By Katy Nally

If you believe in string theory or just enjoy a good sci-fi plot, then you’ll appreciate the truth about our consultant Kyung. The truth is, somewhere in our vast multiverse, there’s a parallel version of him working as a surgeon in New York City. There’s another Kyung slinging pizza dough near the Jersey Shore. And still another, scrambling his way up Mount Rainier as you read this. 

In a lucky twist of fate, we got the Kyung who made a life-altering pivot in college that set him on a course through startups, digital media groups, and finally 2A. 

Shoes make the marketer and leave their mark 

It all started when he fell in love with some shoes. Not just any shoes—Air Jordans. In elementary school, Kyung first encountered them and realized their magic went deeper than just apparel. He noticed that wearing Jordans conveyed a broader message to people. It was his first taste of marketing and it set in motion a miraculous chain of events. 

When Kyung went to college, he planned to study medicine. But halfway through, the universe pulled him in a different direction. He dusted off his memories of the Jordans and dove headfirst into marketing. After graduating, Kyung cast a wide net, landing his first gig as a PR intern at a men’s fashion publication. 

Big startup energy at Noom 

From there, he seized the attention of a startup in New York City’s Silicon Alley. Kyung joined Noom before it reached 100 employees, working directly with the CEO and founder on the growth marketing team. He ran A/B testing for Facebook ads to spread the word about Noom and recruit new health and wellness influencers. He also helped improve reviews of the product to incorporate better SEO and position Noom higher in search results. 

While Kyung enjoyed the daily catered lunches, he wanted a marketing role that offered more breadth, so he began searching. Then destiny presented him with an opening at the Jun Group. 

The merry-go-round of digital advertising 

For five years, Kyung worked with some of the world’s biggest brands to create digital advertising campaigns and increase conversion rates. When Jun Group sellers needed to pitch companies like General Mills, Target, and Kraft, they’d first go to Kyung for tailored marketing materials. As a content strategist, he developed sales enablement assets to show off Jun Group’s differentiators so the agency could win new business. 

Life was good at his NYC job. That is, until the pandemic hit. 

Stories sparkle with the right data 

With ties to Washington, Kyung left the Big Apple and moved to Seattle. After a few months, he found his next gig, at Indeed. It was a departure from the world of digital ads, but it gave him a crash course in market research. As a senior content specialist, he searched for hiring trends in the retail and hospitality industries, paired them with proprietary Indeed data, and packaged them in a deck or whitepaper for customers. 

As it turned out, finding and developing stories for a particular audience was exactly the steppingstone he needed to land at 2A. 

All signs point to 2A 

And here we have the Kyung you know and love—built moment by moment, from a thousand different experiences that led him to be your consultant. If you want to see your marketing unfold with Kyung, let’s chat. 

By Katy Nally, Kelly Schermer

Image by Nicole Todd

We name stuff funny. We call our monthly meeting that showcases cool projects Circle Time, the special Friday once a month when the office is closed, FriYAY, and the slide outline made up of little squares, chiclets. So, it’s probably no surprise that we call our company values, Words we work by (WWWB).  

We think of WWWB as our North Star—the guiding light we use to help us keep what’s great about 2A while we grow. Our WWWB also allow us to build a collective identity as a team so new people come on board faster. 

Curious yet? Please say yes, we would really love to share them.    

• We’re helpful: When it comes to work, we’re not afraid to roll up our sleeves. Whether it’s colleagues or clients, we all pitch in to get it done and help everyone thrive.  
  We know that teamwork makes the dream work >> 
• We’re serious about our work: We show up to do the work, and we commit to doing it well. We give each project the effort it needs.  
  We’ll show you how serious we are >> 
• We tack toward improvement: There’s always room to get better, and that’s where we’re headed. We experiment, learn, and prioritize to challenge our path.  
  We’re still a work in progress >> 
• We work to build trust: A foundation of trust with a diverse community of colleagues and clients makes our days and our work better. We’re curious and proactive about building trust.  
  We love a good trust fall >> 

The secret to 2A’s high-quality work and engaging culture lies in our WWWB. Because really, Where Would We Be without them?  

By Jane Dornemann

Image by Suzanne Calkins

Wheelin’ and dealin’ 

• You win some, you lose some: Xerox is moving its legacy data-center workloads to Azure, which unfortunately doesn’t involve photocopying body parts and leaving the prints for other attorneys to discover (like when my dad used to take us to his office as kids: “It’s making people very uncomfortable, you have to stop”). Meanwhile, the Broad Institute at MIT is not renewing its Azure contract, with a TBD on where it goes next. 
• Microsoft has stepped down from its non-voting observer seat on OpenAI’s board. So, it gave up its role of doing nothing but getting the tea. Speculators say the OpenAI seat will go to an Apple executive following a recent deal between the two companies. And this might sting a little, but OpenAI is selling more of its AI models than Microsoft is. 
• That’s OK because Microsoft is busy making its own deals—starting with Adept, a young AI startup. I went to Adept’s website and I still have no idea what the company does. DM me if you can explain it like I’m five years old.
• Microsoft led a $40M investment in Armada, which provides off-grid, satellite-connected modular centers that customers can buy through Azure. Is this like the prepper of the tech world? 
• Criteo is collaborating with Microsoft Advertising. TL;DR: they’re using and selling each other’s products to retailers.
• Deloitte will use Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker in its products to help clients “augment their workflows.” Does anyone want their workflows augmented? I don’t. 
• After agreeing to essentially contract out its cloud services so Microsoft can keep offering generative AI, wouldntyaknowit, Oracle’s Autonomous Database has become available on Azure.
• Digital mapmaker TomTom signed a long-term deal with Microsoft to bring its maps and traffic data to Azure Maps and other Microsoft products. 

