By Jane Dornemann

Image by Thad Allen

Being a program manager is a lot like being an air traffic controller (but in this case, the planes are ebooks, animations, case studies, and decks). It can be a high-stress job that requires a laundry list of essential skills—communication, organization, and maintaining a cool-as-a-cucumber disposition chief among them.

That’s why we were so psyched that Tammy Monson joined 2A as our newest control tower extraordinaire, a.k.a. program manager. Her personal and professional experiences have provided Tammy plenty of opportunities to sharpen her skills.

There’s nothing Tammy can’t do

She started out as a first-grade teacher (how many of us are so brave?). Then she had children of her own—and THEN took on a new job while chairing events like charitable auctions on the side. Which is to say, Tammy walked (or ran) a pretty solid path to mastering the art of juggling it all.

For more than a decade she was a consultant who contracted with tech companies, primarily Microsoft. That meant each year she had to enter a new logistics-centered role with new processes and new team members. Sometimes it was business management or executive administration, other times it was strictly program management. Some people would bristle at having to relearn much of their job every year, but not Tammy. She saw the challenge as a growing experience.

“Doing something different each year made me realize I can learn anything if I put my mind to it. You start to realize you can do whatever you dig your heels into,” Tammy said.

Since that’s exactly how we feel at 2A, we hired her when her contract with Microsoft ended. It was a match made in technology-marketing heaven.

“2A is always trying new ways of doing things. The agency is all about discovering how to do better work, and that means not doing the same thing every time,” Tammy said. “How can we be more creative? How can we elevate our work? You can never ask a dumb question at 2A, and I love that freedom to be curious. It’s how we develop.”

Overseeing every day at 50,000 feet

In her day to day, Tammy is the control tower for our workflow management, operating with a 360-degree, bird’s-eye view of projects coming into and out of 2A. She’s the liaison that coordinates client work requests with consultant workflow management. She knows how to quickly learn the details of what each client needs, communicate that effectively to the team, set up meetings, and coordinate deadlines—conducting all the moving parts needed to ferry projects from initial request to a finished product.

When she’s not directing our projects’ take-offs and landings, she’s spending quality time with her college-aged daughters, binge watching her favorite TV shows, and exploring the great outdoors. It’s no surprise with her ability to take on challenges that she loves adventures. While the pandemic has paused those activities, she plays tourist in her hometown of Seattle, exploring Pike Place and taking long walks.

We’re so grateful that this talented woman has joined our group of high-flying marketers!

By Annie Wegrich

Image by Brandon Conboy

An email comes in at 8:45 p.m. on a Sunday—close contact! No school tomorrow! A runny nose sets in—still no school tomorrow! Staff and educators are sick—and again, no school tomorrow! It’s a really hard and demoralizing time to be a parent. We believe in community safety, and we trust our educators and daycare directors. We understand the impossible jobs they have right now and the impossible feats they’re going through to stay open. But schools close. Here we are.

As a working parent of a toddler and baby twins, my partner and I are exhausted. We’re working in the armpits of the day around their runny noses. We’re cutting blueberries in half while coloring, all before trading the kids for the meeting one of us has in three minutes. We’re thankful for our incredible, graceful coworkers. We love our jobs and take pride in our careers, and we love our kids more. We’re in this together.

But, since the one long, isolated, day that started two years ago, parents have had it. Which doesn’t matter one sneeze, because our situations are far from over. Therefore, we hope you enjoy a little laughter—may it keep us from crying.

2A gives you: Things our at-home-children have done to derail our workdays

Live interruptions during team calls:

“MAMA I HAVE TO POOP” (Sophia, 2.5)

“We’re moving to Wisconsin!” (Rowan, 2.5)

“Idon’twanttoidon’tneedto, Idon’twanttoidon’tneedto, Idon’twanttoidon’tneedto” (Oliver, 3.5)

“Hey Oliver mommy is going to be on a call now so I will need you to be very quiet for me.” “But I like people! I need to say hello to my people!” (Also Oliver, 3.5)

“Don’t worry, I can find something else to do” (Edie, 7)

“I can’t hear you; I can’t hear you; I CAN’T HEAR YOU” (Anonymous teen, 17)

“Can we pretend I’m a half snake man and we live in the calamity ages?” (August, 8)

Live, unfortunate actions during video calls:

Repeatedly ripping a headset out of my ears (Maren, 1)

Throwing up all over, and inside, my shirt (Maren, 1)

Slot machining* peas onto my computer (Evelyn, 1)

*Slot machining: when Evelyn smiles while eating and shoots whatever unchewed food all over you like you won a prize.

