By Rachel Adams

Image by Rachel Adams

Dear 2A, 

Thank you for making my maternity leave a wonderful experience! I felt supported through the whole process—from planning my leave to spending time away and returning to work. 

I appreciate the flexibility the 2A parental leave policy offers as everyone’s needs are different. I was thrilled to have the baseline 12 weeks of paid time off and to be able to take 8 weeks of unpaid time on top of that. This allowed me to recover after labor and figure out how to take care of my newborn son. As a first-time mom, there was a lot of learning! Additionally, leading up to my leave I felt a lot of love from the team, celebrating with a virtual baby shower and gifts for the baby. From the beginning, you made me feel like I was being set up for success. 

My time away from work is something I will cherish for the rest of time. Thank you for giving me the space (real space!) to bond with my baby without interruption. While there were a lot of necessary duties like doctors’ appointments, there were also a lot of meaningful moments like meeting grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It seems uncommon for a company to respect these boundaries given how connected we are to our work in this digital age. 

Returning to work after taking time off can be very stressful, but you’ve let me ease back into my role. You recognize the humanness of transitioning back into work mode and adjusting to a new schedule and routine. Not to mention dusting off the cobwebs that had weaved their way into my brain! The team welcomed me back enthusiastically and that made me excited to be back with my coworkers. I was also delighted to connect with everyone in person at the summer retreat shortly after I returned to work. Making those in-person connections was the cherry on top of returning from my leave. 

Being a new parent is scary and stressful, but being a new parent at 2A takes unnecessary stress out of the picture. Thanks again! 

With love, 

Rachel 

By Ren Iris

Image by Julianne Medenblik

Copyediting requires constant decision-making. To hyphenate or not to hyphenate? Comma, semi-colon, colon, en dash, em dash, or ellipsis? Sentence case or title case? The answer usually is: It depends. 

Beyond syntax, semantics, and grammatical mechanics, there exists a more delicate space. Enter intersectionality, which can be quiet but is omnipresent. Copyediting is often the last hurdle before publishing or locking content, and conscientious copyediting means cultivating an awareness of reader multiplicity. It means constantly thinking, assessing, and reassessing. Recognizing and remembering that your intended audience contains multitudes unbeknownst to you, but ones you nonetheless must respect and address, overtly or covertly. Autopilot copyediting (as my mentor used to joke, “comma in, comma out?”) isn’t enough. Who is the intended audience, and am I revising to acknowledge their humanity? Am I editing out ableist, cisheteronormative, exploitative, and monocultural language? Because we are people, and people have several identities, evolving ideas and knowledge bases, and many, many opinions. People: We’re complicated. 

Let’s pause and review a key term—intersectionality. While the concept has been important throughout time, one could argue that we owe the earliest credit to Sojourner Truth in 1851. Members of the Combahee River Collective (formed in 1974) continued Truth’s work, but civil rights activist and scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw is known for coining the term. I’m using Crenshaw’s 2020 TIME interview to define intersectionality. 

“It’s basically a lens, a prism, for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other…. some people are subject to all of these, and the experience is not just the sum of its parts.” 

These explanations and historical references provide necessary contexts. Because copyediting isn’t vacuum bound. Like linguistics, it evolves, hopefully in flow with ever-improving best practices. 

In the time of activist-scholar Pauli Murray, we didn’t have expansive language for disabilities, trans people, gender-nonconforming people, or pronouns (let alone rolling pronouns or neopronouns). Now we do. We didn’t have publication-based standards for capitalizing Black, Latine or Latinx, and Indigenous. But now we do. 

What’s my point? We as copyeditors need to edit with a learning-centered mindset, with the intersectional prism in mind, remembering that each edit can recognize or alienate a reader. Words matter because people and their experiences matter. 

Our editorial choices have ripple effects across, within, and between (insert preposition I’m forgetting here) for accessibility, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. This is what my pinned mental note reminds me each time I turn on track changes or use the comment function. Every inclusion and exclusion matters. 

Happy intersectional editing, y’all. 

Ren (they/them) 

P.S.: If you’re more of a visual-audio learner, I recommend Crenshaw’s 2016 TED Talk, “The urgency of intersectionality.” 

By Ashley JoEtta

Image by Emily Zheng

As the program manager behind 2A’s case study practice, Sal is key to ensuring each layer of creativity and collaboration is concocted and delivered in the smoothest way possible. 

Balancing the layers of creativity with impact 

Like the illustrious Megan Thee Stallion, Sal Thee Program Manager is a lover of community. Sal wants everyone in their circle to feel invited to the table—including 2A’s clients. Before bringing her talents to the B2B world, Sal spent their time working with art non-profits, galleries and museums in Seattle. In those spaces, Sal provided close support to artists whose work is centered on social impact and community. From curating exhibitions to managing the behind-the-scenes minutia needed to produce a gorgeous and awe-inspiring show, Sal deeply understands the intricacies of planning and implementing a project that shines and delights audiences. That’s why she approaches each project like she’s building the layers of a perfectly shareable lasagna, considering every ingredient, potential taste pairings, and the baking (and cooling) times required. And let’s be honest—a healthy pinch of anxiety doesn’t hurt when it comes to planning. 