Gossip (for nerds) 

• AWS is investigating whether or not Perplexity AI has been “scraping” websites that have tried to block the practice. Scraping, which in this case is not about cleaning out your bong with an unbent paper clip, is the act of extracting data for things like market research or content analysis. And it’s forbidden by AWS. Because Perplexity is an AWS customer, it must adhere to the cloud provider’s rules. Do as I say, not as I do, I guess.
• AWS, Google, and Microsoft are among several tech companies calling for industry-wide adoption of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), a statement of greenhouse gas emissions that’s verified by a third party. 
• This is funny because some Amazon and AWS employees past and present are calling the company’s sustainability claims cap. (See how familiar I am with the lingo of today’s youth? How sigma of me). There have been walkouts and accusations of “creative accounting.” (I know someone who creatively accounted 34 times, but I’ll tell you about it later.) 
• Microsoft is scrapping the underwater data center it started in 2013, and in the same breath the spokesperson was basically like, “It worked, but also it didn’t work.” That last part I could have told you for free. 

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

• By now, you know the details of the CrowdStrike/Microsoft debacle that affected almost nine-million devices—and ruined vacations, halted flights, stopped surgeries, paused banking, and crapped on emergency services. If you don’t, then you’ve been living under a rock, and I suggest you return to that rock because things are rough out here. 
• After advising customers to reboot at least 15 times to solve the issue, Microsoft and CrowdStrike realized that they’ll need to write some very large checks. (On top of the $22M settlement it paid to EU regulators for something else…. And also the $14M settlement it paid to California after penalizing workers who took medical or family care leave.) But, more importantly, the “blue screen of death” is looking like a solid Halloween costume right now. 
• It wasn’t just the faulty CrowdStrike update that caused problems: Azure and Microsoft 365 customers experienced a separate outage stemming from the Central US region, which greatly affected airlines. Let’s pour one out for anyone who had a plane ticket this past week. 

World domination 

• Microsoft is offering Chinese businesses a loophole to get around OpenAI’s exclusion of Chinese customers (even those using VPNs). But the US won’t allow China to access this advanced technology for long, because we can be next-level savage like that. 
• In the meantime, Microsoft is worming its way into Hong Kong schools by incorporating OpenAI into education services.
• Chile will soon have more than one of the world’s largest swimming pools—it will brag about a second AWS data center in 2026. And in Australia, AWS is building a high-security data center for the down-under government in a $2B, 10-year, top-secret project. This means nobody knows the location, except we do: it’s in the Outback, because where else would you secretly build a data center? 
• To get more public agencies on board with generative AI, AWS is doing what it does best: throwing money at it. The company announced a $50M investment in its Public Sector Impact Initiative, which is mostly about giving promotional credits to the government to use solutions like Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Q. 
• Remember that $1.5B investment Microsoft made in G42, an United Arab Emirates–based AI company? Republican lawmakers want to know what’s up with that. They demand info and they demand it NOW. Microsoft is all like, CHILL OUT we care about security…can’t you tell? 
• Google is giving off some big Pick Me energy, per my last leaked memo. In a 500M Euro effort to lure European cloud companies away from Microsoft, the companies stuck with Microsoft anyway. Google’s incentive was offered on the condition that the companies held their ground on the anti-trust allegations against Microsoft. Does anyone have some soap, because this is DIRTY. 

New stuff 

• AWS Graviton4 Cloud Processors for EC2 R8g are now generally available; AWS claims the combo is more energy efficient and more powerful—and they have receipts. AWS is also developing an even more powerful AI chip, Trainium3, which will compete with NVIDIA’s family of Blackwell chips. AWS is preparing its data centers for increased demand—such as using liquid-cooling and cold-plate technology. So much for net-zero by 2040. 
• Amazon Q can provide customer service agents with step-by-step guides on how to handle customer calls, and never in my life have I wanted an AI to hallucinate in any given scenario. “Step 3: Tell customer your butt itches and to please hold while you scratch it. Step 4: Hang up.” 
• AWS is also throwing credits at startups, again, to win market share away from Microsoft. 
• Welcome, App Studio! It’s the newest generative AI solution from AWS that promises to build you an app based on a written prompt. Why do I feel like this will be used for evil? 
• Avoiding all hyperbole, Automation Anywhere is “automating the impossible” using Azure OpenAI Service. Does that mean it will automate Elon Musk’s donations to food banks? 

Professional pivots 

• NVIDIA hired Howard Wright, formerly AWS VP and Global Head of Startups, to lead its startup ecosystem.
• Google has hired two executives away from competitors: Saurabh Tiwary, formerly of Microsoft’s Copilot arm, and Raj Pai, formerly of the EC2 arm at AWS. They’ll help lead Google’s cloud-based AI business. 

