Author: Christa Avampato

The short of it: Writer. Health, education, and art advocate. Theater and film producer. Visual artist. Product geek. Proud alumnae of the University of Pennsylvania (BA) and the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia (MBA). Inspired by ancient wisdom & modern tech. Proliferator of goodness. Opener of doors. Friend to animals. Fan of creative work in all its wondrous forms. I use my business skills to create passion projects that build a better world. I’ve been called the happiest New Yorker, and I try hard to live up to that title every day. The long of it: My career has stretched across Capitol Hill, Broadway theatre, education, nonprofit fundraising, health and wellness, and Fortune 500 companies in retail, media, entertainment, technology, and financial services. I’ve been a product developer and product manager, theater manager, strategic consultant, marketer, voice over artist, , teacher, and fundraiser. I use my business and storytelling to support and sustain passion projects that build a better world. In every experience, I’ve used my sense of and respect for elegant design to develop meaningful products, services, programs, and events. While building a business career, I also built a strong portfolio as a journalist, novelist, freelance writer, interviewer, presenter, and public speaker. My writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, PBS.org, Boston.com, Royal Media Partners publications, and The Motley Fool on a wide range of topics including business, technology, science, health, education, culture, and lifestyle. I have also been an invited speaker at SXSW, Teach for America, Avon headquarters, Games for Change, NYU, Columbia University, Hunter College, and the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. The first book in my young adult book series, Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters, was acquired by a publisher and launched in November 2017. I’m currently working on the second book in the series. A recovering multi-tasker, I’m equally at home in front of my Mac, on my yoga mat, walking my rescue dog, Phineas, traveling with a purpose, or practicing the high-art of people watching. I also cut up small bits of paper and put them back together as a collage artist. My company: I’m bringing together all of my business and creative career paths as the Founder of Double or Nothing Media: • I craft products, programs, and projects that make a difference; • I build the business plans that make what I craft financially sustainable; • I tell the stories that matter about the people, places, and products that inspire me. Follow my adventures on Twitter at https://twitter.com/christanyc and Instagram at https://instagram.com/christarosenyc.
friendship, personality. relationships, Real Simple, relationships, simplicity, technology

iwantsandy.com

Christa Avampato

I think my mobile life is about to get more complicated. I have never had a Blackberry (or Crackberry as the case may be) before this job. It wasn’t essential to my other positions. Now with this new job, some work travel, and managing multiple cross-functional projects with tight deadlines and heavy execution components, I will need one. So here we go…


I was a little nervous because I was trying to figure out how I’d link my personal calendar and my work calendar if I have two devices. What a pain. And now I’m beginning to see that mobile applications are going to play a big role in our lives very soon. Who wants to be beholden to any single device? I want my schedule, documents, endless numbers of lists, etc. accessible 24 hours a day, wherever I am, from any device.

My friend, Ariel, constantly teases me about the fact that many times I can’t get right back to people when they leave me a message. If I take a week to return his casual phone call, I’m still hearing about it months later. Recently he joked “Christa, your social life is so active you need your own assistant.” I laughed. Sure I’ll get an assistant, as long as he or she works around my schedule, manages all of my life details with little effort on my part, and promises to never leave. Oh, and I’d like him or her to work for $0. “Ask and you shall receive,” my mother (Sandy) always says. And that’s when I met another Sandy that I think will quickly become indispensable. Real Simple Magazine introduced us. 

Sandy is a virtual assistant who emails and /or texts me any and all reminders that I set up simply by sending her an email to a special address. She has text recognition capabilities, handle calendars, to-dos, goals, contact lists. The only downside is you have to learn Sandy-eez. In order for everything to be logged correctly be Sandy – you have to speak her language and use her specific shorthand. That’s not so bad though – I mean, after all, she is keeping you completely organized for free and working 24/7 with a cheerful personality.