Bringing flowers to life for 2A’s clients 

With a passion for ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement, Sal brings their talent for refinement to all of 2A’s creative endeavors. Whether she’s packaging an AWS case study, finessing a Google Cloud blog, or uplifting 2A’s marketing strategy, Sal is never afraid to delve in with both hands to create beautiful arrangements. When focused on uniting flowers, branches, and other natural elements, Sal considers the harmonies of mass, lines, and colors. With grace, they find the places where minimalism sparkles. She takes this elegance and infuses every 2A project with intentionality, taste, and vigor. This guarantees fresh and effective 2A templates, models, and processes that lead to kick-ass deliverables on a global stage. 

Remembering technology can be elegant, too 

At 2A, Sal loves collaborating with humans who care about preserving and enhancing the collective. When she first started at 2A, Sal managed a case study with AWS, Siemens, and Unlimited Tomorrow—a project focused on developing affordable and accessible prostheses. Here, she gained a deeper understanding of 2A’s storytelling, creativity, and collaboration powers. While attending the interview and listening to the customer explain how AWS and Siemens were helping their robotics team provide prostheses for children and adults around the world, Sal confirmed that they had brought their talents to the right place. In her own words: “I really love that our clients empower companies like Unlimited Together to create positive change in the disability community.” 

Ready to create your next case study with 2A? Sal will ensure the process layers in creativity, brings harmony to your stakeholders, and elevates your solution. 

By Katy Nally

Image by Brian Dionisi

There’s a reason why salsa is so popular. (And it’s not just because people love to say salsa. 😉) All those chopped up pieces combine to deliver spicy, tangy harmony in every bite. 

Did you know there’s a video equivalent of salsa? And, just like your favorite snack, it brings together lots of amazing bits in a bite-sized package with a little kick. It’s called a sizzle reel. And the one Brian just created for 2A is so yummy, you gotta have a taste. 

Let’s hear how this video chef created such a scrumptious sizzle reel. 

Katy: I love the opening imagery with the sun and eyeball. What was your inspiration for that scene? 

Brian: I wanted to really explore what I could do with the 2A color palette while using illustration and bold, dynamic transitions. The eyeball was an homage to 2A’s first sizzle reel, which was the first time it appeared in our work, and including it was a way to maintain continuity. The eyeball later made an appearance on our 2A hoodies. 

Katy: There are so many different clips in this sizzle reel, and you wove them together seamlessly. How did you balance such a wide variety of footage? 

Brian: I wanted to highlight some of the flashiest moments while still giving the reel spaces to breathe. Too much visual density can be overwhelming! It was also important to represent the different kinds of work we do—fully animated videos with characters, hybrid video and animations, UI explainers, and so forth. 

Katy: Many of our 2A animations are 2-ish minutes long. How did you choose just a few seconds from those longer examples? 

Brian: Because we could only choose a few seconds, a lot of it came down to finding ones with those stand-out moments. I also gave priority to animations with bold transitions (such as a rapid zoom in or out, or a left-to-right movement) that could be matched up with a complementary transition from another animation. 

Katy: Which 2A animations didn’t make the cut, and how did you make that decision? 

Brian: There was a clip from a Microsoft Viva animation featuring a paper plane that unfortunately didn’t make the cut. The animation itself was worth showcasing, but between the paper folding up into a plane, winding up, and then releasing, it was too many beats to cover in a short time. It would have slowed the overall pace too much. 

Katy: What’s your favorite part of the sizzle reel? 

Brian: The first few seconds right after the intro are paced very well, with bold, seamless transitions that also showcase a diverse sample of our work. The transitions around 0:13–0:15 also flow really well, in my opinion! 

Katy: This sizzle reel includes so many of our best animations that we created for clients. What is it about animations that make them great marketing tools? 

Brian: Marketing is largely about storytelling: Animated explainers remain incredibly popular because they grab and hold people’s attention, making them much more receptive to the stories we want to tell. Plus, when we see a well-crafted animation, the positive emotional response we get from it inevitably transfers, in some part, to the subject of the animation. 

Katy: How would 2A’s clients use a sizzle reel? 

Brian: When clients have several animations that showcase the same topic, we can create a sizzle reel for them by compiling the best moments into one short segment—like this one we created for Microsoft Viva. Our clients often use sizzle reels to generate hype before their keynote or meeting. They’re perfect for building anticipation and getting the audience excited about what comes next. 

