By Katy Nally

A yearbook chronicles bygone events—campy theater productions, glitter-dusted dances, and sports teams’ hot streaks. But for Annie Unruh, serving as editor in chief of her high school yearbook was less of a wrap up, and more of a surprising beginning. It wasn’t your typical yearbook. Called the Lair, it was award-winning and beefy. Before she knew it, the project had pulled her into the vortex of graphic design and set her on a course to 2A where she continues to use timeless design to capture the present.

Student life

Annie spent many afterschool hours camped out working on the Lair, slaving over page layouts to get portraits and feature stories just right. She even designed a profile story about a classmate’s World of Warcraft mastery that earned an award from the University of Kansas School of Journalism. On another page, she wrote a story about high school students who hang out at Sonic Drive-In because boredom is real! They passed the time slurping down the 44-oz-soda special.

When she heard about a yearbook convention in California, she didn’t hesitate to jump on a plane—it was a golden opportunity to refine her craft (and also get out of Kansas for a while).

Career superlatives

After getting a taste of California, Annie headed back to pursue a bachelor’s in fine arts at Chapman University in Orange. With her freshly minted degree in graphic design, and solid experience in print design, she landed a few gigs after college that pushed her skills further:

• Most modern Uno card game design? Annie’s.
• Most helpful Los Angeles County Metro brochure? Annie’s.
• Best newsletter rebrand for T-Mobile sales associates? Annie’s.

Annie collected credentials all along the West Coast, designing websites, apps, posters, swag, and animations for sole-proprietors and large enterprises alike. At T-Mobile, she worked as a graphic designer and communication specialist, finding ingenious ways to incorporate the patented magenta into onboarding swag and solve communications problems through design. But 2A won her over with the opportunity to take on a broad range of projects—like award-worthy sock graphics—and enter new territory with non-corporate clients—like Colombian artist Juan Manuel Echavarria.

She’s also steadily taken on more responsibility within the 2A design team. An insatiable reader, she’s devoured books about how to achieve a harmonious workplace culture, and how to run an efficient meeting. Annie doesn’t hesitate to apply her newfound knowledge, which has helped her team grow together.

Extra curriculars

Management books are just a subsection of Annie’s extensive library. Her extra-curricular schedule includes all the books the library is willing to loan her, in addition to scenic bike rides and queer events around Seattle. Her appetite for reading usually doubles as her breakfast companion—you might find her in the morning charging through a new memoir, its pages held open by the plate in front of her. Only halfway through the year and Annie is well on her way to best her 2018 total of 42 books read.

Need a designer who can give your work the timeless sheen of a yearbook? Just look up Annie (she’s on page 4) waiting for your heartfelt note about enjoying the summer.

By Kaily Serralta

As a new consultant at 2A, I’m learning that thinking on my feet is a key part of my role. Now, “thinking on your feet” is commonly used as an expression to describe being agile in thought. But there’s also research to support a literal interpretation about how being upright and mobile improves creativity and problem solving.

All of this has me thinking, does my choice in shoes hurt my ability to think on my feet? 

Put your best foot forward

In his New Yorker article, Ferris Jabar addresses why walking helps us think better. He explains that walking “promotes new connections between brain cells, staves off the usual withering of brain tissue that comes with age, increases the volume of the hippocampus (a brain region crucial for memory), and elevates levels of molecules that both stimulate the growth of new neurons and transmit messages between them.”

Given the leisure of my short, 15-minute commute, I’ve started wearing my tennis shoes to work and carving out time for walking my dog at lunch. The mental break rejuvenates my brain and mood and equips me to put my best foot forward on the next project.

Stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight

Just as walking stimulates creative thought, so does standing. An abundance of articles and research have pinpointed the benefits of standing during the workday, which include getting a boost of energy (always welcomed after a solid lunch at Lost Lake). Since starting at 2A where standing desks raise and lower all day long, I’ve committed to bringing flats or low-heeled shoes to accommodate the ups and downs. When I feel my energy taking a dip, I fight back by standing up, opening the door to fresh, new thoughts.

Walking and standing at work has literally helped me think on my feet. Whether it’s stepping away for fresh air or moving my desk up to stand, I appreciate those moments of comfort that remind me to take care of my feet.

Got a project that could use some fast thinking or fresh steps? We’re ready to lace up and jump in!

By Kelly Schermer

A lot of people think improv is about doing something you haven’t prepared for, but that description doesn’t really do it justice. Improv does require you to prepare, just not in ways you expect. 