And the only other fix I might recommend – I’d love to be able to personalize my assistant and give him or her their own unique personality and look. Maybe that’s Sandy 2.0?   
gaming, science, video games, will wright

Spore: the moment gamers have been waiting for

Christa Avampato

I’m not a gamer – my hand-eye coordination is about as good as my sense of direction, which is to say it’s non-existent. I’ve never played a Wii or an X-box or a PS2 (or is it PS3 they’re on now?) And yet, I am completely fascinated by the growth of the gaming industry and because of my interest in customer engagement am passionate about finding ways for businesses to use gaming in a constructive business-savvy way.


Enter Will Wright, a legend in gaming, creator of the Sims, who has just released his latest, greatest, and long-developed project: Spore. Borrowing from the ideas of the Green movement and the biological evolution, Wright has created a game that allows players to create worlds, actions taken within those worlds, and then deal with the fallout of the consequences over centuries of time. One of the oddest things about life is that we can make all of these choices and decisions about our environment, our economy, our relations with foreign worlds, but because of the long time span needed to see the full effects of our actions, we often don’t live with the results. Our children, our children’s children, and so, deal with the messes we make. 

Wright carries a profound belief that if we could see first hand the damage or delight we cause decades after our passing, we would make more choices that have a long-term benefit. And to top it all off, we have fun along the way creating different creatures. We get to run the world, or rather a simulation of it, for a little while. 

Tonight I was telling my friend, Dave, about my sketch comedy writing class and how the difficulty of writing this genre gave me so much more respect for comedians. With Spore, I believe that we could all benefit from playing Boss of the World for a while – maybe we would be able to see that running this planet isn’t as easy as we think it may be. We are now being faced with tough decisions about our future; Spore gives us a way to try out scenario planning in a cost-effective, entertaining, and informative way.        

As Ellis Marsalis said to his son Wynton “earn your prejudices.” Meaning, before you go giving your opinion on how to run something, try it out first. Thank you, Will Wright, for dedicating a decade of your life to this project for the sake of the planet. 

For photo above, click here.
business, care, career, corporation, job, social work

Care in the workplace

Christa Avampato

If care were a stock being offered on the market, it would be a wise commodity to invest in at this time on the planet. Care will soon be on the rise because everything else has been tried. –Doc Childre


While caring is a characteristic noted in philanthropic work or purely service businesses like health care, there are broader implications where care is not as prevalent a topic and should be. The care of employees, of customers, of communities around the world that are impacted by our businesses. I would go so far as to say if business leaders are not empathic, compassionate, and caring, then their success going forward will be compromised. 

This week I’m going to lunch with the VP of my division. A busy man, traveling all the time, sent me an invite on his first day back from vacation. And then came to my desk to make sure I received the invitation and to make sure I understood that he invited me to lunch to get my perspective on what the company is doing that makes sense and what’s “just stupid”. (His words not mine.) “You were hired for your opinions as well as your talents.” In other words, I count. A rare straight-forward statement that opened a whole new world of caring in the workplace for me.

This new job is making me a kinder person. Our Division President gave his monthly town hall two weeks ago and he was emphatic about listening to the voice of the customer (VOC), so much so that he is including VOC metrics in every business and employee review. Because I’m new to the role as well as the company, I am spending a lot of time talking with people who are experts in areas I know nothing about, and they are patiently helping me up my very steep learning curve. I imagine their advice as a helping hand that’s reaching down as I trudge up this mountain of vocabulary, processes, and requirements. The internal politics are virtually zero, and despite the strong structure and culture, they have maintained a feeling of a flat organization where ideas, opinions, and questions from everyone of every level are encouraged, valued, and vetted. It is nothing short of remarkable for a company that is so old and so large. And it’s driven by the care and concern of individuals. 

Business leaders are famous for spouting trite cliches like “it’s business, not personal.” On this one, I’m with Meg Ryan’s character in You’ve Got Mail: it’s ALWAYS personal. Everything in life, anything that involves people, is personal. We cannot continue to disconnect the business aspects from personal aspects of doing business. The line is blurring to a point where it’s barely even distinguishable. The sooner we embrace the fact that management and leadership are personal, service-oriented endeavors, the healthier our world economy will be.      