Pulling my shirt ALL THE WAY down in a passionate ask to be picked up (Gil, 1.5)

Dropping an English muffin, jam-side-down, on the carpet (Sophia, 2.5)

Taking a child into a public bathroom before remembering to turn off video (Anonymous potty-training mom, child 2.5)

Silently watching hour 6 of anime (August, 8)

Text messages from children, received during working hours:

“DADYWANRUGONETOBEDAMWATH?” (Victor, 6) (Translation: Daddy when are you going to be done with work?)

“Idon’twanttoidon’tneedto, Idon’twanttoidon’tneedto, Idon’twanttoidon’tneedto. OMG MOM.” (Maya, 15)

“How do I know when I’m bleeding so much I have to go to the ER?” (Anonymous young adult, 23)

“Have you noticed that my lazy eye isn’t as open as my other eye before? Look at this picture.” (Anonymous teen, 17)

“The tabs on my car are going to expire.” (Abby, 20)

“I just lost my sense of taste and smell” (Anna, 31)

“Would you like to go with Anna and me to Vegas?” (Kat, 33)

Conclusion: There isn’t just one, because we’re still collecting more great, painful, and hilarious moments of humanity. Maybe there is a message here about being nice to people, not knowing what they’re going through. Maybe it’s that kids are awesome, and we should be really happy with the extra time we get with them. I hope it’s knowing that when your chaos feels isolated, you’re never alone. At least, I’m happy I invested in a mini carpet steamer because the jam-down English muffin, vomit-volcano, and slot-machine pea incidents, all mine.

By Katy Nally

Have you ever met a playwright? I hear there aren’t as many as there used to be. So, if you’re fortunate enough to cross paths with one, consider carving out a moment to chat. If Mai Sennaar is any indication, they’re fascinating.

At 2A we’re always looking to grow our crew of creative minds, so we jumped at the chance to add Mai’s talent to the mix. Mai wowed us with the fact that she ran her own production company and wrote, directed, and produced several plays. Her first production, The Broken Window Theory, starred a Tony Award winner. In addition, her play The Arsonist was performed at both the Smithsonian Affiliate Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco and the Berkeley Art Museum.

A natural-born creative with an immense ability to wield words, Mai takes the storyteller position to new heights. Much like one of her plays, Mai’s work at 2A builds the story arc, pulls the audience in, and influences the reader’s point of view.

Building the story arc

Mai comes from a creative household. Her mother was a founding member of Sweet Honey in the Rock and went on to compose music for the Broadway show, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf. While at Howard Community College, Mai started channeling her creative streak into theater and even picked up an award for one of her early works. By then she’d caught the playwrighting bug and applied to NYU Tisch School of the Arts to study with the greats.

At Tisch she learned the ancient art of storytelling and practiced building stories to follow a narrative arc. Euripides and Sophocles taught her the origins of dramatic writing, and mentors like Richard Wesley encouraged her own burgeoning voice. After graduating, Mai wrote The Fall of the Kings, which debuted at the Andrew Freedman Home in the Bronx.

Pulling the audience in

Mai knows how to expertly uncover cherished soundbites so characters can woo an audience and marketers can connect with customers. Just before joining 2A, Mai worked for the U.S. Senate democrats as a digital creative director, writing commercials to promote mid-term election candidates. In that role she faced a new challenge of marrying scripted and unscripted moments into a piece that won over viewers. Today, she uses those same skills to write compelling blogs and build customer-evidence videos.

Mai also has a knack for interviewing, which she honed through her work for the Council on Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO) in Washington DC. She interviewed dozens of high-profile individuals and published the conversations in the CLEO Edge magazine to attract more people of color to the legal profession. At 2A she puts her Q-and-A skills to use during customer interviews for case studies.

