Month: February 2009

education, Junior Achievement, New York City

My Year of Hopefulness – Ethics Class 1

Christa Avampato

This week, I began teaching Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility at the High School of Finance and Economics as part of my volunteer work with Junior Achievement. I arrived ridiculously early to calm my nerves. I haven’t been in a high school classroom in a LONG time.

As I was walking from my office, I tried to remember what it was like to be 14 years old. What if I got there and no one cared about the topic or wanted to pay attention? What was I thinking when I signed up for this – I’m going to teach a class of 30 high school students by myself? I was beginning to regret my decision to volunteer for this. For one second, I thought about turning around and saying I just couldn’t do this. I have a horrible case of stage fright. I am great in one-on-one conversation with someone I don’t know, but give me a crowd of two strangers and I clam up. Sometimes, I shake – visibly.

My flight impulse had nothing to do with not wanting to teach. I was worried that this group of 30 14-year olds wouldn’t like me. I had reverted back to adolescent angst with no warning. And somehow that little fact calmed me down – I know exactly what it’s like to be a 14-year old.

Once I was in the classroom with the kids, my nerves calmed down. I smiled – that’s my nervous response to almost every awkward situation. We played a game that broke the class up into three groups: haves, have-nots, and a group in-between. The three groups had to figure out how to co-exist on a desert island. It was amazing how quickly some immediately thought to fight the other groups, while others were more interested in negotiating. The difference fell distinctly along gender lines: the boys wanted to fight while the girls wanted to bargain and negotiate.

We didn’t even get through half the lesson by the time was up. Just as the conversation was really getting interesting, once the class was starting to get how complicated Ethics is, my time was up. It flew by – I needed more time. They were just getting it and I had to get back to my desk at work. Luckily, I have 6 more classes with them. I’m really glad I rose above the stage fright.

design, GEL, GEL conference, gel2008, innovation, new product development

Repost of Alex Lee from OXO

Christa Avampato

Last Spring I was fortunate to be able to attend the GEL conference in New York City. One of the people on the slate of incredible speakers was Alex Lee, CEO of OXO. The fine people at Good Experience who organize the conference sent me a link to a video that is now posted to highlight Alex’s talk. I wanted to repost my article, now complete with video, so you can enjoy on the great talk that has had me thinking intently about functional design ever since! Cheers (and thanks to Good Experience!)

You may not know the name “OXO“, though you undoubtedly have seen their products in the kitchen gadget aisles. And their anonymity shouldn’t surprise anyone – after all, their CEO, Alex Lee, believes that designers should be overshadowed by the simplicity and beauty of their own designs. Whether it’s making an incomparable salad spinner or an ingenious measuring cup, the reaction OXO is always looking for from users is their lack of notice of the object. It should be so intuitive and easy to use that its use should go unnoticed, like walking, like breathing.

Alex also made several points about dignity. OXO seeks to design products that are usable by the greatest percentage of the population possible. The goal is to design beautiful products without increasing cost, while maximizing functionality, and never making a user feel like “I’m using this easy-to-use product because I am unable to use another one that is more complicated.”

He and the talented design team at OXO have several axioms that they work and live by. Products should be:
Easy to use
Easy to understand
Use honest language
Instructions not required

As far as finding inspiration for worthy design projects, OXO also makes that search simple. They find objects that cause people some sort of pain or frustration, even if they don’t know that they are frustrated. And then they develop a design remedy to alleviate the pain. For example, why should I need to get my eyes down to counter level to observe a meniscus to see if the liquid I’ve measured is at the right level? I should be able to comfortably observe it from overhead. I didn’t realize that, but OXO did. Design so brilliant you wonder how you ever did without it…

Alex Lee at Gel 2008 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

hope, innovation, relationships

My Year of Hopefulness – People Who Get It

Christa Avampato

I’m doing a little experiment: spend a week jotting down the names of everyone you speak to and divide them up into two groups – people who get it and people who don’t. And by “it” I mean whatever you’re passionate about. Bookies, movies, innovation, a new idea for a project at work, a vacation destination. “It” means anything that you want others to listen to, believe, and embrace as their own. “It” is something you want others to buy into.


I found that I spend a solid 50% of my time talking to people who don’t get it, and won’t get it, no matter how much I try to convince them. That is sunk energy. I am spending 50% of my time with people stating my case and I’d have just as much luck with a brick wall as I do with them. I have been wasting too much time on people who don’t get it, and who don’t get me. 