Images above can be found here. 
philanthropy, volunteer, Women for Women International

American Express Members Project

Christa Avampato

The American Express Members Project is an opportunity for American Express Card Holders, and Guests who don’t have an AMEX card, to create briefs for philanthropic projects that are then voted on to have the opportunity to win $2.5 million dollars worth of funding from American Express. My friend Amy just sent me a message letting me know that a nonprofit we have worked with has a project available for voting. “Help Women and Children Survivors of War Rebuild” by Women for Women International.  


Here’s an update on the Members Projects so far: 1190 projects were submitted and the voting continues to Monday, September 1st. From there, the top 25 projects will be put up for a final round of voting. You can search through the projects for one that interests you by topic, location, most popular thus far, or by keyword. You can vote for multiple projects and if you need more information on a project, there is a discussion forum on the site where members of the community can ask questions, gather more background, and offer up their opinions about different projects. 

A perfect balance of technology, goodwill, and financial management, it’s my hope that the Members Project will encourage other companies to handle their philanthropy in the same way that American Express is doing it. I encourage you to log on, find projects that interest you, and vote! 
election, hope, Obama, politics

What Obama means to me

Christa Avampato

I am one of those people that Barack Obama talks about all the time – I am frustrated and disheartened by politics. I feel let down by our government and its officials. I’ve long thought that there is nothing that any politician can do that would get me to believe again in our government. For me, business has been the answer. A free market economy can do much more for peace and prosperity than any government. Until now. 


Usually I don’t write about politics on this blog, though I think by my expressed beliefs and opinions it is obvious that I am a liberal. Until this year, I have never belonged to a political party and I have never made a political donation. After 8 years of watching us go down the wrong path in every area: education, healthcare, foreign relations, the economy, the environment, I couldn’t be an “NE” anymore and there’s no way I could ever be a Republican. 

So I became a Democrat and I voted for Hilary Clinton in support of a woman whom I very much believed would fix healthcare, an issue that I have grown increasingly passionate about since my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer nearly two years ago thanks to advanced technology that found the smallest of tumors and treated it effectively. 

I have always liked Barack Obama; I have read his books, and now that he is the nominee, I support his efforts whole-heartedly, with my money, with my writing, and with my time. After hearing his speeches, I cannot help but feel hopeful, and it has been so long since I felt that sense of hope in our government that I barely recognized it when it hit me.  

I believe that he is like the greatest of stage directors – honest, passionate, and unifying. He listens and speaks with conviction, not stating opinion as fact but making his case to bring seemingly disparate parties together. He’s decent and fair to the point that he softened the sharp edge I develop every time I hear the word “politics”. He makes me feel like we can and will be safe in this uncertain world. I feel his energy through the TV and in the people who support them. He may be our first President in a very long time who gets that leadership is about service, not ego. 

He has already moved mountains by motivating millions of people like me around the world to get interested again in our government and the people who run it. And if he can do that, imagine what he’ll be able to do as our Commander in Chief? To me, he is a rock star in every good sense of that word. He makes me proud and optimistic, and in this day and age that is exactly what we all need. 
China, economy, friendship, Olympics, simplicity

What no one tells us about China

Christa Avampato

Last night, my friend Allan and I had dinner at Barbuto, an Italian place in the West Village that I have been meaning to try for a year. Allan is going away for 6 months – off to Singapore for work. I’m a little jealous of Allan – part of me misses flying off to a new place every week. And then I remind myself that I should be careful what I wish for.


Allan is one of my dearest friends from business school. If you had to 5 people from your life who were cheering for you, you’d want Allan there. His loyalty to his friends is something to be admired. And his work ethic would leave any American student in disbelief. He got an MBA and a half out of Darden; he put the rest of us to shame. Usually Allan and I talk about books and work ad what every crazy little projects that are taking my time these days. But last night turned to the topic of romantic relationships. Allan is confused by women. I smiled. 

Allan explained to me that in China, things are not complicated. Love included. People live a simple and diligent life. In a planned economy, there isn’t all this choice that we have here in the U.S. Nothing is really all that trying. An absence of angst.

And now when I reflect back on those Olympics Games and those inspiring, creative beyond measure, ceremonies that preceded and closed them, I understand how they came to be so precise, so perfect. They were singularly focused, the entire nation. They are unencumbered by a multitude of choices and complications. 