Influencing your point of view

No matter what she pens, Mai shines when she’s tasked with influencing the audience. Her plays have a way of making you pause and evaluate, while her case studies and videos compel customers to act. Wherever she goes, Mai lets her values lead her. Her most fulfilling experiences have been when her writing has mobilized people who were disenfranchised. When her work was performed for a New York City high school group, they told Mai how they’d connected with her characters, especially around issues like gentrification and displaced families. Seeing those students relate to her work was one of her high points as a writer.

At 2A she’s found a place where she can tackle new writing challenges and push the boundaries of storytelling. We can’t wait to see where she’ll take us next.

By Jane Dornemann

Image by Brandon Conboy

Now that you know why it’s harder for brands to land news coverage that converts, I’ll explain how that adds value to content marketing investments—specifically, case studies.

There are several reasons why content marketing has always been a great investment. If nothing else, every dollar spent results in an asset produced, which unfortunately is not the case for our hardworking PR friends. They’ll agree that changes across the media landscape have amplified the ROI of brand journalism in recent years. Having worked in each of these arenas, I only see that return continuing to grow. I feel that way particularly about case studies. Here’s why:

Case studies have higher engagement rates. People love stories. We’ve loved them since the inception of language. And we really love stories to which we can relate. We consume case studies much like we do news articles, but unlike opening to some random story in a magazine, we’ve arrived at a case study because we were already on the path to it. People who are reading a case study didn’t happen upon it, they had somewhat directed themselves to it. This means they start with a significantly higher level of engagement, which translates to much higher conversions rates. If you choose to gate your content (releasing it in exchange for an email contact), you’ve just doubled your lead generation power (#1: adding to your sales team’s contact list, #2: converting with effective content).

Case studies are a lower-maintenance investment. Brand-generated assets like case studies offer businesses a unique advantage over news articles, namely via narrative control. If your PR team lands a pitch with a top-tier reporter, the prepping is intense; there’s much to do over what to say, what not to say, and practicing deflection and non-answers to potentially damaging questions. After a story runs, you may feel like it didn’t explain the product accurately, or it didn’t put your company in the great light you’d hoped for. It will live on the internet forever and there’s not much you can do about that. But with case studies, you decide where the focus is. You direct the story, you control the language, you can align it with key messaging.

Case studies can be multiplied. Unlike the one-and-done customer story you may get into a newspaper’s business section, case studies can regenerate—they can be repurposed for other forms of content or can be replicated to reach different customers. For example, a brand can take one product or service within its arsenal and create multiple case studies for it. For example, a cloud feature that helps hospitals better treat patients can also help truck part manufacturers save money. In this way, you can not only reach different niche audiences with the same story focus, but you can strategically adjust them to meet potential customers at different points in the sales funnel. The broader your case study portfolio, the more you have to multiply, from inclusion in ebooks to slides in your conference presentation deck. Or even—dare we dream—as customer references you can give to an interested journalist.

Case studies are socially confirming. Case studies can increase sales by 185 percent—in part due to the fact that case studies give people what they need to trust a business. 93 percent of customers read online reviews before purchasing a product, and a study by the Wharton School of Business at University of Pennsylvania showed that customers earned through referrals have an 18 percent lower churn rate. After 3 years, there’s an 82 percent chance they’ll still be your customers. In your personal life, if you had to select one house cleaning service to hire, you’re far more likely to go with the one your colleague has used and approved over an unknown service, right? Especially if they provide a real-life scenario (“Green Cleaners did a great job of turning my post-holiday disaster of a house into a sparkling home, and even took all my gift wrap to the recycle bin.”) Case studies provide that powerful, much needed social validation. At its core, a well written case study isn’t that much different from a passionately written, exuberant, I-finally-found-my-forever-hairstylist Yelp review.

Speaking of referrals, might I recommend 2A?

There are a million content agencies out there, but I took my love of quality storytelling and relatable content to only one of them: 2A. Our cadre of creatives come to work every day ready to produce the kind of captivating content that clients love and audiences remember—which I bet goes a lot further than following up with that uninterested journalist for the fifth time.