Best friends forever 

• AWS, Microsoft, Intel, Google, and other puppeteers of humanity have joined the Fintech Open Source Foundation, which aims to “enhance the financial service industry’s technology ecosystem through open-source initiatives.” (Because what banks need is more free shit.) In partnership with financial institutions, the foundation will set common standards. 
• I scream, you scream, we all scream for ISVs! Browse Microsoft’s 2024 Partners of the Year. 
• SourceFuse earned AWS Premier Tier Services Partner status. 
• CCL, a provider of IT and hybrid cloud services, is the first launch partner for Microsoft’s New Zealand cloud region.
• Soracom, a provider of advanced IoT connectivity, has joined the AWS ISV Accelerate program. 
• Telco Systems’ Edgility platform passed the AWS Foundational Technical Review validation for AWS IoT Greengrass and has joined the AWS Partner Network. 
• New to AWS Marketplace: Observo AI, which creates security and observability data pipelines. 

Additions to Azure Marketplace 

• Raffle AI, which specializes in chat assistants and search technology. 
• Adaptive’s Aeron, a suite of low-latency messaging tools for financial traders. 
• NIQ’s Activate platform, which provides insights for retailers and CPG companies.
• ClickHouse Cloud, which gives Azure customers options for deploying and managing their analytics workloads.
• SureImpact Nonprofit, which helps charities measure outcomes. 
• Forescout’s Risk and Exposure Management Solution. 

By Andrea Swangard

Image by Julianne Medenblik

Our new storyteller, Jack, was on a pre-med path when he took a creative writing workshop to fulfill a prerequisite—and then couldn’t stop thinking about it. When the night before a science midterm found him writing a story instead of studying for his exam, he realized this was a new passion and it was time to switch gears. After earning a degree in English, Jack pursued an MFA in writing and started teaching freshman composition. Jack was gratified to see the writing abilities of his students improve, but he also ended up serving as a quasi-career counselor when some of his students experienced that familiar cathartic moment: They’d taken the class to fulfill a requirement, had grown to love writing (due in no small part to their enthusiastic teacher), and wanted to change their majors. 

From teaching to taglines… 

After Jack had settled into teaching full time, COVID-19 arrived and changed everything. With classes that were now fully remote and burdened by a complicated teaching structure, students were distracted and making progress was a challenge. Jack missed the in-person connections and more collaborative spirit of the pre-COVID days, so he determined it was time for another change. He missed his creative writing era and found that several authors he liked were copywriters. So, he decided to explore that path. 

A part-time job for a friend’s digital marketing business led to a full-time gig at a legal firm, where Jack researched and wrote blogs, social media posts, and emails. Another experience found Jack working with a software development company on a global rebrand, writing the company’s new tagline and collaborating to develop its voice and tone. After the rebrand, Jack felt like he had completed a quest and was ready for his next adventure. Fortunately for us, he landed at 2A! With an abundance of writing and research experience—and a talent for inspiring an audience—Jack found a great fit for his skills. 

…and fiction to fermentation 

While Jack spends a lot of time reading (fiction is a favorite), he also loves to hang out in the kitchen. Jack is passionate about experimentation, whether tinkering with fermentation recipes or perfecting his sourdough. According to Jack, “There’s something exciting about combining the right ingredients to create something great, especially if it requires attention to detail and precise timing, like fermenting or preserving foods.” This devotion to solution seeking, and the research and analysis that often accompany it, also influences Jack’s work. He thoughtfully evaluates an objective to find a combination of ingredients that makes clients respond with a chef’s kiss. Whether you’re seeking an appetizer-sized story or cooking up a complicated spread, Jack dives in with gusto to get it right. 

By Richa Dubey

Image by Suzanne Calkins

Dear Client, 

You already know there’s more to marketing than using buzzwords and hoping for the best. (Take a bow, large language models.) However, IDKIYK, that is, “I don’t know if you know” but we excel at using the kind of language that speaks to your audience—from Gen Z to technology partners.  

Let’s talk industry speak in vertical marketing. We’ve seen a profusion of buzzwords, like quantamental investment and precision medicine in this context. However, for effective marketing, it isn’t enough to just know the lexicon and how it’s used. You need an understanding of the industry. What are the current challenges? What are the prime drivers? How is it modernizing? Is it heavily regulated? What supporting role does technology play?  

Beyond that, you also need to reflect your organization’s technology offerings and incorporate your brand voice (deployment of generative artificial intelligence in digital twins, anyone?).  

At 2A we focus on key verticals like financial services and healthcare. From life sciences to manufacturing, and retail to government, we understand the audiences you speak to, the issues that concern them, and the language they relate to. Whether it’s compliance in healthcare, FSI challenges with data residency, or omnichannel customer service in retail, we understand your customers’ concerns. 

Most of all, we understand your organization and audience, and how you want to position your offering in a particular industry vertical. We know that the DNA double helix has a right-handed spin and health insurance companies are called “payors” (not ”payers”). We also recognize that to effectively position your work at Hanover Messe—one of the world’s largest industrial trade fairs with a global audience of about 200,000—you need to use global English that is easily understood by non-native English speakers and will translate well into other languages.   

We back up this understanding with a rigorous process. We research the industry landscape, validate what we know, consult with you to refine the messaging, and interview your partners or customers if required. After we’ve done our research, we use your voice and brand to craft a compelling marketing asset tailored to the needs of your industry-focused audience.   