Want to create your own animation that sizzles? 2A is here to help! 

By Jane Dornemann

Image by Suzanne Calkins

World domination 

• Spain is getting a 2B Euro investment from Microsoft, in a collaboration with the country’s government, to beef up cybersecurity and inteligencia artificial, if you will. Also, Germany is getting a 3B Euro AI investment that will focus on expanding datacenters to accommodate the technology. 
• What better way for AWS to celebrate Q4 earnings than upgrading datacenters, which it will, for Local Zone locations in Chicago and Houston. It’s also opening a new Local Zone in Atlanta. 
• Mexico is getting $5B in AWS investments, which will include a new AWS Region and three Availability Zones. 
• Türkiye is the next international Amazon CloudFront edge location. I’m visiting Türkiye in three weeks, and since I have anxiety, I read all about how it’s due for another major earthquake and then created five different action plans. (One of which involves hiding in caves! AWS, I’m willing to sell you these plans for undisclosed amounts of money, so hit me up.) 

Wheelin’ and dealin’ 

• You know what will really help in an earthquake? Enhanced connectivity whilst traveling abroad, and wouldn’t you know it—Samsung, TELUS, and AWS are gonna make that happen. (But not in three weeks, so, time for ANOTHER plan!) 
• More telecom stuff: Vonage, Ericsson, and AWS are collaborating on new solutions to improve the customer experience and help businesses use 5G, network APIs, and generative AI. (What I want know: Do caves get service? I mean, good enough service to stream 90 Day Fiancé in a cave?) 
• New intel on Intel: The chip producer will manufacture semiconductors for Microsoft in a deal valued at $15B. This will, at least, help Microsoft expand its datacenters, and marks NVIDIA’s first AI foundry service. 
• It’s existential-threat-to-humanity time! The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is doing things that are sure to end well, such as engineering cyborg insects and launching nuclear-powered spaceships, has renewed its funding for Microsoft Azure Quantum. Unironically for Microsoft, quantum computing poses some cybersecurity threats. (My only hope: That I live to see the day where a quantum-computing hive of bees fights a robotic infantry mule to the death while I pound five Red Bulls and scream my lungs out.) 
• DeepScribe, an AI-powered medical scribe (I’m imagining a Renaissance-era guy with a quill scribbling doctor’s notes), is working with AWS to accelerate applications of large language models (LLMs) in medicine—starting with processing de-identified clinical conversations. (Also, that guy has pointy felt shoes. And a cape. But a small one.) 
• AWS has joined forces with Mistral AI, and will lean on the machine learning startup to make two AI models. 
• Financial services powerhouse BNY Mellon is migrating all its crap to Microsoft Azure. It’s also working with the Azure team to unite the cloud with BNY’s industry-specific data and analytics capabilities. 
• Microsoft is partnering with media platform Semafor to help the two harried journalists remaining in any newsroom work with generative AI. Additionally, Meltwater, a media intelligence solution, is collaborating with Microsoft to…do exactly what Microsoft loves to do, which is jam everything so full of jargon you can’t understand what’s happening. Happy deciphering. 
• Persistent has launched an AI-powered population health solution with Microsoft to determine patient needs and predict the cost of care. 
• CrowdStrike and AWS have created a startup accelerator in the EMEA region (aka half the world) and have selected 22 companies for the first cohort. 

Gossip (for nerds) 

• Let’s go from the fruitful valleys of Europe to the barren wastelands of Becker, Minnesota, where Microsoft will build a datacenter. Whichever Microsoft person is assigned to oversee that second-rate Siberian prison probably did something wrong, like opening one of the many, many phishing emails hitting Outlook. 
• Thanks to its innovations in AI, Microsoft is growing faster than AWS. The most recent earnings call revealed that Azure revenue increased 30% in just the last quarter and 24% year on year. AWS is still in the lead for cloud market share—for now. 
• Meanwhile, AWS was like, IN YOUR FACE, ANALYSTS! after the company surpassed expectations on a Q4 earnings call. Interestingly, the cloud provider acknowledged that its generative AI earnings were “relatively small” but it expects that to change dramatically over the next several years. Anyway, pour one out for that $24 billion in revenue, a 12% jump from Q3. 
• Cloud computing company Akamai has been fighting the good fight to become a cloud contender, and its geographical expansion is getting attention. For one, if Akamai’s broader availability wins it more market share from the big three, the giants might have to start cutting their pricing. Jk, this is late-stage capitalism—they have no chance. 
• The VP of AWS Infrastructure Hardware, Ahmed Shihab—who is credited for building out all AWS storage and compute systems—has jumped ship for Microsoft to become the VP of Azure Storage. So, I guess we’re just straight-up ignoring non-competes at this point. CORPORATE ANARCHY. Burn it all down, Ahmed!!!!  

