. Sometimes you ask it to change just a few pixels and it ends up changing other aspects of the design you didn’t want. To really address feedback with our signature eagle-eye attention to detail, we would’ve had to import and manually edit our AI-generated works in more traditional design software. Since DALL-E 2 only lets users download non-editable PNGs, it becomes challenging to think of effective ways to manipulate these flat images. Not only does this defeat the purpose of a fast and at-the-ready product that AI seems to promise, but it ultimately can take up more time. The limited 1:1 aspect ratio of DALL-E 2’s images also required us to continue our work in Outpainting, which extends the borders of artwork beyond its original frames. It also ate up all our credits.

We must find the words. Having design vocabulary and training is extremely helpful in crafting prompts, because how you word a request will entirely determine what you get in return. Not only will infusing design concepts in your prompt help you get something closer to what you want, but it will help to create a visual that is more distinct from what everyone else is getting.

For example, we found that Midjourney tends to generate images that have a similar underlying style. (To see for yourself, check out this Instagram account that generates AI images based solely on headlines from The New York Times.) The ones that felt unique included requests to take inspiration from particular artists or included design terminology. For our ChatGPT blog image, we asked DALL-E 2 to create an image of “women looking at computer” in Corporate Memphis style, but the results didn’t quite hit the mark. So we asked it to mimic the works of Magdalena Koźlicka, a Polish digital artist. While the result was neither Corporate Memphis nor that of our chosen artist, we like what it gave us. Getting to the final product took more than 30 iterations.

Here’s a peak at what we got throughout the process:

How we issue credit? After all is said and done, who deserves the credit? As creatives, we want to honor the rights that other artists have to their own creations. But generative AI has resulted in a grey area where images have more than one creator. For the blog visual we published, we decided to credit both our designer and DALL-E to show that our designer used AI in her creative process. While DALL-E did most of the work, the final product would not exist without the designer’s carefully crafted prompts, edits in Outpainting, and overall creative direction (and none of it can be copyrighted).

But with AI clearly pulling inspiration from existing art—and likely influenced by all the prompts that others submit—it’s clear this is an ethical question that doesn’t have an answer yet. And while this question may be new to AI-generated art, there are plenty of notable visual artists who conceive of a piece but don’t create it themselves, such as Sol Lewitt and Ai Weiwei, yet the credit is theirs alone. To sum it up, generative AI can speed up the creative process, but that involves an element of luck in how on-point its image generation is. And sometimes that saved time is spent editing files that are challenging to manipulate. We see generative AI in design today much like what the introduction of the calculator must have been like: did mathematicians feel like they were cheating? Was it still their work if they had assistance from a machine? It’s true that generative AI has helped us do our jobs—but is it doing our jobs? That’s one question we can answer—and the answer is no. For now, at least.