Check out a sampling of our projects across key AWS verticals. And give us a call if you like what you see.   

We remain industriously yours, 

2A 

By Jane Dornemann

Image by Suzanne Calkins

Wheelin’ and dealin’ 

• NinjaTech AI, which seems like a not-OK name for a company in 2024, is using machine learning chips from AWS for its new service, Ninja. (Wow, they’re really leaning into this.) Ninja can plan and execute (as ninjas sometimes do) everyday tasks such as scheduling meetings, conducting research, and completing coding tasks. I’ve heard humans also do this, but who needs them anymore! 
• HashiCorp and AWS are expanding their strategic collaboration to do stuff like create policy about architecting and configuring Terraform on AWS. You can count me out of that one. I’d rather blow-dry my eyeballs. 
• Will AT&T actually work in my neighborhood now that it’s moving its 5G to Microsoft? Microsoft is acquiring AT&T’s Network Cloud Technology and staff “to eventually handle all of the wireless carrier’s 5G traffic.” It’s worth noting that both AWS and Microsoft are competing for huge telecom clients as the industry deploys new 5G networks, but so far those deals “aren’t yet generating substantial revenue.” 
• MediaTek, a Taiwanese chip designer, is designing an ARM-based chip that will run Microsoft Windows OS. MediaTek stock has risen following this news, and I am willing to bet Nancy Pelosi—I mean her husband—conveniently bought some of that stock on a total whim, just total dumb luck, the week prior. 
• SAP has committed to using three types of AWS chips to support its SAP HANA Cloud. 
• To ensure capacity meets the demands of OpenAI users, Microsoft will run some of its workloads on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.🤯 

Gossip (for nerds) 

• Microsoft, NVIDIA, and OpenAI are facing an antitrust investigation in the US. The goal is to determine if the arrangements among these companies are meant to shut out competition in the AI industry. Apparently, that isn’t plainly obvious and we need a whole investigation for it. 
• Microsoft is cutting around 1,000 jobs in its Azure and HoloLens divisions. It needs to free up resources for AI initiatives. 
• AWS re:Inforce 2024 had a big security theme—what timing, given Microsoft’s highly public flailing and floundering in the space. The cloud provider announced it will push multi-factor authentication and hosted many sessions around security best practices. 

World domination 

• If the government wants to monitor Microsoft’s AI dominance, then the company will just go to Sweden, which has better meatballs anyhows. Microsoft is investing $3.2B to expand its AI infrastructure in places like Staffanstorp, which sounds like one of the houses in Harry Potter. 
• Is AWS the next Eurovision contestant? Break out the mullets and costumes that make you feel weird inside, because the cloud provider is setting up (more) shop in Italy, Spain, and Germany. After dedicating 15.7B Euros to its Spain Region, Germany is ponying up 8.8B Euros to scale its Frankfurt Region and will either expand its Milan data center or build a new one somewhere else in the boot. This is like my semester abroad, but without the absinthe and space brownies!! And without the data centers. Even I had limits. 
• AWS is also launching a Region in Taiwan. This is…a choice that interests me (although, Warren Buffet can be wrong). 
• French telecom provider Orange is partnering with AWS to offer cloud computing in Morocco and Senegal. Orange will use the AWS Wavelength platform and rely on its own data centers to provide services, since these are the only two places on earth that AWS hasn’t stomped on with data centers. YET. 
• Norwegian-owned telecom Telenor Group is using AWS technology to create a sovereign cloud environment. Together, they’ll offer customers security and sovereignty solutions. Also, these dudes look chill and nice, just hangin’ outside corporate HQ talking about Norwegian things like Vikings and fjords. I bet they do cool sovereign stuff. 

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

• Summer is the perfect time for grilling out, and I don’t just mean on the BBQ—Microsoft president Brad Smith was part of a good grilling from the House of Homeland Security Committee following cyberattacks on the federal government. A ProPublica investigation found that Smith and co. ignored important warnings that could have, if heeded, prevented the breach. The government was like Will you PRETTY PLEASE stop doing that shiz and Smith was like YES ALL EMPLOYEES WILL CARE NOW, I PINKY PROMISE. 
• Probably the biggest drama this past month was Microsoft’s “embarrassing” backpedaling of its Recall software on Copilot Plus PC, which can screenshot everything someone does on the new Qualcomm-powered laptops. Researchers labeled it a “security disaster” (Microsoft broke its pinky promise!!) because it makes stealing information a piece of cake for hackers. Microsoft rolled it back “in secret” and is now testing it. Can we just love the fact that a product named “Recall” was recalled? Like, immediately? 
• Well, just cut off that pinky because a researcher found a bug that allows hackers to spoof real Microsoft corporate emails, which means they can send phishing emails using real people’s email addresses. It only works when sending to Outlook addresses, which is only a few hundred million people, so…. (At the time of reporting, the bug hadn’t been patched.) 

Professional pivots 

• Now settled in his new position as CEO of AWS, Matt Garman shared some important details on sales team structure and executive changes. Settling out is Bratin Saha, a former AI general manager at AWS who has worked on Amazon Bedrock and other AI products. He‘s now the chief product and technology officer at DigitalOcean, a nascent but promising cloud competitor, according to analysts. 
• The director of Amazon EC2 product management, Chetan Kapoor, also told AWS peace out after eight years with the company. Nobody knows where he’s going—oh Chetan, you feather in the wind, you. 