By Jane Dornemann

Image by Brandon Conboy

This is the first post in a two-part series on how a changing media landscape is making content marketing more attractive for brands.

I was once a journalist who went into public relations, then back into journalism, then finally settled into content marketing here at 2A. For companies looking to spread the word about their work, I’ve got a hot tip: it’s time to rethink your strategy.

Last year, the Pew Research Center found newsroom employment has fallen 26 percent since 2008.

So, what does this mean for you, my dear brands? Well, ask your public relations teams. They’ll tell you that those new product announcements, amazing customer stories, and executive spotlights have become far more difficult to land in just about any media channel.

It isn’t just that newsrooms are cutting staff down to the bare bones, leaving fewer reporters to cover the same amount of news. The subject matter itself has also become more intense. The pandemic, visible effects of climate change, and political infighting all have relegated your product-centered business story into the shadows.

There’s more.

Many of those journalists cross over to public relations jobs, pitching their former colleagues on corporate stories. The result? A terrible 6:1 ratio of PR pros to journalists. Understandably, overwhelmed journalists are increasingly vitriolic about the volume of business-related pitches that flood their inboxes every day, decreasing the chances that your cool story will ever meet the journalist’s eyeballs, much less cultivate a headline. During my years in PR, I saw genuinely great brand stories—ones that I would have picked up in a second as a journalist, had I a leaner inbox—go unpublicized.

It’s 2018 and PR people still call me when I ignore their 17 email pitches

— Dustin Volz (@dnvolz) August 6, 2018

To generate revenue, bigger news outlets like Business Insider, Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times have gated all or some of their content behind paywalls. So even if you do land some killer coverage, a fair portion of your target audience won’t ever read past the headline. Additionally, PR teams have become fond of sweetening the pot for journalists by offering exclusives, meaning only one journalist can write about it first. That makes the story less desirable to other journalists, who usually don’t want to recycle a news story that another outlet already broke.

All the while, brands are paying hefty annual retainers to PR firms regardless of whether those dollars translate to media coverage or not.

The difficultly of attaining journalist-written coverage (known as earned media) has prompted brands to turn to owned media—brand-created assets like social media, blogs, case studies, and whitepapers.

But why? What makes content marketing so extra special all of a sudden? Find out in part 2 of this series.

By Katy Nally

Image by Guangyi Li

My dad was a bit strict when I was a kid. In high school I either had to join a sports team or get a job so I’d be occupied after school and less likely to get into trouble. By college I figured this rule no longer applied and was excited at the prospect of nearly two months at home doing nothing. The time between my finals ending and my summer job starting could be filled with episodes of The Wendy Williams Show and napping in the sun.

But alas, he was on to me. He told me I had to find something to fill those few weeks. This presented a challenge, as not many companies are willing to hire a completely untrained 18 year old for less than two months. So I got creative. I looked at summer study abroad programs and discovered I could spend that time on the island of Rhodes in Greece. Napping in the sun here we come!

When I returned to the states, I had a few Greek phrases in my pocket, like σας ευχαριστώ (thank you) and πόσο κάνη ένας σαλάτα (how much is one salad). I also knew the alphabet well enough to read the fraternity and sorority houses on campus.

I wish I could say my Greek faded away unnoticed, but lately the alphabet has been making a comeback into my lexicon. This time, though, the alphabet doesn’t remind me of snorkeling and cliff jumping, it just gives me the heebie jeebies that COVID-19 is a comin’.

As COVID zooms through the Greek alphabet, we’re trying not to freak out, and instead put our energy toward helping our friends and neighbors. In lieu of a year-end gift for 2A’s clients, we donated on their behalf to organizations that are making a real difference in our community. Thanks for helping us support Black Girls Code, Duwamish River Community Coalition, and FEEST Seattle.

And who knows, maybe 2022 is the year that Greek surrenders its variants in favor of sandy beaches and street food.

By Nora Bright

Image by Thad Allen

Whenever I read a best-of list of music albums published at the end of the year, I often think about how critics decide what to include. Do they focus on the albums that pushed a genre’s boundaries, that encapsulated the year for critics, or something else? 