New stuff  

• Let’s return to the little joys: Microsoft Teams. Coming soon to an endlessly pinging account near you is an AI-powered planner. It brings Microsoft To Do, Planner, Project, Copilot, and Microsoft 365 into one solution. 
• This is from Fox News, so who knows if it’s true, but AWS has launched a program to help SMBs get smart on AI and other technologies. 
• AWS is making serverless tech faster after launching an open-source project, LLRT. The company says it reduces runtimes and costs. 
• Windows Copilot is getting a makeover with the trial release of a Power Automate plug-in (Kelly lives for this stuff), which promises to “banish boring tasks.” One example Microsoft gives is using this tool to “Write an email to my team wishing everyone a happy weekend.” What a nice idea…except for the part where you outsourced a two-sentence email to AI. 
• Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose is now just Amazon Data Firehose. And AWS Glue can now integrate with Amazon Q, which can generate ETL script. 
• The Copilot icon will start animating, like a Clippy 2.0, when it recognizes you could use its help. But it won’t come CLOSE to what our motion designer Brian could have done with it. 

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

• Hackers are using Amazon Simple Notification Service to pose as USPS, but really, it’s a smishing campaign. You can tell that it’s fake because the messages don’t inexplicably ship to Malaysia when they’re addressed to Ohio, then to Virginia, and finally to Ohio five weeks later. 
• As Microsoft boasts that thousands of customers are using its AI tools, it’s good to remember that some of them are nation-state hackers. Malicious actors from Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China are employing generative AI for harmful cyber operations such as researching foreign think tanks, learning how to evade detection, and generating phishing content that “[attempts] to lure prominent feminists.” Oooooooh, so they wanna f*ck around and find out, I see. Greta Gerwig, they’re coming for you! Catch these hands, North Korea. (But for funsies, which campaign that sounds like a nail polish is your favorite?) 
• In the last Cloud cover, I joked about that Microsoft breach targeting executives. Well, turns out, it was kind of a big deal. Like, the biggest breach in Azure history-level big deal. I’m just gonna say it: Microsoft needs to start shifting left. I’m talking about whatever the developer equivalent of Karl Marx left is. It needs to happen. 
  • Cybersecurity firm Proofpoint found new campaigns targeting executives’ Microsoft Azure accounts. 
  • Microsoft pushed some updates this month and called urgent attention to “at least three” of 73 vulnerabilities in the Windows ecosystem—including Outlook—that hackers are exploiting. 
• All this is just in time for Microsoft to make Azure OpenAI available to our barely functioning government! I’m ready for a world where ChatGPT is speaker of the house. Azure OpenAI isn’t FedRAMP approved yet, but my guess is that approval will occur around NEVER O’CLOCK. 

Best Friends Forever 

Partner mischief this month was all AWS. 

• New to the AWS ISV Accelerate Program: Verusen, a supply chain intelligence platform, and SmartBear, a provider of observability and software testing solutions. 
• New to AWS Marketplace: Merge (what North Carolinians love to do at the last minute without signaling), a platform that lets businesses add product integrations. 
• Consulting firm Pariveda has achieved AWS Nonprofit Competency status and Blackline Safety achieved AWS Public Sector status. 
• API security company Salt Security has joined the AWS Lambda Ready Program. 
• Lightning AI has signed a strategic collaboration with AWS to offer its customers an enterprise-grade platform. (If you’re not doing that, what ARE you doing?) 
• Digital business services provider Teleperformance has achieved the AWS Well-Architected status…and announced it in an email with a typo in the first sentence. My heart bleeds for the PR intern or checked-out PR executive—either one is a candidate—who let it happen. RIP to you, friend. 

Miscellany 

• Microsoft is axing Azure IoT Central, a big part of the Azure developer platform. Developers at big companies like NVIDIA are allegedly “faced with uncertainty” about this, but given that it won’t die until 2027, they have several years to find certainty. And, bless Microsoft’s heart, it’s still soliciting new subscriptions for Azure IoT Central. 
• Microsoft’s AI Red Team is in charge of finding risk in its generative AI systems. They’re now employing a tool called PyRIT, which will…automate risk discovery because manual efforts are taking too long. ::Lets face fall into hands and weeps:: 

By Andrea Swangard

Image by Julianne Medenblik

How did music, Japan, and videogames lead our new storyteller, Ashley, to 2A? We’ll begin that answer with another question: How do you know you’re good at playing the flute? When you land a scholarship because of your mad skills! This set the stage for Ashley’s college experience, where she double majored in music performance and English. When she advanced to graduate school, Ashley came across the TESOL program (teaching English as a second language) and discovered a passion for the art of teaching. That led to an internship in Japan teaching English to folks ranging from five-year-olds to senior citizens, igniting Ashley’s love for linguistics and inspiring the right learning approach for a specific audience. It also honed Ashley’s language abilities—in addition to Japanese, she speaks Spanish and Arabic. 