Last year, 2A embraced an improv work culture that started out with a half-day training led by Bridget Quigg and Anya Jepsen. Since then our team has incorporated aspects of improv into weekly team meetings, manager check-ins, and team-building events (Seen Jet City’s Matchelorette, yet? We have!). 

Through practice and preparation, we’ve identified a few ways that the improv work style makes us more joyful, curious, engaged—overall, better at our jobs!

1.  Committing to improv ignites action

Improv is about being in the moment and committing to a shared reality you create with someone. It’s childlike and completely brilliant—think fresh air tickling your brain synapses.

The key is to turn off your editor, listen with your whole body, and let yourself respond. Some improv professionals refer to this as allowing yourself to “be average” or “trending toward action.” Whatever you call it, the point is to consistently contribute. Don’t hold back waiting for the “perfect” contribution.

The improv work style encourages you to trust that by engaging, you will be able to create/access/understand what you need in the moment. 

2. Turning your fall into a jump gets you farther, faster

Embracing an improv work style requires taking risks that may lead to something less than polished awesomeness, but that’s the point. Failing is essential to moving forward because every fail offers valuable lessons. The trick is to create a culture that doesn’t treat failing like a setback or an embarrassment.

When the neighborhood kids climb trees together, they constantly remind each other to turn their fall into a jump. By making falling part of their process, they have made it easier to let go of the embarrassment of the fall and embrace what they learned from it instead. No surprise the ones who shrug it off and keep trying climb higher, faster.

Much the same way, an improv work culture teaches you to grow comfortable with the fact that you’re going to fail. Expect it. Embrace it. Normalize it. Then turn it into a big leap forward.

3.  Building on others’ ideas builds trust

Many academic and company cultures tend to endorse the type of critical thinking that points out flaws in ideas—the “no, because” philosophy. While it can make you seem smart in the moment, “no, because” blocks collaboration, creativity, and inhibits participation.

Judy: “Let’s make the GIF a space cat!”
Me: “No, because cats are overused.”

On the flip slide, improv’s “yes, and” philosophy lays the groundwork for trust and teamwork. It encourages listening, collaborating, and engaging with one another through the act of acknowledging what someone else offers and building on it.

Judy: “Let’s make the GIF a space cat!”
Me: “Yes, let’s make the GIF about a space cat that needs AI to navigate the space shuttle.”

A fear of failure has trained many of us to prepare a response to a specific problem before we engage. However, the improv work culture teaches that when we prepare ourselves to fully engage, take risks, and build on one another’s ideas we can uncover new levels of richness that we could never reach alone.

If you’re looking to infuse your work style with a big shot of energy, laughter, and growth, what about giving improv a try?

(Psssst, the answer is “yes, and….”)

By Kelly Schermer

You know how some people need other people to make music? Well, Gary Bacon isn’t one of those people. This one-man-band by night is our Gary-of-all-trades by day. In his role as a motion graphic designer for 2A, Gary echoes the team’s collaborative approach by pitching in where he’s needed. From sketching out storyboards to getting his hands in audio mixing, Gary enjoys tuning his wide range of skills. As for the rest of us, Gary turns up the volume on our workday with his no-nonsense perspective, inside leads on local bands, and witty zingers.

Self-made animator, care of Alaska

Growing up in Anchorage, Alaska, Gary dreamed about making watercolor and color pencil illustrations for album covers and for editorial pieces in Rolling Stone. He earned his BFA in design with a focus on illustration at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. Post-graduation Gary made the leap from watercolor illustrations to multi-media animations by tinkering with Photoshop and After Effects outside of work. Clearly, we’re not talking about your average tinkering, though….

ADDY-fied proof we’ve got good taste

Over the past two decades, Gary has built a strong retail marketing portfolio that includes national commercials and award-winning animations. In 2014, he won an ADDYs award from the American Advertising Federation for a campaign of 14 spots he did for Mutual of Enumclaw Insurance (our bigfoot favorite). Today, he uses his talent for motion design to enhance 2A storytelling. Through collaboration with teammates and clients, Gary turns complex ideas into shape, color, and sound that we all can experience. 

The goings-on outside the workday

Think a guy like this relaxes in front of his TV? No way. In his off time, Gary plays music, barbeques pizza, and designs band posters (dream gig? checkmate!). It’s no surprise he taught himself guitar, drums, bass, and currently dabbles in modular synthesis, hence, the one-man band. And while he would love to write enough for an album someday, he’s committed to letting the music happen—alone or with fellow musicians.

Around the office, we all love a good jam session with Gary and the chance to hear about his latest interests. Not to mention, his uncanny knack for using motion and music to strike the right chord. So, the next time you’re looking to add some zing to a project with a little animated inspiration, we know just the guy! 