When I was in high school, I was an avid reader of Pitchfork and loved how the popular music blog rated albums on a scale of 0–10. It felt so clean to assign numbers—so black and white. 

As I got exposed to more music genres and subcultures in college, I began to feel strongly that the quality of a song or album (and all art, for that matter) is in the eye of the beholder. Trying to assign a definitive number began to feel silly. I went to concerts with bands that I adored but critics didn’t. They were criticized for riffing on old garage rock tropes that weren’t relevant anymore; or maybe they weren’t so good at their instruments, but damn were their live shows fun; or their music meant everything in the world to a small group of people. 

So what makes an album worthy of an annual roundup? I’d argue it’s different for everyone at 2A who chose an album for this list. For some of us it was the music that gave us the strength to keep going amid another year of the pandemic. It made us feel cozy at home, or represented our values.  

I can’t resist making a marketing metaphor here—at the end of the day, it’s about what matters to the customer. 

I hope you give some of these tracks a listen, and that the reasons behind our choices give a tiny window into what matters to each of us.  

Emile Mosseri – Minari Soundtrack  

Favorite song: Big Country 

Emile Mosseri soundtracks have landed in my regular rotation the past couple years, and especially 2021, as the warm and dreamy sounds of Minari were great company while hanging around at 3am with a newborn. – Aaron Wendel 

Adele – 30 

Favorite song: Easy on Me 

This album captures the longing, melancholy an uncertainty of a COVID year. – Laura Templeton 

Her music has an ability to pierce the soul and reminds me I can conquer any mountain I face. 30 is a masterpiece in storytelling. – Tammy Monson 

Chromeo – Date Night: Chromeo Live! 

Favorite song: Don’t Sleep 

Electro-funk duo Chromeo has a playful retro style that I’ve enjoyed for years, and their 2019 tour was one of the last live shows I went to before the pandemic shut everything down. Chromeo approached the situation with typical good humor—recording a Quarantine Casanova EP and releasing a “2020 tour” shirt with a blank list of shows on the back, both sending proceeds to support those in need. The release of the live album was another joyful counterpoint to a year-plus of no live shows—delightful to revisit their funky sound boosted by a full backing band. – Thad Allen 

Lil Nas X – Montero 

Favorite song: That’s What I Want 

My favorite album of the year has to be Montero by Lil Nas X. All of the music videos from this album are amazing, and really fully celebrate his Blackness and queerness. It’s been the bright point of my year. My friends and I anticipate and text each other about every new music video drop. He really commands social media well and sets the conversation. – Annie Unruh 

Sophia Kennedy – Monsters 

Favorite song: Orange Tic Tac 

Monsters has 13 unique tracks that take you into the mysterious mind of Sophia Kennedy. The flow of the album is interesting to say the least. Beats Per Minute put it best, “Sophia Kennedy hops between styles on each track as if she’s escaping what’s come prior.” Monsters is an album that I kept revisiting through a year that sometimes had a similar feeling. – Mitchell Thompson 

The National – The National (re-release) 

Favorite song: American Mary 

If nothing else The National’s band-titled album, remastered in 2021, is reminder of just how much this band has grown. Best saved for writers who are editing (not creating), the track list sounds like Bruce Springsteen was run through a country washer and finished off in an indie dryer. “American Mary” is the best song on there, mostly because it carries the sounds of the better band The National became. –  Jane Dornemann 

Japanese Breakfast – Jubilee 

Favorite song: Paprika 

I’ve dug Japanese Breakfast’s punk-ish earlier releases and love how Jubilee layers funky basslines and gorgeous strings on top of her already stellar songwriting. It’s been fun to see her music explode in popularity this year including late night appearances, her Be Sweet Video for the Sims in Simlish, and of course her bestselling book Crying in H Mart. It’s J Brekkie’s world, we’re just living in it. – Nora Bright 

Whitney K – Two Years 

Favorite song: Last Night #2 

Two Years is the kind of album that makes me want to abandon all responsibilities and travel around the country hopping trains. But I’m definitely not going to do that. I’ll just listen to this album. Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, and plenty of country/folk influences ring out on this, scratchy, rambling 10-song LP – Mike Lahoda 