Doctor Who? Finding a path for a lover of language patterns 

While pursuing a PhD in Applied Linguistics with a focus in Second Language Writing and Rhetoric and Composition (with a prestigious fellowship from Purdue), Ashley taught a writing class for engineers. She discovered a gap in teaching methods for academic writing versus industry writing, and researched ways to create customized curriculums for her students. (Ashley also won a dissertation fellowship from the American Association of University Women, but we’re not here to brag…) A professorship brought her to the Pacific Northwest, where Ashley balanced her time teaching with keeping her brain tickled by puzzles and digital games. One of these—the online battle-royale game Apex Legends—brought her to 2A. 

Squad goals: From virtual comrades to real-life coworkers 

Ashley met 2A’s designer extraordinaire, Brandon Conboy, while playing Apex Legends. Their shared love for strategy, teamwork, and being gracious winners fostered an immediate connection. Brandon learned about Ashley’s talent for writing and invited her to explore opportunities at 2A. After a freelance gig where Ashley got to indulge her passion for research and delve deeper into the technology industry, she realized she’d found her true calling. 2A snapped her up full time, and the rest is history! Ashley’s love of language and her teaching experiences (and, let’s be honest, that creative and brilliant mind) bring a dynamic approach to finding the right words to engage a client’s audience. Case in point, a piece she penned about United Airlines is one of the most read AWS case studies of 2023! 

Ashley’s passion for the power of stories keeps 2A’s ebooks fresh and its case studies cutting edge. Whether she’s practicing a new musical piece to perfection or collaborating with other gamers to navigate tricky situations, Ashley loves a challenge. And her research continues to be top notch: Whether it’s finding the winning formula for compelling copy or tracking down the choicest donut in Seattle, Ashley always brings her A-game. 

By Jane Dornemann

Image by Suzanne Calkins

You’re ready to embark on your next content marketing campaign and you’ve decided an ebook is the way to go. This may sound simple, but the truth is, there are so many types of ebook that it can feel like going into an ice cream parlor—everything looks good, but only one flavor will win you over. And you don’t want to choose an ebook that will have you gazing at your companion’s double scoop, wishing you’d gone with a different option. 

In this blog post, we offer five criteria that will help you narrow down the type of ebook that’s right for your campaign. 

1. Audience: If your audience is at the beginning of their buying journey, then your flavor is… 

Neapolitan 

This ebook targets readers who are new to your brand and focuses on creating awareness. It spotlights basic business value propositions and how those differ from competing solutions. These ebooks provide a high-level overview of ways the solution(s) can help solve readers’ problems. Keep the content between three and six pages, as you don’t want to bombard your audience with too much information. Remember: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry: Set the stage by showing you understand the challenge, explain how the product works, and support your claims with a customer success story. 

2. Depth: If you need to detail product use cases and solution architectures, then your flavor is… 

Dark chocolate 

Product-centric ebooks are like dark chocolate—some people love it, nay, need it, while others are a hard pass for the moment—which makes knowing your audience especially crucial when choosing this flavor. Your readers should be mid-funnel and want to learn specifics about your offering and how your product compares to other options. Because this flavor is a more overt sell, keep the content straightforward and informative. Follow it up with a call to action that moves them closer to conversion, such as watching a demo, signing up for a trial, or speaking with an agent. It’s rich in flavor, it stands out, and it’s key to getting your reader to buy what you’re selling. 

3. Breadth: If you’re trying to appeal to a broad audience, then your flavor is… 

Rocky road 

Sometimes you want to mix it up—but this only works if everything makes sense altogether. (In restaurants, this is called a “chaos menu.”) If you want an all-of-the-above mash-up—product and feature descriptions, tips and advice, case studies, a predictive analysis on what’s next, and partners’ capabilities—make sure you delineate sections and arrange information so that it flows organically. Make it easier for a discerning reader to find the parts they’re most interested in while supporting read-throughs with clear connections from one item to the next. For example, if you spend one chapter highlighting a product and its features, transition into a product-centered customer success story or include a graphic illustrating how the product works with customer systems. If your ebook covers multiple topics, think about topic progression. For example, if you offer migration and modernization services, start with migration and move into modernization, (not vice versa, nor jumping back and forth between the two). 

4. Positioning: If you offer a new concept or framework that makes you stand out among competitors, then your flavor is… 

Lavender honey 

This ebook flavor is ideal for demonstrating your brand’s thought leadership by sharing expertise-based, innovative ideas. This isn’t for ice cream newbies; the content should target mid-to-late funnel readers, including current customers you want to upsell. Your readers don’t need to learn about what your business does or its value. Your already-invested audience wants confirmation that you’re deeply familiar with their industry’s unique challenges so they can turn to you for an effective, experience-filled approach to problem solving—now and in the future. These ebooks tend to be longer and can be up to 12 pages. They can include forward-thinking concepts such as perceived future trends, case studies, research, guidance, and scenarios. 

