By Katy Nally

Sarah knows what to do if you’re stranded in Yemen. While working at the State Department, Sarah managed crisis situations—from helping tourists who lost their passports while on vacation, to coordinating the evacuation of U.S. citizens after an earthquake. Now an expert at fielding the hectic, Sarah brings a classy calm to 2A, and zenfully takes on even the toughest consulting curveballs. But her smooth approach is just the beginning of what she brings to the table. 

She leads with diplomacy 

At the State Department, Sarah learned how to be diplomatic from the best, and work with a range of personalities. Whether it was longtime foreign service officers or DC-based civil servants, Sarah was able to bring groups to consensus and initiate a path forward. 

At 2A, Sarah’s put her penchant for relationship-building to good use, fostering strong team dynamics both in our office and among clients. Sometimes she tells a self-deprecating joke for the greater good, or a funny story everyone can relate to. Her ability to navigate the conversation ultimately leads to better collective work. 

She aspires to the speed of twitter

Speed is important to Sarah. It’s why she chose 2A, and it’s why she can’t get enough Twitter. After a few years working for the government, Sarah noticed the drag of red tape and began to appreciate the agility of the private sector. Once she finished her MBA she sought a growing, nimble company like 2A. As a consultant, she likes being part of a team that readily takes action, and can get things done quickly.

As for Twitter, it’s Sarah’s 360 view of the world. Even though she left DC, she still keeps up with the latest political news, garnering updates from a range of voices worldwide.  

She knows how to pull the creative thread

During her first year at UW Foster, Sarah was the representative for student affairs, in charge of organizing events for her fellow classmates. It was a position that led to her unexpected love of event planning. Events like the Oscar-themed, year-end leadership dinner allowed Sarah to scratch her creative itch. And she’s been able to continue the trend at 2A. 

For the 2017 holiday season, Sarah orchestrated our fully themed, highly detailed, and unforgettable presents for clients: an Überleben Zünden fire-starter. Sarah worked with 2A designers, writers and animators to ensure the multiple components of the gift had a cohesive story, look and feel, crafted to bring out the inner ruggedness of our recipients. Bitte, Freunde.

International crises? Pressing pitch deck? There’s nothing Sarah can’t handle.

By Angela Stanton

If you have kids who play sports, you know it’s hard to find volunteer coaches, if not impossible. When no one steps up to coach, kids don’t get to play. I have to admit, I’m guilty. And worse, I’ve excused my lack of initiative on the fact that women aren’t typically coaches. (There is a shortage of coaches in general, and only 27 percent of adults who coach youth teams are women.)

Well this year is different! Earlier this month I attended a free coaching workshop called, wait for it, “We are Game Changers,” led by the University of Washington Center for Leadership in Athletics.

What inspired me to participate? A lot. My love of sports. Wondering if my twin boys would have a coach at the start of lacrosse season. But mainly the wave of momentum that’s propelled women worldwide to ask “Why not me?” The movement really challenged my notion of women as coaches.

At the event packed full of other women, I realized I wasn’t alone in thinking about becoming a coach. Amongst women of all levels of experience, workshop organizers dispelled the myth that you need to have played the sport to coach it. Kids will still benefit from female leadership and perspective in the sports world. I walked away with more confidence and a better understanding of the value I bring to youth sports. Now I’m all signed up for my spring coaching gigs.

While this is the year I decided to finally sign up, there have been plenty of moments I found inspirational along the way. The scene that stands out the most was from when my boys started playing soccer. In lieu of adult volunteers, an older sister of one of the players agreed to coach the team with her friend. At one of the first practices the boys weren’t really listening. While that’s completely normal for any group of kids this age, they were also grumbling about having girl coaches, “who didn’t know anything.”

Frustrated by this, but certainly not deterred, one of the girls said, “Fine! I’ll race all of you to the other side of the field. If I win, you agree to listen to everything I say.” They all agreed and took off. She outran them by a long shot! The boys were impressed, “Wow! You’re fast!!” And that was the end of that.

In that moment I knew women can, and will, find their path to coaching. And it starts with participation.