New stuff 

• AWS introduced two new AI certifications for professionals who want to serve the AWS overlords build a career in AI. These free or low-cost training courses (Machine Learning Engineer and AI Practitioner) are meant to provide the “lack of expertise” businesses need to deploy and monitor models. 
• Microsoft announced some updates to Microsoft Fabric at Build 2024 that include customized workflows, a new module called Real-Time Intelligence, and the availability of Copilot for Power BI. 
• SAP has integrated its AI Core with foundation models in Amazon Bedrock, which it claims will help businesses improve their ERP platforms by driving efficiency. Gotta drive efficiency—otherwise, why are we on this rock? 
• Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet model is now available in Amazon Bedrock. I was going to throw a party but instead decided to get a cup of water from the kitchen. 
• After I hydrate, maybe I can plan something special to celebrate the fact that Amazon Connect now has an Analytics Data Lake. CAN YOU IMAGINE THE INSIGHTS!?! I want to get hired as a data center analyst so I can create charts that show how many times a day angry customers use the phrases “This is bullshit” and “I’ve been on hold for 40 goddamn minutes” and stuff like that. First stop on the resume train: American Airlines. 
• As we descend into the eighth circle of hell, you’ll find AI-driven contact centers, where tortured souls wait forever to speak with someone but never will. Microsoft is taking Copilot to call centers to help chatbots scan manuals so they can better answer questions and field customer calls. 
• Not that anyone cares, especially me, but it’s now easier to manage the entire machine learning lifecycle if you’re a developer on AWS with the fully managed MLflow on Amazon SageMaker. 
• There are two new previews from Microsoft: a flex consumption plan for Azure Functions and a premium version of Azure Bastion virtual machine. Truly, truly life-changing. 

Best Friends Forever 

• An expanded collaboration between Microsoft and product design software provider Ansys will allow customers to deploy Ansys Access on Azure through the Azure Marketplace. 

By Katy Nally

Image by Jenni Lydell

So you’re in a new [business] relationship and you want to shout it from the rooftops. Congrats! That honeymoon phase always feels good. Now, before you jump to the nearest balcony to reenact Romeo and Juliet, let’s think through the perfect sonnet you should deliver. You’ll need something that captures the better-together essence of your new partnership and makes your joint customers swoon.  

As a B2B marketing agency, we recommend starting with a messaging and positioning framework (MPF) to get the main points just right. An MPF is a perfect way to strip down your story to reveal the top-line benefits customers will experience from your dynamic duo. Then we transform those benefits into pure poetry that would make Neruda proud. The end result is a document that includes key talking points and copy blocks you can pop into any joint marketing content. See for yourself: 

Doing an MPF as the basis for your content strategy makes sure everyone—on both sides of the partnership—agrees on your differentiators and describes the value uniformly. This way, customers hear a persuasive, consistent message from all angles.  

Pop quiz time 

Now that you’re sold on MPFs, take our partnership quiz! You’ll find out which kind of better-together story is best for you and yours. Many of the joint MPFs we create are for ISV partners who want to describe the value of their alliance with a major cloud provider. There are a few ways to do this, and the pillar structure varies a bit, based on how different solutions support one another.  

Bonus—there’s no wrong answer 😊 

Which one best describes you and your partner? 

A) Feeling one sided but enjoying the attention: This framework adapts the partner’s existing messaging by popping in the cloud provider where it makes sense. Think of this one as light on the cloud, heavy on the partner. It slots in cloud benefits where they make sense, giving customers a glimpse into the value of the combined partnership. It’s a good approach if the relationship is a little fraught or tricky to talk about. 

B) Dating but not ready to move in together: This includes one pillar for the partner, one for the cloud provider, and one for both. This structure plays it safe by giving each side a chance to share existing messaging. The combined pillar explains their joint value and elaborates where possible. If the partnership were new, this approach would be a good fit.  

C) Thinking of proposing tomorrow: This uses a structure where each pillar explains the partnership through a major customer benefit. This approach works well when there are a lot of juicy details about how the partner and cloud provider work together. They’ve likely co-developed integrations or POCs and have a roadmap for future work. They generally already have joint customers and it’s easier to pin down the differentiators of their partnership. 

The results are in! 

If you chose A, B, or C, you’re in luck! Our storytellers and consultants would love to learn more about your partnership and spin up an MPF for you. Reach out to learn more. Happy partnering!  

By Andrea Swangard

Image by Nicole Todd

Lights! Camera! Finance?  

With a degree in business, 2A’s motion designer, Jeff, found himself working in the world of finance after graduating from college. While he enjoyed the business of… business, he also wanted to explore his creative side. A major movie lover, Jeff bought a motion camera and started taking freelance jobs filming and editing. Working with a boutique production company filming spec commercials, he steadily gained experience and a passion for creative work. To be clear, Jeff still had a full-time finance job, so he was spending his off hours working this second job, which quickly gained momentum.  