Taylor Swift – Red (Taylor’s version) 

Favorite song: Babe 

Red is perfect to put on while I’m doing work, making dinner, or driving in the car. Something about the updated songs takes me back to years past and is just so good. I can’t help but sing along. – Rachel Adams 

Sun June – Somewhere  

Favorite song: Singing 

Somewhere by Sun June was my 2021 soundtrack for when I wanted to bob my shoulders and focus on the beauty and intimacy of regular life. Even without the words—which are engaging—the music tells a floaty, deep-breath-inducing story. – Abby Breckenridge 

By Kelly Schermer

If you fell asleep during any of the Star Wars movies and felt annoyed when you awoke because the red and green shooting lights were STILL piercing the dark screen, you are not alone! And, if you think I’m a heartless jerk for falling asleep in the first place, get in line—colleagues are picketing my apathy as we speak. In the past, I would have argued that Star War-iors and Star Snore-iors inspired Rudyard Kipling’s saying “…ne’er the twain shall meet,” but recently a colleague and I tag teamed a keynote address that drew on the strengths of both camps. And what we ended up creating together was quite the force to reckon with!

Building a technology keynote from the ground up is a labor of love (and my oh my, do we ever love it!). At its core you might think, a keynote is just a PowerPoint deck and a talk track. While that’s not wrong, the practice of building a keynote looks nothing like what it takes to make a normal pitch deck. A keynote is its own special snowflake for a lot of reasons (sounds like fodder for another blog, doesn’t it?), but from a writer’s perspective, what makes it especially fun is the added challenge of making the content relevant within the context of the event and weaving in the speaker’s personality to help them engage and connect with the audience.

A couple months ago, my brilliant teammates, Guy and Forsyth, were asked to create a keynote to kick off a multi-day developer event. It was kind of like they got a box with a bunch of parts (most of which were still under development) and were asked to build something new with them. Forsyth started by sifting through the pieces for a story that would make their final product inspire the developers in the audience. Fast forward a bunch of zany brainstorm sessions later, and they had landed a fun Star Wars theme in which the technology describes a bridge to a universe of possibilities.

While we call it a theme, Forsyth made it so much more. She wrote a highly nuanced storyline comparing the capabilities of Jedi at different levels of their training to the benefits of specific databases. She referenced inter-character backstories and iconic movie scenes. It was a sheer work of art for anyone, especially pro-sci-fi developers and Star War-iors.

However, as it tends to happen in keynotes about burgeoning technology (and war-torn galaxies), our heroes faced setbacks. Forsyth was called on a higher mission (the highest really—her first family vacation post-COVID), and I stepped in to get the keynote over the finish line. Whereas she wrote her Star Wars heart into every line of that talk track, I picked, prodded, and googled every reference to find the ones that would appeal to a broader audience, so Star Snore-iors would connect with it too.

The final keynote talk track struck a solid balance between the Star Wars enthusiasts and…the rest of us. In hindsight, our tag-team approach worked better than we imagined. We delivered a fun, relatable, and highly informative keynote that our clients loved—and so far we haven’t heard of one person who fell asleep lost in space.

By Guy Schoonmaker

Image by Thad Allen

Have you ever started to make pasta, and then realized you forgot the sauce? It sucks. I never think of grocery shopping as part of cooking, but you can’t follow a recipe without the right ingredients.  

The same goes for creating great customer evidence videos. It’s all in the preparation, with some improvisation sprinkled in (we’ll get to that). 

Preparation is important in a lot of the marketing assets we build at 2A, but maybe none more so than filming videos. Why? Because in most cases, you only have one shot to get it right!  

The grocery list of factors you need to consider before filming can get long: 

• Interviewees – Are they prepped? Have they done this before? Do you have the right questions to get the best soundbites? 
• Shot list – Think through the story you’re trying to tell—what are the visuals you need to support it? 
• Location – Will there be background noise? Or giant digital disco globes right next to your set? 
• Equipment – How much space do you have to work with? Or maybe you’ll need to keep your equipment to a minimum so you’re nimble enough to move through a crowded airport while shooting b-roll! 
• Permissions – Do you need any special permissions from your filming location? How do you get consent from people that will be in the background? 