By Laura Templeton

Each year, influencers post their top reading lists. While I’m not Bill Gates or Oprah, my favorite read of 2017 prompted several “ah-ha” moments as I poured through the book each evening. Good Charts: The Harvard Business Review Guide to Making Smarter, More Persuasive Data Visualizations marries geeky data with business and psychology principles to relay the secret behind storytelling with charts.

I am not a data analyst, I’m not even all that good with numbers, but I love a good chart. And I’m not alone. Data is the new language of business. But the tenants of storytelling are what make data meaningful. Even when working with data, it’s ultimately about your message. Experts at Harvard say not to start with data, but start with the idea you want to convey, and let these tips guide you.

Substance before style

Spend more time thinking about your message than the style of chart. This might seem a bit contradictory when you are trying to find the best chart style to present your data. However, if you haven’t taken the time to really understand your dataset and the message you’d like to convey, even the loveliest chart can present a flimsy analysis.

Collaboration and diverse opinions will yield richer results

Talk out or whiteboard the problem with colleagues and pay close attention to the words you use. The conversation will influence how you frame the data, which parts are elevated, and the chart type. For example, the phrases “huge dip,” “crazy maze of a process,” or “flowed from,” evoke immediate images and suggest certain types of charts.

Focus on the essentials

Remember, less is more. Many chart standards such as gridlines, values and even data labels may not be necessary to get your point across. Unlike reading text from left to right, people’s eyes dart all around a chart and they focus on the items that stand out. Emphasize your key points with bold colors, shapes, large fonts, or strategic placement. Conversely, if something is not relevant to your message, consider excluding it.

Use established terminology to understand each other

Chart structures are common for a reason; for instance, the Y axis typically shows time. Flouting convention will just make your charts harder to understand.

I also appreciated the thorough discussion of data integrity. It is easy to manipulate data. We can exaggerate points, or omit points altogether; we can show two different views of the same data and come up with opposite conclusions. The book gives practical advice to help us determine if charts are deceiving.

When I put these principles into practice, I was surprised to find that not everyone is ready to ditch the bar charts and legends in favor of a simpler chart. Folks who work in the trenches with data, often like to see every data point on a chart. However, I’ve noticed leadership teams can be more interested in the analysis and implications, rather than the full dataset. With a chart that tells a story through data, you can quickly and easily communicate key points.

If your job involves data—which, these days, most jobs do—you can up your data game this year, and in the process, improve your business discussions too. Good Charts can make you a better storyteller with data.

By Katy Nally

Innovations build on past experiences to deliver cutting-edge solutions. Shaped by the tech industry over the past 20 years, Angela is propelling 2A forward, innovation-style. Her growth mindset, strategic focus and tech background are advancing the 2A team as we continue taking on new challenges. Lucky for us, Angela relishes a good challenge. A storyteller by nature, she has an eye for the pitch and the expertise to deliver.

She’s a facts-first storyteller

Angela has a knack for compiling and analyzing information that comprises the backbone of quality storytelling. She’s right at home in the tech industry, where there’s always something new to learn and new fields to dive into.

For clients, she’s an expert at understanding how to shape stories for a given audience, whether its underscoring the bottom line for business decision makers, or highlighting the impact of lives saved for global health NGOs. By grounding her approach in facts, not fluff, she’s able to craft smart marketing that appeals to the right group.

She’s a Microsoft vet

Angela grew up in the Seattle area, witnessing firsthand the transformation Microsoft had on the region. Joining the still-fresh company in the 90s, Angela became accustomed to Microsoft’s growth mentality. There she managed multi-channel marketing, led PR efforts surrounding business customers, and drove market penetration and consumer adoption for mapping products.

Her decade at Microsoft imparted Angela with empathy to better understand our clients’ needs, and the rigorous pace fortified her energy and appetite for consulting.

She speaks fluent tech

The tech industry found Angela when she started working at Microsoft. There she realized the capability of technology to change the world for the better, and its ability to improve lives. She was hooked and hasn’t looked back. At home she has voice-controlled devices in every room with plans to finalize her smart home.

With years of experience in talking and living tech, Angela understands the complex nuances of many products and the driving forces behind the industry. She keeps tabs on the ever-changing needs of b2b customers, and their supporting partner ecosystems, including both their dependencies and their alliances.