After copious hours of editing film, Jeff became obsessed with motion graphics, designing stylish video overlays, beautiful backgrounds, and snazzy transitions. Experimenting with various design software opened the door to a world where anything was possible. Jeff dove headfirst into learning all things motion design via the School of Motion and a multitude of animation boot camps. He soon parlayed his experience and talent into full-time work as an agency designer—check out a very cool 3D racecar project Jeff created for IBM. 

Calling the shots on the field and on the job 

Fun fact about Jeff—he played lacrosse in high school and coached it for six years! At one point, Jeff was working a finance job, taking freelance film and design work, and acting as head coach of a high school team—all at the same time. Needless to say, Jeff has no shortage of energy. One of the many perks of having him at 2A? He is always up for a challenge. 

Jeff’s experience as a coach not only brings a can-do attitude and team-player approach to his work ethic, but contributes to his expertise at negotiating for the best outcome. His calm, level-headed demeanor coupled with a drive to bring his team success was essential for the kids he coached back then, and is a major win for his collaborators and clients at 2A. 

Bringing projects to the next level 

A key aspect of Jeff’s work ethos is considering how to make designs better. In his words, “I love having the opportunity to experiment and push a design further. Perhaps we’ve seen something similar before, so how can we do something different to elevate it?” 

When Jeff’s not busy adding sparkle to 2A design projects, he’s golfing and being a dad to adventurous 4-year-old twins. Whether he’s perfecting his golf game or experimenting with new design techniques, Jeff’s enthusiasm and desire for constant improvement make him an essential part of the passionate 2A team.  

By Nora Bright

Image by Julianne Medenblik

One of my favorite things about 2A’s culture is all the different affinity groups that employees can join to share their interests and identities. Are you a bookworm? Join the Page Turners chat. Want to post adorable pics of your dog? Let’s see it in the Dog Parents chat. But one of the first that came about is particularly close to my heart: the Yellow Ball chat. Let me explain. 

A few months into my first role here as a consultant for the marketing agency, I was struggling with aspects of the role related to my ADHD, such as auditory processing during meetings. I had only been diagnosed a few months before starting my job and was still learning how ADHD both aided and caused challenges for me at work. I realized I needed to ask for help. When I talked about it with Abby, one of 2A’s partners, she went beyond offering me tools and support. She connected me with our managing storyteller, Forsyth (after getting permission from both of us, of course), who has ADHD too. 

Forsyth is an accomplished storyteller with decades of experience (and who also happens to be whip-smart). She can explain the difference between an em and an en dash, tell you all about large language models, and then immediately and seamlessly switch contexts to interview an executive about cloud technology. I was thrilled to find support from someone else with ADHD whose career I admired—and even more excited when she suggested we meet every other week. Our meetings became wonderful opportunities to talk about our work, career successes and setbacks, and joke about our everyday ADHD challenges. 

A few months later, Forsyth and I decided we wanted to share our perspective on working with ADHD with the broader team. As part of 2A’s Diversity Resource Roundtable series, we talked about our own experiences living and working with ADHD and educated our peers on the nature and hurdles of this neurodivergence.* Sharing my story was uncomfortable at times (I even got a little teary eyed), but it felt freeing and powerful to reveal this key part of my identity at work. We also took this as an opportunity to make our group official and open it up to anyone else at 2A who identifies as neurodivergent. 

Turns out, there’s a lot of neurodivergent people at 2A! And to be honest, it makes perfect sense. 2A hires people who are creative, generous, and passionate about what they do—traits that go hand-in-hand with neurodivergence. 

We gave ourselves an official name—the “Yellow Ball Chat”—based on one of our member’s proclivity for bouncing a yellow ball to keep her mind engaged during our meetings. We have a Teams chat where we share challenges, successes, and memes, and we meet every other week. Now, when new people onboard at 2A, they are invited to join the group, which is among a dozen identity-based or common-interest chats employees can opt in to. 

While there are a lot of benefits to being part of the group, like sharing tips and tricks that work well for our brains, for me the most powerful part is the feeling of community. I love having a group of people I can reach out to when I’m feeling frustrated who just “get it,” and can share their own similar experiences. It’s also inspiring to be part of a group of neurodivergent people in different career stages and disciplines, all of whom have completely different lives, to see the amazing trajectories neurodivergent people can take at work and at home. 

While not everyone works somewhere as supportive of neurodivergence as 2A, I highly recommend finding a community outside of work or school to the neurodivergent people in my life, such as support groups provided by the Association for Autism and Neurodiversity and the Attention Deficit Disorder Association. 

As 2A keeps growing, I’m looking forward to welcoming more neurodivergent folks to our Yellow Ball Chat. Not only do I learn so much from every new member that joins, but it’s also a great chance to learn how we can keep making our company a welcoming and supportive place for people with neurodivergent brains. 

*A term that describes people who have neurological differences like ADHD, autism, and dyslexia. 