Today I went to an Innovator’s Network meeting – a group of people dedicated to talking openly and honestly, looking for silver linings amidst some very dark and gathering clouds. These were my people. Or at least some of them were my people. 

It took me a while to find them, a lot of time and effort shouting from the hilltops, and chasing a lot of roads that culminated in dead ends. I spent a lot of time feeling lonely and left out, and out of place. And then I walked into this room today and saw all of these people, gathered together, as if they had been waiting for my arrival. I took my seat among them and smiled. It felt good to be among like minds.     
For the image above, click here.
charity, entrepreneurship, New York City, philanthropy, social entrepreneurship

NY Business Strategies Examiner: Social Entrepreneurship: God’s Love We Deliver – 10,000,000 meals and counting

Christa Avampato

Last Fall, I volunteered at a disorganized event for a nonprofit. I was griping to one of the other volunteers and she told me about a nonprofit that she works with that runs like a well-oiled machine: God’s Love We Deliver (GLWD).

career, job, Marcus Buckingham, Oprah

My Year of Hopefulness – Marcus Buckingham Workshop Session 3: What is Strengths Training?

Christa Avampato

Most companies have just completed their annual employee reviews. There are few other times of the year that cause more anxiety and induce more fear at work. Does my boss really like me? What have I screwed up? And what is going, in black and white, into my file, never to be undone?


It’s with good reason that many people feel this way. Historically, performance reviews focus on areas of improvement (aka – stuff we’re not good at) rather than areas of strength (aka – our greatest assets.) Very slowly, that’s beginning to change thanks to people like Marcus Buckingham who advocate for a focus on strengths. 

In session 3 of his on-line workshop, Marcus talks about his belief that focusing on strengths yields a far better outcome than focusing on areas of improvement. 72% of people feel an emotional high from their jobs once a month. Marcus pushes all of us to consider how we can go from once a month to all of the time. In order to get us there, he asks us to follow this plan:

1.) Bust the myths

2.) Get clear on what strengthens and weakens you, not on your strengths and weaknesses (though it’s possible that those things could overlap). Most people think that someone else is a better judge of their own strengths and weaknesses than they are. This conclusion is logical because of the current structure of performance reviews at most large companies. Because we report to a boss in a hierarchy, that boss is traditionally given the authority to tell us what we’re good at and what we’re bad at, and judge us based on that. (This is taken as gospel regardless of the fact that our boss may be less educated, less experiences, and not as talented.) Marcus thinks this is crazy – people with at least an average level of self-awareness (which is nearly everyone) is very conscious of what their strengths and weaknesses are and is the best judge of them. That’s why it’s often an interview question! In performance reviews, we too often hand over the power to define us to someone else. 

3.) Plan your strong week. Do things that invigorate you, not drain you, as often as you can. Almost every job has elements that we don’t like but are necessary. Tilt the floor to fill up as much of our time as possible with the activities that invigorate us. This is called strength training.    
friendship, relationships

My Year of Hopefulness – Accept People From Where They Are

Christa Avampato

I had drinks with my friend, Brooke, on Friday. I was telling her about a recent challenge in my love life. She listened patiently and with only a few moments of explanation she was able to make me see that the challenge I was facing had nothing to do with me and had everything to do with the guy. It’s his past relationships that are effecting his current behavior. I was presenting him with a similar situation that he’s faced in the past and that past situation didn’t go well for him. Subconsciously, he’s put me in that same category as his last girlfriend because of the circumstances, even though our personalities are completely different. 


This got me thinking about some challenges in other parts of my life and I realized a pattern. I have been losing a lot of sleep wondering what I can personally do to overcome these challenges. My conversation with Brooke showed me that sometimes all we can do to resolve a situation is nothing. We have to step back and take people from where they are, not from where we are or where we’d like them to be. The longer we live, the longer we’re likely to face some kind of trauma and discomfort. And those things alter us, and they alter the way we look at new situations. The old carries forward, no matter how much we profess to turning over a new leaf. We can change a lot of things, but we can’t go back and change our experience. That is frozen in time. 