Angela is innovation in our back pocket. Let’s see what breakthroughs we can achieve together.

By Jesus Terriquez Camarena

It’s a brave new year. I can tell that resolutions are on everyone’s minds by the sudden scarcity of equipment at my gym and the tumbleweeds blowing through Dick’s Drive-In. It’s high time to reflect on the things you achieved in the past year and your vision for 2018. Doing some reflecting of my own, a few moments from 2017 stand out that will set the tone for my new year.

The Cascades

I love mountains: exploring them, scaling them, relying on them as metaphors for professional and personal advancement. They really peak my interest. I set out last summer to summit the highest ice-free routes the Cascade mountains had to offer. It was early September on Mount Shasta as easterly winds of dry smoky air collided with moisture from the southwest to create incessant lightning storms. More than once we were forced to seek shelter while a storm cell passed above. What should have been a 10-hour ascent became a 20-hour ordeal wrought with fluctuating temperatures, horizontal hail bullets and deafening thunder. By late afternoon—well after our supposed turnaround time—we were above 13,900 feet when a thunder clap almost blew our eardrums. Some rocks gave us cover but it became clear our situation would not improve. Less than 200 vertical feet from the summit, with dwindling sunlight and intensifying weather, we turned tail and headed down the mountain. Nothing is quite as humbling as accepting a safe retreat as a greater success than a reckless summit. You bet I’ll be back in 2018.

The Convention

I had the pleasure of traveling with RumbleMonkey to the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) in Boston, to help reorient their brand and recruit new users. PAX is one of the largest gaming conventions in the nation, attended by independent developers, major studios, and full-time eSports athletes. I was tasked with direct marketing duties that quickly expanded to all-around ops as our booth gained popularity. We had to be quick on our feet, handling hardware errors, engaging our growing number of guests, and impressing the correct perception of our brand. It was my first experience on a long-distance marketing build. It was an awesome, exhausting, stressful, and rewarding project that I’m eager to repeat.

The New Gig

I just celebrated my first 3 months as a consultant for 2A. I work with a variety of analytics and project management tools to coordinate data reporting for a major corporation. Right from the start I understood this would be a position that challenged me in a variety of novel and cool ways. Every day I am asked to tackle something new and deliver, and I can do so thanks to the support of my team and the tools made available to me. This is the sort of company that I had heard about and not really encountered before: idealistic yet ambitious, jovial yet dedicated, employee-focused yet hungry for growth.

If 2017 has taught me anything, it’s the value in placing yourself in situations that challenge your temperament, and demand you operate above routine. Escape, if only momentarily, the hyperbolic Monday–through–Friday inconveniences and venture into scenarios of genuine exhaustion and literal risk that demand creative solutions. Then bring those experiences into your life and work. Go to the mountains. Work on a difficult, unfamiliar project. Join a great new team. Go get ’em.

By Nick Dwyer

There’s a chill in the air and our streets are congested with merry partygoers and delivery vans. Holiday season is upon us in Seattle, yet just a couple weeks ago I found myself in the antithesis of a PNW December. I was in the middle of an endless savannah beneath a blue sky, everything baked by the scorching sun.

I was on safari with my wife in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. We came to see and photograph amazing wildlife, but walked away with lessons to take into the holiday season.

1. Recharge

I learned that most of the time, wild animals are lazy. But tracking down a gazelle takes lots of effort, so they need to rest up. Life gets busy in the holidays, with demanding social schedules, travel, and end-of-year work deadlines. Make sure you have enough energy to hunt down the gazelles in your life by taking some time to yourself.

2. Coexist and connect

When you watch Nat Geo specials, it seems like wild animals are always at war with each other. So I was surprised by the intermingling of many animals on the Serengeti. It was sometimes hard to capture a photo with only one species, as seen above. I’m not suggesting you befriend wolves, but rather embrace the diversity of the human experience. Help debunk ‘the war on Christmas’ by accepting that others celebrate the holidays differently. Or better yet, volunteer for strangers less fortunate than you.