5. Collaboration: If you want to showcase how your organization or solution works with a large cloud provider, then your flavor is… 

Berries and cream 

Some campaigns are based on joint solutions that explain how two offerings provide something better together for shared customers. Create this flavor by turning the collaborative benefit into a theme throughout the ebook. You don’t want berries on one side and cream on the other. Chances are that your reader is familiar with your brand or your partner’s, but they may not have tried the mélange. Briefly describe each of your flavors and make evident why they taste so good together—better than any competitor combo. Explain what your reader can accomplish with your integrations, demonstrate your capabilities through a customer story, and wrap up with a summary of sweet benefits. Or a napkin. Either one. 

We’ve spilled many secret ingredients of our successful ebooks with you, but those are only the cherries on top. To recruit our Michelin Star–worthy word chefs for your next ebook, contact us. 

By Jane Dornemann

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

• Once again, Washington officials and private sector executives are accusing Microsoft of dropping the ball following another hacking incident. Russian spies (Is this real life?) breached Microsoft’s systems to gain access to senior executives’ emails. They were full of sensitive information like, “Re: Chipotle for lunch??” and Teams messages such as, “I slowly feel my soul dying with every second of this quarterly meeting.” All parties (except Microsoft) say this was a fully avoidable incident, prompting U.S. officials to publicly state that the government needs to “reevaluate its dependence on Microsoft.” 

Wheelin’ and dealin’ 

• Hold the (Voda)phone, there’s a big new deal in town: The telecom company signed a $1.5B, 10-year agreement with Microsoft. (They stole the deal right out from under me because I didn’t have change for a $20.) The goals of this deal run the gamut, from targeting SMBs to improving financial inclusion in Africa. And of course, transforming the customer experience with generative AI. Can’t take a single breath without that these days. 
• Space Force (Again, real life?) is tapping Microsoft to build a cloud-based, simulated space environment. It will incorporate augmented reality via HoloLens headsets and serve as a training vehicle that allows participants to interact with digital copies in orbit. (Can you imagine tripping on LSD in that thing?! PLUTO LOOKED INTO MY SOUL and then he gave me a bucket of fried chicken.) 
• Walmart, everyone’s favorite spot to get really depressed about the state of humanity, is working with Microsoft on new AI solutions for Walmart customers. For example, using AI to answer a customer’s query and generate personalized responses. Naturally, the sample photo is of someone buying one bag of Doritos from Walmart online. Because we are Americans and that’s what we do. 
• The Walmart stuff arrives just as Microsoft announces its play to bring generative AI to retailers, particularly through Copilot. This includes Copilot templates that retailers can personalize across the buyer journey, AI to generate insights, and generative AI for marketing campaigns. SymphonyAI is working with Microsoft to bring predictive and generative AI to retail. 
• Choice Hotels International, a large hospitality chain that includes Comfort Inn and Econo Lodge, has fully migrated to AWS for all its operations. But what’s really important here are the (real life) online reviews for Choice Hotels, such as, “There were meth syringes by our truck in the morning and the room smelled like piss” and “I was given a king suite with blood on the covers and zero hangers.” ZERO HANGERS!!!! 

World domination 

• Nothing makes a $1.5B Microsoft-Vodafone deal look bad like moving the decimal mark over a whole place, which AWS has done with its $15B investment in Japan. Those dolla dolla bills are going toward expanding AWS Cloud infrastructure and supporting AI computing needs in the country. Google and Microsoft have also been going heavier on investments in Japan, and all three have deals with the country’s government, but this gives AWS the largest presence of them all. 
• AWS had some spare change left over after that, and decided to invest in…Mississippi? Uh, OK…I guess why not. The company is spending $10B to build a data center in the greater Jackson area. Well, that’s great because this project should bring some much-needed funds to the area…EXCEPT that it’s 100% corporate-tax exempt. During a “special session,” they decided that the state itself has to provide $44M in funds for tasks like workforce training. For AWS. Also, the state must loan a ton of money to the county to build a sewer system. For AWS. But hey, what a deal (for AWS), amiright! 
• As tensions rise between the U.S. and China (Americans are asked to “reconsider travel to China”)—along with an Executive Order limiting chipmakers in Chinese business dealings—Microsoft is uncertain about the fate of its Beijing-based AI lab. With China accounting for $212B in Microsoft sales, Microsoft doesn’t yet have an answer to the Biden administration’s request to pull the lab entirely. 
• Is it just me or is it Chile in here? AWS got the green light to build a $205M data center in Santiago. This will be the first AWS data center in the country. 
• AWS has won three contracts with the UK government—valued at about $1B dollars—a sign that the British government is deeply locked into AWS services. 
• Microsoft customers can now store all their personal data in the EU, a place with real privacy laws…a place where people don’t order Doritos online from retailers that take out “dead peasants” life insurance policies on their employees. ::Looks longingly toward the Atlantic:: 