This simple insight gave me a lot of comfort. Anxiety builds up when we feel that we should be or could be doing something to improve our lot, and for one reason or another we don’t act. Knowing that in some instances there isn’t anything we can do to improve a situation because the situation is entirely out of our control brings a sense of calm and peace. And it’s through providing that peace to someone else that may just help them resolve the challenge on their own, allowing us all to move forward.  
business, entrepreneurship, Examiner, finance, social entrepreneurship, The Economist

Operation HOPE and Child Savings International on Examiner.com

Christa Avampato

John Bryant spent many years in Los Angeles shouting from the hills in an effort to educate people outside the finance industry about finance. After the LA riots in 1992, he founded Operation HOPE to provide finance education to young people and those who didn’t have any other means to learn about finance.



Illustration above by James Fryer.
dating, personality, relationships

My Year of Hopefulness – The Explorer

Christa Avampato

Last month, there was a clip of me on 20/20. During the summer, I was invited to a party hosted by Chemistry.com where I was getting matched up with a number of people that were supposedly perfect for me. I did meet some interesting folks, despite my initial skepticism. I was highlighted on 20/20 as the classic “Explorer” personality. I usually dislike being “typed”, however this definition suits me almost too well. 


I think about my career (or more accurately – careers (plural)), my friends, my interests, my education, my travels, my hobbies. The common thread is this unending desire to explore anything new and different. I am a restless spirit. That trait has caused me plenty of trouble, and it’s also brought me an equal amount of joy. It’s left me sometimes lonely though more often very fulfilled. Wandering can cause me to feel lost and aimless, though the search is always filled with surprise and keeps me pushing forward. 

If I consider my ideal anything – career, relationship, trip, etc. – it always involves discovery. Each new adventure uncovers another tiny piece of me that I didn’t know existed. Many times I tried to settle down and play a consistent part, and until very recently I didn’t understand why I was ultimately more comfortable with the unknown rather than the stable. Now I know its hard-wired in me. I am proud to represent all Explorers – let the search continue, always.  

Many thanks to my friends, Alex and Shawn, for creating the link to my 20/20 clip on YouTube, and to Col for taking the still of my name tag with her iPhone!
art, jazz, music

My Year of Hopefulness – John Scofield

Christa Avampato

Last week a date took me to Carnegie Hall to see John Scofield. I had never heard of Scofield though listened to a few of his clips on-line and enjoyed them enough to pique my interest to see him live. He’s a jazz guitarist with a very unique sound. I can see how you’d hear a few riffs and know instantly that he was playing. 


In hindsight, the date was largely uneventful though the concert has had me thinking about John Scofield ever since. I was a less-than-mediocre saxophone player in grade school and college, and not for lack of trying. I just didn’t “get it”. I can read music just fine, which is a problem. I approached playing music the same way I approached calculus – in a very academic, formulaic way. I couldn’t play with any kind of feeling – I never felt any kind of kinship with my horn. It was some external piece of metal that I got to play notes in a very unemotional way. Writing became my creative outlet, and remains so, though a tiny of part of me has always felt badly about not being able to play an instrument well. 

I do find that despite my lack of talent to play an instrument, I get a tremendous amount of joy going to concerts and hearing musicians play with such soul. I’m green with envy and teary eyed with joy. It’s so evident in their facial expressions that they are off in another world when they’re playing. It’s a world I long to see, though I’ve had to settle for being the person just outside, peering in through the window. 

John Scofield and his band are so in sync that there’s barely any reading of music and changes are spontaneous throughout a piece. All of a sudden someone’s taking a solo even though 30 seconds before they didn’t know they’d be up. I sit there in awe wondering how on Earth they do that – how do they know which notes to play? It’s a mystery to me. 

You would think my natural reaction would be extreme jealousy and confusion. And you’re right, but I can transcend those feelings. What’s so inspiring to me about watching concerts and listening to jazz is that through the arts there is another world that exists, whole and separate, from our everyday lives. If life on Earth has you down, put on a musician like Scofield and he’ll carry you away with him, at least for a little while. I highly recommend track 5, “Behind Closed Doors”, on his album This Meets That.    
business, entrepreneurship, Examiner, gaming, marketing, technology, video games

The Game Agency on Examiner.com

Christa Avampato

This week I interviewed Steve Baer, Co-founder of The Game Agency. The Game Agency (TGA) creates games to integrate into corporate marketing programs to enhance brand value, increase customer loyalty, and drive innovation.


To read the full article on TGA, click here.