3. Simplify

If there is one thing that wild animals can teach us, it’s probably that you don’t need as much stuff as you think you do. Donate old clothes and toys to those who need it more. Simplify your gift giving, or give experiences rather than things. Less time shopping for holiday gifts means less holiday stress.

4. Be grateful

This is a python and an African hare. I didn’t travel to the other side of the world to see a snake eat a bunny, but this was a very rare encounter to witness. It was the one thing our guide had never seen before. We were lucky to see it, but didn’t recognize it at the time. Life is like that sometimes. The holidays are a good time to recognize the flukiness of life and be grateful for friends and family.

My long, life-changing vacation reminds me to be grateful for paid time off. As I reflect on my trip and impeding holidays, I recall one of the sayings here at 2A: “Great work requires being well.” I feel lucky to work at a place that didn’t just tolerate my big trip, but fully encouraged it. As I look forward to the new year, I’m thankful for 2A and all the lessons I learned here in 2017. Here’s to unearthing more lessons and delivering great work in 2018.

By Katy Nally & Evan Aeschlimann

2A is growing up. You’ll find indications of our growth everywhere—new employees, office space and clients. Now our most public calling card, our website, has caught up with our latest growth spurt. If you haven’t perused 2a.consulting lately, check it out! We launched our redesigned site just in time to show off at the Inc. 5000 gala.

Our new website is a fresh version of the same great 2A look and feel. In other words, what once had only one level of jazz, now has a solid two. It incorporates more imagery, more projects and has a more intuitive interface.

While our bread and butter is building deliverables like websites for clients, creating our own site was a new challenge for us. The process made us take stock of the voice we use and the tone we set. In the end, our goal was to build a site that captured 2A’s personality, and maintained clear functionality to easily view and access content.

More storytelling. As a nod to our tagline, we drew inspiration from story’s oldest friend—the fire. Storytelling is rooted in a tradition of people telling tales while gathered around a fire. Throughout the 2A site you’ll find glimpses of fire imagery setting an atmosphere that’s ripe for storytelling.

Putting 2A’s web development team to work, we restructured the site to better showcase our client work. Some of our favorite projects—like our work for Power BI Embedded and Azure Cosmos DB—got their own pages with more deliverables on display.

Our animations got their own home as well. Creating animations is a relatively new practice for 2A that we’ve spent the past year building out. Now our best examples are ready to start mesmerizing viewers.  

More personality. This website redesign was our chance to reintroduce ourselves to the world—so we got a little more personal. Each bio now features a few tell-all facts about our team you probably never knew, like favorite marketing buzzwords or famous doppelgangers.

We also reinvented how we talk about 2A. In a less-is-more fashion, we created an animated gif for the homepage to introduce our three main offerings. And on our Meet and Greet page, our “Words we work by” are now front and center, painting a picture of the kind of culture we’re building at 2A. This section gave us a chance to spell out our values and share some of the principles that make our teamwork possible.

On every page, you’ll find links to our blogs and social media pages, injecting more voice and personality throughout the site. See what’s new at 2a.consulting and let us know what you think!

By Renato Agrella

Entering the final months of the year always makes us look back at what we have accomplished as a company. Various KPIs can measure our achievements, but they don’t illustrate the less quantifiable reasons for our success. With Thanksgiving approaching, 2A wanted to give a collective thanks to our families, colleagues and clients for being a pivotal part of our growth this year.   

We are thankful for our families and their love and support. Throughout 2017, our families visited our office and attended company events—parents, significant others, children and siblings brought their enthusiasm and goodness to our team. Case in point, over the summer we welcomed family members at our surprise baby shower for 2A partner Abby Breckenridge. Our families’ unconditional support usually takes place behind the scenes, but these glimpses remind us that they also help us thrive professionally.

We are thankful for our colleagues and their focus on teamwork. We are lucky that 2A is home to a wonderful group of creative strategists who know how to work hard, but also have fun. A perfect example is how everyone rallied for our AW Shucks Party, creating a custom, party-themed animation, homemade spicy pickled carrots, elegant invitations and hilarious wayfinding signage, even during a very busy season. Thank you to the entire 2A team for always bringing your A-game.

We are thankful for our clients and their continued trust in the 2A team. 2017 has been a year flush with new clients, in part because existing clients spread the good word about 2A. So thank you! We know our deliverables and services are our best sales tools and look forward to creating more great work together.