Gossip (for nerds) 

• After beating Apple to briefly become the most valuable company in the world (and becoming the second company to ever reach a $3T market cap), Microsoft reported a 33% profit increase and an 18% jump in revenue. (Can’t wait for more layoff news. Oh, wait…) 
• AWS has hired a guy who makes shirt choices that are bold but still socially acceptable. “Damn it! Honey, the AWS folks need a new headshot, and I told them I’m still on vacation! Ugh, just snap me right here. How’s my hair?” “You look great, sweetie, and don’t worry, this will probably just go on some ID badge and not in globally available news.” The new CFO was formerly Amazon’s operations and logistics manager. Now that I know his name I’ll be calling him for answers on what happened to Prime’s 24-hour delivery promise. 
• Ashish Dhawan, who was the managing director of AWS enterprise workload sales, has moved to NetApp. 
• Google hired a former Okta and Microsoft exec to be its new AI leader, driving the company’s AI go-to-market strategy. 
• It’s official—the FTC is poking around the partnerships between Microsoft (and four other big tech companies, including AWS) and AI companies. Reading between the lines, this feels less about concern for society and more about the government fearing a loss of power to tech companies. I can’t WAIT for this hearing, where we’ll surely be entertained with questions from officials along the lines of, “Could the Google make me into an AI? This feels dangerous,” and, “It is my understanding that AI can connect to the internet, is that really necessary?” 

New stuff 

• Please find the most gossipy person you know and have them apply to AWS, because I NEED to know where this new AWS Secret Region is. It’s only for the U.S. Intelligence Community, which frankly I think I should be working for, because you wouldn’t believe what strangers have felt compelled to tell me on my travels. I basically already work for the Intelligence Community and should know where this is. 
• AWS has introduced a new SME partner competency: SMBs. 30 Partners (including Trellix) have already achieved the Small and Medium Business Competency and offer a range of services and solutions specific to SMBs, such as security, storage, migration, and AI. 
• To make OpenAI even more accessible, Microsoft is working on a smaller, cheaper version for those of us living in the gutter. It has compiled a team to develop a conversational AI that requires less computing power. In this case, they just have to “do less with less.” 
• You can now get Copilot Pro for $20 a month, meaning I can use that $20 from my failed Vodafone deal. For small businesses, there’s a Copilot virtual assistant that Microsoft 365 customers can purchase. 
• Microsoft has launched new partner benefits, which include access to Copilot, product licenses, and Azure credits. 
• Check out this announcement for Microsoft Mesh, featuring avatars that, for some reason, have no bottom half to their bodies. Mesh “powers 3D immersive experiences” for hybrid workers so interactions “feel more face-to-face” (except for dunno why, the bottom half of bodies). 
• Microsoft and Norwegian software company Cognite are collaborating to build data tools and copilots to help industrial companies improve operations using Microsoft Fabric. 
• Digital and cloud transformation company Mastek is strategically collaborating with Microsoft to build industry-specific solutions using Azure OpenAI. 
• Sony, Honda, and Microsoft are one big happy family that will make Afeela, an electric car. Here we go: Afeela a joke coming on. 
• Siemens, which does things like pay half my mortgage, has formed another strategic partnership with AWS that will boost AI usage in engineering and manufacturing markets, primarily through low-code offerings. This deal allows AWS to ride the coattails of Siemens’ credibility in these markets, and helps Siemens move more aggressively into the software field. 
• Panda is a new proposed framework from AWS that aims to provide a large language model–based debugger for databases. It will help people troubleshoot and debug databases for better performance—something AWS demonstrated when it threw Panda at ChatGPT to show how vague and incomplete the generative AI’s recommendations are. 

Best Friends Forever 

• Now on Microsoft Azure Marketplace: MIT and Harvard’s Broad Institute’s open-source Terra platform, used for biomedical analysis; FintechOS, which allows banks and insurers to design, build, and deploy digital banking and insurance products and customer experiences; Cranium AI’s security platform; and Cognigy.AI, which I dunno what it does ‘cause the release was bad, which feels like a requirement these days. 
• New to AWS Marketplace: Rackspace Technology’s Cloud DBOps, a managed service for commercial and open-source databases running on various AWS services, and Harbr’s “last mile” data solution. 
• Sacré bleu! Starting at the end of 2024, Capgemini and Orange will have formed a joint venture, Bleu, to help French companies adopt Microsoft Azure and 365 through its “cloud de confiance” (trust) services. 
• BAE, which reads like I’m yelling across the house for my significant other but is actually an ISV, has earned its AWS Migration Competency. 
• Dragos, which sounds like a company Daenerys Targaryen established, has achieved the AWS Manufacturing and Industrial Competency. It provides cybersecurity for operational technology. 
• TierPoint has earned two new Microsoft Solutions Partner designations, Data & AI and Digital & App Innovation. 
• Dentsu, which sounds like a Japanese denture shop, is expanding its AI tool offerings using Amazon Bedrock. 
• SourceFuse, a digital transformation company that’s also apparently a braggart, has officially achieved 100 AWS Certifications. 
• Revenue lifecycle management solutions provider Conga earned the AWS Life Sciences Competency. 
• DevOps software provider JFrog has integrated its Artifactory platform with Amazon SageMaker to streamline the process of building, training, and deploying ML models. 