By Jane Dornemann

Image by Suzanne Calkins

Wheelin’ and dealin’ 

• “Stop drinking Cokes, Jane,” they say…but how can I when Microsoft has entered the chat? Coca-Cola signed a $1B, five-year deal (partially funded by me) to use Microsoft’s cloud computing and AI services. “But how can this poisonous drink get any better?” you may ask. Don’t worry, the amazing taste that lights up your entire brain and sends your pancreas into a tailspin won’t change—they’ll just be summarizing emails and whatnot. 
• Telefonica Germany is moving one million 5G customers to AWS. This is the first time an existing mobile operation has switched its core network to a public cloud. I bet the AWS person who led that deal gets drunk at bars and screams at locals, “DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO I AM? I GOT THE TELEFONICA DEAL…IT’S THE FIRST…YOU PEOPLE DON’T KNOW…you don’t know….” ::sobs into melty gin and tonic:: 
• And what timing: AWS signed a multi-year deal with Mavenir—a cloud-native network infrastructure provider for networks—“to create a new telco-grade deployment model.” I still miss the good old days of Bananaphone. (Tell me that won’t be in your head for the next week.) 
• Like AWS, Microsoft is going heavy on industry. It recently developed copilot templates, integrations, and capabilities for areas such as manufacturing, retail, agriculture, and energy. Several industry players have announced deals this past month: Anglian Water in the UK is moving several workloads to Azure; Hexagon, a German manufacturing intelligence company, is rolling out applications using Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service; and UK electrical retailer Currys is moving to Azure. 
• In an article written by a journalist who ignored 50 out of my 50 pitches while I worked in the depraved world of PR, we learn that News Corp has made a deal worth $250M with OpenAI. Per the five-year agreement, ChatGPT will use content from the empire that brought us Alex Jones. Reddit has a similar deal with ChatGPT, so fasten your seatbelts! 
• Bright Machines, a software and robotics company serving the manufacturing industry, is collaborating with Microsoft to create a software-defined manufacturing environment that spans the entire manufacturing lifecycle. I asked ChatGPT to write a joke about this and I got: It’s like giving your factory a software upgrade—now it can finally stop asking for a break every five minutes! 👀👀👀 
• MongoDB and Microsoft announced an alliance with its MongoDB AI Applications Program, a “one-stop shop” for businesses wanting to build generative AI solutions. 
• Media and technology company Axel Springer is working with Microsoft “to support independent journalism around the world” (sureeeee) through AdTech and other AI-driven experiences for users, once referred to as “readers.” In the meantime, news publishers are concerned that Google’s new AI-powered search will be “catastrophic” to their website traffic. 
• If Broadcom dumped AWS, then AWS is out at the club with IBM taking selfies and posting them on Insta to make Broadcom jealous. The two have taken their relationship to the next level by “streamlining access to AI and hybrid cloud solutions.” How? IBM’s software products will be available in 92 countries through AWS Marketplace. Analysts view this as a “significant development” in the cloud industry. 
• AWS and CrowdStrike are speeding up their cybersecurity consolidation. AWS will integrate CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform for advanced security while CrowdStrike will leverage AI tools from AWS, including Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker, to develop generative AI capabilities for its solutions. 

World domination 

• In a huge commitment to France, Microsoft will invest $4.3B in the country’s AI sector (which includes datacenter infrastructure and renewable energy). The goal is to attract foreign investment and establish an AI skilling initiative to train one million French peeps by the end of 2025. 
• Coming to Germany by 2025: an AWS “sovereign cloud,” which will be “physically and logically separate” from AWS regions. This will help AWS customers meet the country’s comparably stricter data-residency requirements, and hopefully persuade reluctant public agencies to move to the cloud. 
• When I visited Wisconsin, the best thing I saw was Katy Nally. The second-best thing I saw was a 12-person, 5-foot-tall beer bong, followed by a 50-pound cheese wheel. I guess Microsoft realized these advantages when it decided to invest $3.3B in a regional cloud-computing and AI hub (ChatGPT, show me how to set up this bong. Include the number of beers I’ll need to fill it.). Some money will also go to a manufacturing-focused AI Co-Innovation Lab at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. 
• Microsoft is collecting datacenters like Pokémon cards. In a continued spending spree/unhinged datacenter obsession, Microsoft purchased more land outside Columbus, OH; is launching an Azure cloud region in Queretaro, Mexico; and is opening Thailand’s first regional datacenter. (But Microsoft is closing its Africa Development Centre in Lagos…without providing a reason.) 
• Amazon is spending almost $9B to expand its cloud infrastructure in Singapore, part of its larger investment in the Asia-Pacific region. 
• AWS has launched datacenters in Israel and plans to invest $7.2B through 2037. This will allow the Israeli government to migrate workloads to the cloud, run applications, and store data using in-country datacenters. 

Gossip (for nerds) 