Now, I’m not advocating for a planned economy. I’m saying that we have more to learn from the Chinese people than we ever imagined. Their creativity and their passion is built around simplicity. And the question I’m left with is I wonder if we, as Americans, could get out of our own and get focused. It might be out only hope out of so many problems that are plaguing us.  
celebration, grateful, thankful

21 Ways to Celebrate Life

Christa Avampato

A woman named Nancy Rothstein lost her son Josh very suddenly. Once a year Nancy adds a new way to celebrate life to her growing list – one suggestion for every one of Josh’s birthdays. I received the link to the list today – it’s now at 21 items – and I spent my commute home thinking about how I celebrate life and ways in which I’d like to celebrate life. Here’s my list for every birthday I’ve celebrated:


1.) Buy an ice cream cone on a sunny day and walk through my neighborhood 
2.) Listen to my favorite songs and repeat them as many times as I want
3.) Write
4.) Spend time with friends I adore
5.) Explore a NYC neighborhood I’m not familiar with
6.) On a rainy day, I hole up in my apartment with good food, a good movie, and never change out of my PJs
7.) I walk through my favorite area of Riverside Park and linger there as long as I want
8.) Watch re-runs of my favorite sitcoms
9.) Read the latest issues of my favorite magazines cover to cover
10.) Toil in the little shops in my neighborhood
11.) Play with a dog
12.) Practice yoga
13.) Travel abroad on my own
14.) Meditate and remind myself of all the reasons I am grateful for my life
15.) Savor a good meal slowly with good company
16.) Take care of a plant
17.) Call an old friend I haven’t talked to in a while
18.) Dance around my apartment
19.) Paint a watercolor while sitting in a beautiful place
20.) Try something new that scares me
21.) Clean my apartment – I don’t necessarily like the task but I love the result
22.) Spend the afternoon with a good book
23.) Visit one of the amazing museums in NYC
24.) Get a pedicure
25.) Volunteer my time with an organization I care about
26.) Recycle
27.) Don’t money to a charity I believe in
28.) Light a candle, say a prayer
29.) Work on a home-improvement project
30.) Remain conscious of my breathe
31.) Watch live music
32.) Take photographs

Click here for image above. 
change, habit, happiness, innovation, routine

Change for Notice

Christa Avampato

I had dinner with my friends Chas and Amanda over the weekend and we got into a discussion about the importance of change. On Friday I needed to stop by the post office in midtown and it would be best for me to take the ACE to Times Square. I couldn’t recall where I’d seen the ACE sign though I know I see it everyday when I got off at the subway stop at work. Turns out it’s actually the same stop that houses the 23 (my line) and the ACE. Everyday I look at that sign and couldn’t recall the ACE symbols. Chas was telling me that at his former job they would change the colors of important signs around the office so people wouldn’t get numb to seeing them the way I did with the subway. 


On my way home from dinner I thought about the comforts and dangers of routines. How quickly we can get used to circumstances the way they are and grow apathetic to them to the point where we don’t know how we got from point A to point B. We stop being present and fall into this mental fog that clouds our ability to fully experience our lives. And that fog is heavy to lift, and diminishes joy. 

I’m wondering if there is a time for routines and a time for changing everything up. Are routines ever good for us? Do we have to recognize that they serve their purpose for a short period and then we have to break from them and find a new way? Is renewal critical to happiness?
art, museum, New York City, Whitney Museum

Buckminster Fuller

Christa Avampato

I went to the Whitney today with friends Dan, Steve, and Liane. It was our inaugural museum / dinner quarterly outing. (As just decided by Steve at the conclusion of our time at the Whitney.) Dan and I had been planning to go to the Buckminster Fuller exhibit for a good 6 weeks and finally our schedules aligned today. Luckily Steve and Liane were free as well. 