By Nora Bright

Image by Emily Zheng

In the fast-paced world of cloud technology, hiring managers often turn to contract talent to fill critical roles and execute projects with agility. This approach can bring fresh perspectives, specialized expertise, and flexibility to your team. However, integrating new contractors seamlessly can be challenging, especially for short-term projects or maternity leave coverage roles. 

Contract engagements often require a rapid ramp-up period, leaving less time for a traditional onboarding process. Additionally, contractors may not have the same context or institutional knowledge as full-time employees, making it crucial to provide them with the right information and support quickly. 

Below are four key steps to setting your contract talent up for success: 

1. Start with clarity: Establish clear expectations before the engagement starts by providing a detailed job description and scope. This will help the contractor understand the role and feel confident they can meet your expectations within the time frame of the position. Need help getting the role’s responsibilities down on paper? We often collaborate with our clients on the job description. Here’s how we approach writing job descriptions for openings here at 2A.  

2. Be ready for day one: Before the start date, make a plan for how you will provide a company orientation and introductions to key stakeholders. Send calendar holds for the people you want your contract hire to meet and include context on the purpose of the meeting and the roles of each meeting attendee. Gather all the necessary tools, software, and access to company resources before the role starts so they can get started on day one. 

3. Make communication a priority: Like full-time employees, contractors do their best work when they have consistent feedback and open lines of communication. We recommend having 20 to 30 minute 1:1 meetings at least every other week to facilitate great communication throughout the engagement. We also meet regularly with both our Embedded Consultants and clients so that we can flag potential issues and support the feedback process. 

4. Show your appreciation: Acknowledge the contributions of your contract talent and celebrate their work. We do our part to make our Embedded Consultants feel valued by surprising them with gifts and swag, inviting them to in-person and virtual events, and providing professional development opportunities. And feedback shows that the feeling is mutual! 

There’s no better way to get a contractor started on the right foot than by setting them up with the right agency. Our practice is built on the principle that treating people well helps them shine in their roles. We focus on providing a top-notch employee experience, comprehensive benefits, and a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.  

Reach out today to learn more about how our Embedded Consulting practice can find the perfect contract hire for your next project and set them up for success. 

By Richa Dubey

Image by Suzanne Calkins

Visual storytelling is where Emily thrives. It’s her chance to dig into an idea, push through the surface, and pull together a design that’s fresh and captivating. As you can imagine, she likes it here at our storytelling agency.  

Emily’s story is, in some ways, the classic one for artists who’ve always been drawn to their work. As the artsy kid in school, she would fulfill requests for art or help friends with their illustrations, whether for school projects or fun. While growing up, she contained it to a hobby because “I was worried that doing anything artistic professionally would kill my love for it.” But some things are meant to be. 

“At every single internship or club that I joined in college, I realized that people always wanted me to do design work anyway—and I eventually realized that I would miss it if I didn’t do something creative.” So, she undertook a host of design-based internships and part-time jobs, including an art teaching assistant post in college. 

After these, being Emily, she put her family first during the COVID pandemic, helping out at her family restaurant. Then 2A caught her attention. Why?   

“Stories! The job description included the word ‘storytelling,’ which was one of my search keywords. I loved how it sounded, and when I looked at the 2A website, I thought, “This is the most fun group of people I have seen in a long time, and I love how they tell stories.” 

Visual stories are where it’s at for Emily— bringing art, illustration, and design together in service of a narrative (take this complex and fun illustration for Microsoft). With quiet courage and commitment, Emily unpacks the concepts until she arrives at the eureka moments when a design clicks into place. “When I can look beyond the obvious and pull the right pieces together in a design that works, it is so exhilarating.”   

If Emily had a theme song, it would probably be beyond the obvious—not only because of her approach to design, but also because it rings true for her life outside 2A. You probably wouldn’t guess this, but Emily will always commit to the bit in improv comedy. She boulders (“because I’m a little scared of it”), reads children’s books, and watches bad movies (“everyone watches the good ones, and I enjoy being a hater for a while”).  

Whatever Emily does, she brings her whole self to it.