• After Uncle Sam essentially issued an ultimatum to Microsoft about its AI and cloud-computing base in China, Microsoft has asked nearly 1,000 of its China-based staff, who are largely Chinese engineers, to relocate to the US, Ireland, Australia, or New Zealand. Since New Zealand is utopia, I have a plan: My husband and I will stack two-high in a trench coat and then travel to China to romance one of these engineers, who will then marry me (but kind of us; he’ll find out later), and then we can all get New Zealand citizenship! FLAWLESS PLAN. 
• Broadcom, which now owns VMware after a $61B deal, is moving its VMware workloads to Google Cloud—AND decided that it will take over sales of its VMware cloud product on AWS (among other policy changes that make me think Kendall Roy has taken over). This uber pissed off AWS, which sells a VMware Cloud on AWS service. As a result, AWS is incentivizing users of its own VMware Cloud on AWS service to move. This is a juicy drama and something I can get behind. I’m invested in this hot mess, and I’m ready for the next punch to be thrown between these two, because I’m a suburban working mother over 40 and I need this. 
• Meanwhile, Microsoft is also offering incentives to VMware customers that migrate and run their workloads using the Azure VMware Solutions service. 
• Last quarter, Microsoft brought in $26.7B in revenue (from cloud alone). Microsoft saw a 20% rise in share price…before announcing these figures at the earnings call. When you have that much money, you can afford to build a datacenter out of 50-pound cheese wheels. I’m just saying, you know, ideas. 
• On its quarterly earnings call, Amazon announced 17% revenue growth YoY for its cloud unit. 
• Is there…hope? Microsoft banned US police departments from using its Azure OpenAI Service for facial recognition via its terms of service. As someone who lives in a state where face masks could soon be banned in public FOR ANY REASON without exemption, I appreciate this solid, Microsoft. 👊
• Eight newspaper publishers are suing Microsoft and OpenAI over copyright infringement. The papers, which include the Chicago Tribune and the NY Daily News, claim that the tech companies reuse the papers’ articles without permission and incorrectly attribute inaccurate information to them. 
• The Storytelling team at 2A is growing to love Perplexity AI, a search engine that reduces the work of Googling. But Microsoft has banned its employees from using the platform (which also happens to be a huge Azure OpenAI customer). Here’s why. 

New stuff 

• Microsoft launched Phi-3 Mini, the first of three “lightweight” AI models the company plans to release. What makes it teeny? It’s trained on a comparatively smaller data set than its bigger GPT cousin. In this case, it learned from children’s bedtime stories—but hopefully not that creepy one, Love You Forever, where the elderly mother straps a ladder to her car and drives to her fully adult son’s house in the middle of the night so she can climb through his window to cradle him. Anyway, these models are appealing because they’re cheaper to run and perform better on personal devices. Microsoft also released the new iteration of its ChatGPT offering, GPT-4o. It supports text and image, shifting how the model interacts with multimodal inputs. 
• Amazon Q Developer is now generally available. In a jargon-ridden post that would endlessly frustrate Forsyth Alexander, AWS announced this game-changing reimagining of the software development lifecycle. Amazon Q in QuickSight is also available and offers generative business-insight capabilities, such as answering questions the dashboard doesn’t explain and generating reports and executive summaries. 
• Don’t forget Amazon Q Business, which helps employees access company data, view summaries, and gain other business information by connecting to enterprise repositories. 
• Google thinks it can get more customers with honey than vinegar, so it has announced that it will support Azure and AWS clouds, letting businesses manage their security solutions across clouds. 
• After partnering with NVIDIA on integrations, the cloud giant is offering customers an AMD alternative for AI chips. AMD and NVIDIA are competitors, and this contentious move from Microsoft resulted from difficult-to-obtain (and costly) GPUs from NVIDIA. Perhaps this chip polyamory will be short lived once Microsoft starts selling its custom Cobalt 100 chips, which it directly compared to AWS Graviton chips. 
• Users can now import their own custom AI models into Amazon Bedrock. It’s only in preview, but tbh, I don’t know anyone who needs this today, so we’re good. 

Professional pivots 

• For no obvious reason (unless I’m dense), AWS CEO Adam Selipsky is leaving AWS and will be replaced by Matt Garman, SVP of Sales, Marketing, and Global Services. And Baskar Sridharan, formerly an engineering VP at Google Cloud, is now VP of AI/ML services and infrastructure at AWS. 
• Jason Taylor went from Meta to Microsoft. As corporate VP and deputy CTO, Taylor is responsible for pushing forward the next set of AI systems. 

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

• Two congressmen on the House Homeland Security Committee have requested Brad Smith, vice chair and president at Microsoft, to testify at a public hearing—part of the government’s investigation of historic nation-state attacks. Anyone wanna play a drinking game where you take a shot every time Brad says, “I don’t recall”? (Or do you want to live?) 
• Internally, Microsoft will hold senior leadership accountable for cybersecurity moving forward, tying performance on security milestones to pay. 
• The company just released new Zero Trust guidance for its Department of Defense customers…. Weird, that’s the same amount of trust I have in the DoD! (I was a military wife, so I get a free pass on this statement.) 

Best Friends Forever 

• Siemens has expanded its partnership with Microsoft to make the Siemens Xcelerator as a Service portfolio of industry software available through Microsoft’s cloud and AI platform. 
• Cloud-computing services provider Rackspace Technology’s Foundry for AI has gained several new Microsoft specializations, including Analytics on Azure and AI and Machine Learning. 
• Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will work with AWS to offer generative AI solutions to customers. But first, TCS must learn how to do that, LOL. That’s why AWS will help train “25,000 TCS employees [on] the latest cloud and GenAI skills.” 
• Generative AI copilot provider Moveworks has partnered with Microsoft, bringing its copilot to Microsoft Marketplace and integrating with Azure. 
• Platform engineering company Xoriant earned its Analytics on Microsoft Azure Advanced Specialization. 
• NVIDIA Healthcare integrated with Amazon SageMaker and AWS ParallelCluster to streamline ML model deployment and management. NVIDIA customers can also access prebuilt pipelines on AWS HealthOmics. (Don’t worry, if you’re a woman, doctors will still just tell you it’s “stress.”😒)