Fuller is an interesting guy, though after an hour long tour by a woman who is clearly a scholar and viewing close to 100 pieces of his work, I’m still not sure if or how he is relevant to the art and architecture worlds. Entirely self-taught, he can’t be called a designer, architect, or engineer. (Leaving me highly skeptical about his relevance to begin with.) At 32, the age I am now, he had an epiphany that rather than commit suicide by drowning himself in Lake Michigan, he would spend his time as a guinea pig of design, throwing out crazy ideas one after another and seeing if any of them stick to help improve the quality of life on this planet. Hmmmm…I am growing more skeptical by the minute. 

Fuller was very concerned with a handful of concepts and activities: marketing and branding, developing a design language all his own, optimism under all circumstances, and the state of the human condition. Now I’m growing a bit more interested. And then two other facts really pulled me in: he did not give a lick about the historical preservation of architecture (he cared only about the futuristic city) and he was so obsessed with the ideation / prototyping phase of a project that none of his ideas ever made it to market. 

As someone who loves the history of architecture and often spends days walking around a city just looking at buildings, I’m horrified that anyone in this field would ever admit to not caring one way or another if any architecture is ever preserved. And then I considered how many people I know who love thinking up ideas with no ability / desire to execute them. I like endings; I enjoy completing projects and reveling in the analysis of the outcome. (Perhaps that’s because I was born a Pisces, the last sign of the zodiac.) I cannot imagine anyone loving to think up ideas for ideas’ sake and not doing what it takes to see those ideas realized first-hand. To say you are a visionary with no ability to operate is like saying you would enjoy the company of other people if only you didn’t love to hide in your apartment. A million good ideas have no relevance if you don’t have the inkling to make them come to life. Or do they?

My friends and I left the exhibit interested and confused. Why on Earth would the Whitney devote an entire floor to a man who couldn’t get things done? I thought about this on my walk to dinner. This sliding scale of a man, equal parts genius and crack-pot. This man with no formal training who has talents that defied any kind of definition. A man without a community. 

I wonder if it is people like Buckminster Fuller who provide the shoulders for us to stand on to do great things after him. He could see that building environmentally sustainable vehicles and communities would be important, even if he didn’t have the ability to get them built. He could see that we were building so much manufacturing capability in this country that someday those resources would have to be used in new ways such as green energy production. So the question becomes can someone else with more energy and organization pick up the good points of his ideas and run with them to create something that benefits humanity in a tangible way? Maybe that is his lasting legacy: he confused, inspired, and infuriated us so much that people picked apart his ideas and salvaged the pieces that could be brought to life with a little ingenuity and a lot of hard work. Not a bad legacy for a man who almost ended it all at 32 on the shores of Lake Michigan. No bad at all. 
productivity, time, to-do lists, work

In Praise of Emptiness

Christa Avampato

I’m looking at my to-do lists for the weekend. 23 items, some of them time consuming. And this is just a typical low-key weekend for me. No traveling, I’m not hosting any event, none of the tasks require advanced preparation. 23 items – exactly who do I think I am that I can finish a first week of a job, jam pack my weekend, and be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for Monday morning?


This week in the New York Times, there was an article entitled “A Place and an Era in Which Time Could Stand Still“. It discusses the need to let kids have some time with nothing to do during summer camp rather than cramming activity after activity into their days. And this consideration is worth a look for adults, too, especially those engaged in creative pursuits. We need time to let our task-master minds unwind if we are to get at our best creative thinking. It’s buried beneath all of our to-do lists and action items.     

Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? Why are we obsessed with the need to be productive at every moment. Our European neighbors have a way of looking at life that is practically the antithesis of the American view – they enjoy life and the people around them. They savor the experience of life and the simple happiness that comes from lingering over a cup of coffee and a good book in an outdoor cafe. We chug the coffee and speed read the book in a packed subway car. Is it any wonder that we are dealing with so many health issues and a general lack of enjoyment in this country?

Recognizing this need to unwind, the editors at Real Simple Magazine put together a 14-day stress detox program. I looked for an on-line link but the list is only available in print and includes things like taking time to be grateful and investing a little time in gardening of any kind, even if it’s just a windowsill house plant. It’s well worth the look with one caveat – I would recommend stretching out the changes and enjoying them, reflecting on them, and fully ingesting their meaning and power. The last thing we need is another deadline and a another item on a rushed to-do list.