By Veronique Serruya

I flew down to Berkeley a couple weeks ago, super excited to do a four-day workshop called Matrix Leadership. True to form, even though I had never done any group work, I was confident I would be a natural. After all, I am a people person. I thrive in groups. Groups love me.

We began a particularly eye-opening activity by identifying the roles we take in groups. Turns out, I’m a producer, manager, initiator, organizer, facilitator, and includer. See a pattern? My list was all about DOING. Then we were invited to take on a role outside of our typical patterns. For me it was the witness, which I thought was the sit-back-and-just-watch role.

Two things happened as I accepted this challenge. One, I began to panic and realized that group work terrifies me because I’m scared of being excluded if I’m not in control. And two, a fellow group member said “oh! I’ll be the blurter then!” (which apparently means I’m more full-throttle and expressive in my doing roles than I thought I was). Anxiety aside, the witness role exposed me to a whole new perspective on how groups function as a single organism. I learned how the role I take influences the group, and likewise, how the group influences me. 

If you want to boost your group work intelligence, I highly recommend taking on a new role. For doers who try out being a witness, here are some tips to ease the transition.  

Slow down! Let the group set its own the pace  

As I sat there watching and listening to everyone else ebb and flow in the group, I realized I tend to miss this. I am normally moving too fast, tacking onto someone else’s idea, inviting someone else to say something—keeping the pace fast. What I noticed was that some people feel more comfortable with a slower pace. And when you let a silence naturally happen, something always flows in. 

By giving others a chance to contribute in their own time I saw the rhythm of a healthy group. Not honoring that can lead to conflict.

Speak up! Don’t sulk on the sidelines

At one point the group dynamic was flowing and I did not feel in agreement with it. I was frustrated that I could not interject (code word: blurt). I started distancing myself from the group and then felt excluded. But once the facilitator asked me if I had anything I wanted to add, I said my piece and it was well received. That’s when I realized I had been excluding myself, not the other way around.

Every member of the group has valuable contributions to make, and not speaking isn’t the same as adding nothing.

Check in! Get in touch with your biases

Being the ever-vigilant doer in groups, I thought I was always one of the most inclusive people. Once I was able to see the natural flow of things, I realized I had several biases that fed my underlying judgements. I used to think fast is always better than slow, and people who sit back in a group simply have nothing to say. Only once I detected these filters, was I able to examine them and see how they colored my actions and reactions to others. 

Differentiation within a group is normal and healthy. But being unaware of your biases can create conflict and, more importantly, prevent seeing things from a new angle.

Try it! A new role offers new insights

The idea of being a witness seemed a little scary. Yet once I took on that role, I noticed it had some advantages. As a blurter, I spend a good portion of time analyzing my conversations with people to waylay my anxieties over whether I offended anyone, cut them off, or made them feel uncomfortable.   As a witness I didn’t have any of that responsibility and I could take the time to carefully choose my words before, well, blurting.   

It doesn’t matter who takes which role, but they need to be filled to sustain the group organism. Changing your role helps you grow your leadership skills while contributing to the collective intelligence of the group.

While shaking up our routine roles provides an opportunity to see the world from someone else’s viewpoint, it also helps us feel more connected to others. This allows for more congruence and less conflict in the group. So, to all my fellow doers: being the witness ain’t so bad. Take it from a (newly) self-aware blurter.

By Nick Dwyer

Clutching his AK-47, the lead ranger motioned for us to stop. We froze in silence as another ranger slashed a path through the dense jungle with a machete. Finally, it was time. After seven hours of bushwhacking, covered in mud and soaked in rain, my wife and I came face to face with a family of wild mountain gorillas in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

Hiking to see the few remaining wild mountain gorillas is fortunately very regulated, and my one-day gorilla trekking permit set me back $600. This didn’t include airfare, lodging, and all the other costs associated with traveling to rural Uganda. Expensive, but less than half of the $1,500 that Rwanda charges for an equivalent permit in a neighboring forest just over the border.

So why the big price difference? The answer lies in marketing. Infamous for the horrific Rwandan genocide in 1994, Rwanda is making big moves to transform its image into a stronger and more stable nation. The country completely banned plastic bags in 2008 and requires all citizens to clean up public spaces once a month. It’s working—cities are clean, infrastructure is strong, and traffic is orderly. Police officers stand along every major street, contributing to a sense of stability but also state control.

