Strategic Communications Firm AnyContext Expands to LA & PNW
Tags: Communications Strategy, Developer Relations, Public Relations, Tech Startups, Startup Marketing

Introducing a bigger and better AnyContext — a full-service marketing and communications firm for technology organizations. With a focus on strategic growth and meeting business objectives, AnyContext brings deep tech ecosystem expertise to startups and growth-stage organizations seeking to raise their profile and make meaningful connections with end users, customers, partners, and stakeholders.

We have brought on a team of kickass senior talent to help brands own their stories and share them with the audiences that matter. The group we have assembled has worked together for the past decade defining, living, and breathing cloud computing and enterprise infrastructure, developer tools and platforms, gaming, AR/VR, mobile, security, and more.

Collectively, the AnyContext team has represented companies such as Cloudability, Creator, Esri, Intel, Mapbox, Nokia, Samsung, SecondLife, SendGrid, SmartThings, TechStars Cloud, and many others. Chances are one of us has worked on something that you use every single day and don’t even know it. We are stealthy, agile, and we enable companies to evolve.

Today marks the revival of AnyContext. We are thrilled to share that Jennifer Lankford has stepped in as Partner and Principal. She is based in Portland, OR. James Au continues his journey with us as Senior Vice President of Media and Content from Los Angeles, and Shay Nowick returns as Vice President of Technology and Data in Silicon Valley. Vanessa Camones will continue as CEO and Partner and divides her time between Silicon Valley and Los Angeles.

So, we are bringing it back! Our mission as a team and as community leaders is to enable greatness for anyone who works with us at any capacity. Because of that, we are also honored and proud to tell you about our MindMeld Collective, a group of diverse, incredibly seasoned, and kind individuals that collaborate with us in many creative ways — from mentorship to ideation to insight on trends. They keep us on our toes. If you are interested in being part of the collective please drop us a line — it’s an entire program in and of itself.

So, what does AnyContext offer? It comes down to your business goals. We are problem solvers, first and foremost. A lot of people confuse what we do as “PR.” While there is absolutely nothing wrong with that—it’s often the first need that brings clients to our doorstep and we do it well—we prefer to set the record straight once and for all. What we provide is strategic communications counsel and marketing programs tailored to fit your objectives.

Here are a few examples of what we can do:

Launch a “burger bot” restaurant like Creator in SF.

Define industry growth and trends with feature story development.

Orchestrate impactful developer and content-driven events. Take Samsung Developer Conference 2018, where we partnered with SiliconAngle to create a live TV studio at the conference.

Create high impact developer advocacy and community engagement programs for open source projects… and those often elusive customer reference programs for proprietary technologies.

Manage strategic partner relationships and co-marketing programs to expand your reach and attract new users across the ecosystem.

Develop and publish white papers and industry research surveys for lead generation and content campaigns.

We do a lot of different things. We are creative, we are calculated risk takers, and we know how to create meaningful content and programmatic strategies that speak to the audiences that matter most to your business in a very tangible way.

With that said, we are taking new clients for 2019, so please get in touch if you have a project or story that needs to come to life.

We’ll make it relevant.

Let’s drop some knowledge about our executive team:

Vanessa Camones

CEO & Partner

Vanessa has been a strategic marketing and communication consultant in Silicon Valley for over 20 years, first working with Pixar Animation Studios and later managing content in-house at Cisco Systems, she’s also held management roles with several global communication firms including Niehaus Ryan Wong, Schwartz Communications and The Hoffman Agency.

In 2007 Vanessa founded theMIX agency, a Silicon Valley-based firm specializing in integrated communications, digital and content strategy, developer relations, and event production, with satellite offices based in Los Angeles, Manhattan, and Shanghai. She folded tMa in 2017 and spent time advising companies and venture capital. Now she’s revived the AnyContext brand to rebuild the communications and marketing services model.

She’s an advisor to South by Southwest Interactive, The Design Museum Foundation, and a frequent guest essay contributor to Latina Geeks, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, The Next Web, and Digiday, on the board of directors for Board Seat Meet and advisor to Voltn. In her free time you can usually find her in the kitchen cooking for a crew of misfits or planning her next interior design project.

Jennifer Lankford

Partner & Principal

A results-driven communication and marketing leader, Jennifer brings more than 12 years of experience helping disruptive and emerging technology organizations bring products to market. She and Vanessa first started working together way back in 2006. From 2009 to 2013, she served as Vice President of theMIX agency. She’s most recently been neck deep in the cloud and cloud-native, DevOps, open source, and security industries, where she’s led community engagement, media relations, and partnership programs for members of the Linux and Cloud Native Computing Foundations such as Buoyant and Twistlock. Before that she worked in-house as marketing manager for Intel’s Software Defined Infrastructure group — the business unit responsible for Intel's’ Kubernetes strategy. She has deep digital ecosystem expertise that she translates into highly effective messaging, content, media and analyst campaigns, developer advocacy, strategic partner and channel programs, product marketing, GTM, and brand development. In her spare time, Jennifer loves rockhounding the creeks and beaches of Oregon and DJing techno and house music.

Wagner James Au

SVP of Content & Editorial Strategy

James is an 18 year veteran of the tech industry, as a freelance journalist for outlets including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Wired, and Kotaku, as a marketing/content strategist and writer for Linden Lab, MMO startup ohai (acquired by EA), and Yodo1 (Beijing-based publisher of Crossy Road and other mobile hits), and as an analyst for GigaOM Pro and Web Media Brands. As content director for AnyContext, Au has placed client-driven editorial in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, FastCompany, TechCrunch, and Gamasutra, among many other outlets. An advisor for South by Southwest Interactive since 2006, Au is the author of The Making of Second Life (HarperCollins) and Game Design Secrets (Wiley).

Shay Nowick

Vice President of Technology and Data

Shay Nowick is our in-house data analyst and product manager who speaks backend tech with our client-side engineers and decision makers. She brings 14+ years of industry experience working to help companies iterate, adapt and build leading-edge games, apps, and tools. Passionate about data-driven development, her career has been devoted to working on the execution of big, bold ideas with the stats to back them up. Her skills and experience include a deep understanding of user retention and growth strategies, automated data visualization, and building tools for managing KPIs and aligning goals across teams that achieve results. Shay originally worked with theMIX team as our technology analyst, she’s been a consultant and lead data analyst at Munkyfun, Playfirst, DeNa and other hitmakers. In her free time, when she’s not automating the boring stuff, Shay makes beats.