We have so much to be thankful for this year, in large part because of our families, colleagues and clients. Here’s to their continued support, teamwork and trust to propel 2A into 2018.

By Shvéta Ahuja

The average person spends about 23% of their time working. At 2A we endeavor to make every minute of that 23% something to look forward to!

We take pride in the culture we’ve built. We believe that our secret sauce comes from our people who’ve been carefully chosen not only for their skills, but also for the way they work with others. These people have a knack for building strong partnerships with clients and fellow colleagues, resulting in better work.

2A has strong ties to the University of Washington. It was started by alumni from the Foster School of Business, and many other 2A team members have graduated from UW. So, it comes as no surprise that we go back to Foster each year to recruit MBAs for our growing team. Foster prepares its MBA students with the smarts needed to succeed as a 2A consultant, and cultivates a strong team spirit.

We hosted (what we like to call) a strategic mingling session on campus last week with our traditional 2A spread of oysters from Taylor Shellfish and bubbles. The session gave students an idea of a day in the life of a 2A consultant and covered aspects of what makes marketing consulting at 2A unique.

Our focus was to create a comfortable environment where students aren’t subjected to a dreary presentation, or starved for choice with stale sandwiches, or scrambling to get noticed. At 2A we take the time to get to know the audience. We work off insights, best practices, lessons learned and we’re not afraid to break out of the mold.

We want to take the stress out of networking, and make it easier for us to find consultants who would fit into our culture. So, if you’re a Foster MBA, graduating soon, and you missed the happy hour on campus, drop us an email at thiscouldbeme@2A.consulting, tell us about your favorite Seattle brand in 50 words or less and we’ll take you to coffee.

We want to get to know you, and hear your story. After all, you could be the 2A secret sauce that will keep our clients coming back for more!

By Katy Nally

It’s one thing to illustrate something, it’s quite another to bring it to life. That’s the tricky part of storytelling, and it’s why we love Aaron, our motion designer. He literally brings our clients’ stories to life through animation.

While creating an animation is a full team undertaking at 2A, Aaron brings the unexpected playfulness that make them so engaging for viewers. Not only is he an all-in-one illustrator plus animator, he’s also a natural marketer. He’s an expert at conveying technical concepts through a compelling visual narrative in a way that’s easy to understand.

His illustrations capture the heart of the story
Aaron portrays the world around him through sketches. His notebook is full of fluid line drawings in pencil, depicting everything from food trucks to floating heads. His keen sense of his surroundings keeps our designs fresh and our images current.

Aaron refined his illustration talents at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received his BFA. He has screened his work—Dwellings and Bric-a-brac to name a few—in various galleries and festivals, including the Ann Arbor Film Festival, New York City’s Animation Block Party and the Northwest Film Forum.

He’s got the right flow for animations
While animation effortlessly tells the story, Aaron’s process to bring images to life is pretty labor-intensive. Motion designing—the final phase in creating animations—involves Aaron adding motion to illustrations on one screen, while viewing a giant sequencing chart on the other, to get the story just right. But he makes it look easy.

Aaron knows how to conjure emotion and entertain the viewer by balancing the right amounts of story and flow. How many motion designers can make viewers swoon for oysters? In a 25-second loop, Aaron merged the creative genius of The Big Lebowski, Rube Goldberg and a Victorian era favorite, the zoopraxioscope. A nautical Pacific Northwest scene was the perfect setting for his animation that gave some flare to our Aw Shucks Party.

He seizes marketing challenges
Aaron knows the value of an engaged audience. When creating an animation to achieve a marketing goal, he never loses sight of the main message, and develops visual concepts to make it pop. His storytelling abilities go beyond illustrations and motion design: Aaron has a way with words and helps craft scripts to elevate clients’ messaging. Most of the animations 2A produces involve highly technical subject matter (like this one about Azure Cosmos DB), which Aaron helps communicate smoothly and with personality. 

We’re pretty emotional about Aaron and his motion designs. We’ll let him tug at our heartstrings any day. Got a story you need brought to life through animation? Send us an email and let’s talk.