These characteristics and policies, all unusual for Sub-Saharan Africa, are designed in part to make outsiders notice. Aspiring to become a high-income country by 2050, Rwanda is making marketing decisions to appeal to more high-end investors and tourists. They know that price can be an indicator of perceived value and are betting higher prices will make their gorilla treks more sought after. While the price for a gorilla trek in Rwanda was too rich for my blood, so far the strategy is working: when celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres and Natalie Portman went to Africa to see wild gorillas, they went to Rwanda. Tactics like these have helped the land of a thousand hills become one of the Africa’s fastest growing economies.  

While my experience merely scratches the surface of a complex country still rife with issues, I’ve realized that you can learn about almost anything by analyzing it through a marketing lens—including the marketplace for wild gorilla treks. Even when I am on vacation, I’m still a marketing consultant.

Need a fresh perspective on your 800-pound marketing problem? Reach us at [email protected].

By Laurie Krisman

Last week, Satya Nadella kicked off Build 2019, Microsoft’s annual conference for the developer community, by announcing a brand-worthy array of new technologies and a renewed commitment to end-user privacy. The event aspired to empower all developers—from experienced computer scientists to novices just beginning to dip their feet into the waters of tech.

The message? Artificial intelligence isn’t coming. It’s here.

Just ahead of Build, Microsoft released a slew of new tools and capabilities in Azure AI for developers and data scientists, including Ink Recognizer, which lets developers embed digital handwriting recognition and a conversation transcription capability that transcribes conversations in real time. In his keynote address, Eric Boyd, corporate vice president of Azure AI, foreshadowed the importance of these innovations and talked though real-world use cases like Microsoft’s collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

2A’s human intelligence team was thrilled to pitch in and design Eric’s keynote presentation. Our designers, storytellers, and consultants built a series of graphics, animations, and icons that brought the compelling story of Azure AI—cognitive services, bot development, machine learning and more—to life. Then we worked with the team to integrate paid social and booth collateral into their event.

At 2A, we are inspired by Microsoft AI’s mission to create what comes next. And we were thrilled to hear feedback that the keynote successfully landed with an audience of over 6,000 people at Build 2019!

Need some help crafting a meaningful story for your next event? 2A is here to help!

By Kelly Schermer

There’s something irresistible about digital marketing (i.e. marketing through channels like email, social media, apps, games, texts, etc.). Not only does it price well under non-digital methods and give companies instant access to global customers, but it also offers the promise of going viral. Yummm, viral…

In order to cash in on digital, though, you need a plan for how to integrate it into your overall marketing strategy and stay rooted to your brand. This can be especially tricky for startups that don’t have deep pockets (or any pockets). Our team at 2A has an inside track on helping entrepreneurs get the most out of their digital marketing.  Recently, we released our channel-first strategy into the wild as guest lecturers to the Masters of Science in Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Washington.

The first step requires you to define a channel-first digital strategy. Here are some tips for how to do that well:

Understand the landscape

Digital channels are the ways you reach customers such as email, website, paid ads, social, etc. Not to be confused with platforms, which are the tools or services that allow you to share content in a channel. For example, if social media is the channel, popular platforms include Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Channels hardly get the same press that platforms do, so it’s easy to overlook the implied channel choice you’re making when you jump straight to a platform. But not all channels are right for every startup and investing in a platform on the wrong channel can be a lose-lose.

Choose channels worth your time

While digital marketing has a lower sticker price than many other types of marketing, it still isn’t free—especially in terms of time.

When evaluating channel options, consider the cost of setup and upkeep to ensure you can sustain the activity. Activities that seem easy at the beginning, such as building an Instagram page, might end up costing you a lot in time (for daily posting) and money (for just-right images). Similarly, activities that seem time-intensive and expensive to start, like an automated email series, could be nearly hands-off once you get it up and running.

It’s important to pick channels that:

1. Your customers prefer to use
2. Make sense with your business model, and
3. You can maintain with the resources you have.

Once you’ve decided on your channel, the platforms you can choose from become more obvious.  Now it’s time to dig in and vet those platforms to find the one where your target audience is most active. 

Not only does a channel-first strategy help you narrow down your platform choices, but it also helps you tune in (and out!) the “hot marketing tips” that could be useful for your brand…which bring use to the last point.

Stay true to your strategy

As a startup, you’re going to get lots of good advice on marketing tricks you HAVE TO TRY. By following the channel-first approach, you’ll be able to confidently evaluate the inside scoop you get from your buddy (or the New York Times). 

Hot marketing tip: “MegaMouth quadrupled sales through Instagram! You have to be there!”

Your channel-first strategy: Our customers are more active on email than social, and we have the bandwidth to reach out via weekly emails (versus twice daily posts), so we’ll start with email and re-evaluate in six months.