The list goes on! While preparation is the most important ingredient, you should always come to filming wearing an improvisation apron, just in case things get messy.  

Maybe an unexpected thunderstorm is rolling through town, messing up the natural light for your interview. Or a marching band decided to take a right turn down the street you’re filming on. It’s more the rule than the exception that something completely unexpected will happen.  

But if you’re prepared and ready to roll with the punches, then a willingness to improvise will help you quickly figure out solutions to those little speed bumps.  

Wait, speaking of improvisation, I already have olive oil, diced tomatoes, garlic, salt, and pepper—I can make my own sauce, and it will be even better than the original recipe. 

By Laurie Krisman

Image by Guangyi Li

During a recent cycling class, in the middle of a particularly tough climb, Peloton instructor Denis Morton shouted out something like “I’m getting better and stronger every day.” Then he shook his head and said, “sometimes it’s the truth, sometimes it’s a mantra.” I wiped away my sweaty tears and smiled because what he said captured my general philosophy of exercise, business, and even parenting. In my experience, when you keep showing up and do  the work—especially when you’re tired or too busy or don’t think you can do it—the work fuels you and pushes you forward into something better, something stronger. I sometimes dread exercising, but I never regret how I feel after getting those extra steps in. And it felt extra rewarding to step it up for 2A Giving this September.  

Research from Iowa State University confirmed a hunch that too much sitting can do a real number on morale, so the 2A Giving team came up with a challenge to boost wellness and productivity, and contribute to our community. This fall, we stepped away from our laptops and got some much-needed exercise in an agency-wide competition to support four incredible community organizations: Page Ahead, Washington Building Leaders of Change, Shoes that Fit, and No Kid Hungry.

Who doesn’t love a win-win?  

As one of the Step It Up for 2A Giving participants I can tell you, with all the WFH-induced extra screen time and homemade banana bread I’d indulged in, I was happy to have a little extra motivation to exercise. 

In a fierce national competition, 2A collectively logged enough steps to travel 3,234 miles! That’s like walking from Seattle to Oaxaca, Mexico, or about 6,648,388 steps.  

Wellness experts say the best kind of movement starts with, you guessed it, movement. It’s all about picking an exercise you like and sticking with it. If you hate treadmills or hiking don’t do it. Choose downhill skiing, Zumba, quiet neighborhood walks, or cycling instead. 2A team members engaged in a wide variety of exercises to meet their step goals and shared fun photos of their workout journeys in action.  

Along the way, we all discovered that making the decision to exercise was a lot easier than following through. Here’s how 2A team members found their motivation to get moving and stay consistent:   

 My “To Do” list stares up at me from my desk every day. Running is always on the list, and I’ve tricked myself into thinking that it’s just as important as anything else on the list. I also add exercise to my work calendar to make sure I fit it in before, during, or after work. Once I’m outside, I never regret it. I often think of solutions to challenges or have creative breakthroughs while I’m exercising. I bring my phone to take notes, so I don’t forget fresh ideas. Sometimes I walk; sometimes I run. Who cares?! I love the way I feel after! I get to cross something off my list and do something good for my body, mind, and soul. It’s never too late to Step it Up!  

Liz Mangini, 2A Consultant 

I recently parted with…almost all of my shoes. As much as I didn’t want to accept it, my feet grew for each baby I grew, and after welcoming three children into the world (two within 6 minutes of each other), my shoes were a literal pain. New shoes for me this year. New shoes for three kids every year. New shoes x new shoes x new shoes x new shoes. New shoes matter. No jungle gym should be unclimbed because their shoes are too tight. No puddle un-stomped because boots are a luxury. When a donation for Shoes that Fit was up for a competitive vote, my partner and I schlepped those strollers and STEPPED IT UP!  

Annie Wegrich, 2A Senior Consultant 

So, make sure to move your eyeballs away from the screens from time to time and keep on stepping it up, friends! The goal of adding movement to your day is to improve your mental and physical health. This feels especially important as the shorter days of winter will soon be upon us.