Your response: “I’ve heard good things about Insta too, but the social channel isn’t right for us right now. Our channel strategy is focused on email, and we chose Constant Contact for our platform because we like the automation features they offer.”      

As a startup, the trick to digital marketing is to balance your reach against your resources to keep from overextending yourself—and a solid digital channel strategy goes a long way to help with that.

Find this useful? Want to hear the next step on creating digital marketing content to align with the phases of your customers’ journey? Let us know, and we’ll keep blogging!

By Clinton Bowman

What a season. The English Premier League—the world’s most popular soccer league—is nearing the end of one of the most memorable seasons in recent memory. Fans are enraptured by a months-long battle royale between two of soccer’s strongest teams, Liverpool and Manchester City. It has come down to the final weekend of games to decide who will win the league title and lift the coveted sterling silver trophy overhead.

While many captivating stories played out in this banner year—like this game-stopping furry pitch invader that brought one stadium to a standstill—the most memorable moment for me was seeing my first game in the flesh. After five years of following the Premier League and nearly a year of planning, three friends and I made the trek to London to watch the storied game, known as the North London Derby, between London rivals Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur. While the team I support, Arsenal (go, Gunners!), ultimately drew with Tottenham at the final whistle, it still felt like a win for us Seattleites. The nine-hour flight, and cost of tickets and hotels didn’t dishearten us in the least.

We were so enamored with our experience, despite neither side winning, that we committed to do it again next year. Are we soccer fanatics? Quite possibly. But it goes deeper than that. Looking back on that weekend in London, I can’t help but appreciate how the storytelling of the Premier League’s brand lured me to super fandom.

Until 2012, most Americans could not readily access the Premier League. While sports fans may have known the name Ronaldo or that some guy named Beckham could really bend it, hardly anyone paid much mind to English soccer. That all changed when the Premier League inked a deal with NBC Sports. Americans were given a front row seat to the best soccer on the planet and like other Anglo-imports such as the British Invasion, New Wave, and Downton Abbey, we ate it up.

With a platform on American tellys, the Premier League had an outlet to educate Americans on the values and heritage of the clubs and the league itself. Before kick-offs commentators would regale viewers about the club’s rich history or meaning of the rivalry match told over decades of footage, effectively making their history ours. Through storytelling, they positioned each club as full of lore, rich with tradition, and even familiar. They bet that we Americans would fall in love with Premier League not only because of the athleticism, but because they had beautiful narratives to share—narratives we could easily make our own.

While 2A hasn’t done branding work for the Premier League (at least, not yet), we approach the challenge in much the same way. From new businesses to established enterprises, we help our clients demonstrate their value and create captivating stories to support brands. Because what businesses wouldn’t want their customers to find a similar, fly-across-the-world bliss in their brand?

By Katy Nally

Anyone who can make up a song about tacos just to entertain his Dachshund-mix, Remi, clearly speaks the language of storytelling. And no matter the medium—dog songs, data sheets, designer cocktails—Clinton Bowman taps his inherent skills for seeing the creative and strategic angles of each story to craft the perfect arc.

Photography was Clinton’s creative outlet growing up in Oklahoma. And it’s where his adventures in storytelling began, learning to capture the right image in the right moment to make an impact. His hobby eventually snowballed into an education at Oklahoma City University where Clinton earned his BFA in photography with a minor in advertising. After being selected as a young artist winner, he accepted the opportunity to tour the country and show his photos, starting at the Smithsonian.

Catching a glimpse of the museum side of things, Clinton quickly craved more. He worked as an exhibit manager, falling in love with nonprofit management, then went on to accept a prized fellowship with the Kennedy Center in DC. In his new role he drew on his storytelling chops, this time writing tug-on-your-heartstrings narratives for fundraising. Instead of capturing the perfect moment with his camera, he captured donor empathy with words.

Through the MBA program at UW’s Foster School of Business, Clinton took his background in nonprofit management to the next level, graduating with solid marketing expertise. He was attracted to 2A as a place where his creative yin could finally merge with its strategic yang. He loves the chance to problem solve for clients and devise marketing solutions, using his storytelling powers to craft the perfect one-liner for Microsoft Dynamics, and sum up the complexities of AI in a compelling datasheet.

Clinton continues to push the boundaries of his repertoire by mastering new storytelling languages—these days he’s focused on recipes in the pursuit of a homemade tagliatelle and Bolognese, and the perfect gin martini.

So the next time you need a consultant with a creative eye to sculpt your business strategy or even perk up your pup, bring in Clinton for a pow wow with the bow wow.