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.
career, corporation, job, networking, relationships, social media, social network, work

Spinning the web: Making the most of the final two weeks at a job

Christa Avampato

I never expected that anyone would much care that I was leaving my current job for a new opportunity. I figured people would pat me on the shoulder, wish me luck on my new adventure, and send me on my way. Just the opposite. People have gone out of their way to connect, to learn about my new job, and to make sure that they have my personal contact info correct so we can stay in touch. And these aren’t just my friends from work, but senior people whom I greatly respect and admire. It is nothing short of flattering. Of course, there are a few odd responses – people who have written me off before I’m out the door and those who have even chosen to ignore me altogether – but those are the very small minority and are people I never hoped to stay in touch with going forward.

While I have sometimes dreaded winding down my time at a job, and know many others who have had similar experiences, this time around I am glad to have over a week remaining. Closing these loops and ensuring their long-term stability are important. I now understand how professional networks and webs are built, and absolutely see that they are at least as valuable, if not more so, than the actual experience from a job. These days, everything seems to be about relationships.

The dawning of the age of social networking tools also eases the sting of leaving a job. I am a self-admitted sap. I think I’ve cried every time I’ve left a job. Though this time with these new tools at my disposal, it is easy to see that the many wonderful people I have worked alongside of will be in my life for years to come. It’s not a “good-bye”, but a “see you around the bend”. All the more reason to make sure those bridges remain whole and intact.

family, friendship, home, peace, visitors

The Irony of Company

Christa Avampato

I love company – so much so that I sometimes I think I am running a small hotel in my studio apartment. My sister, brother-in-law, and baby niece just left after a four-day stay with me. I loved showing them around, taking photos of them in places familiar to me but new to them, and seeing NYC through their fresh and appreciative eyes.


The irony is that I have worked hard to create a very peaceful life. Odd that we should have to work at peace, but I must admit that it is a daily process rather than a destination. And sometimes I wonder if my desire for peace is causing me to create a world where change is something I resist. 

This is strange ground for me — I am used to actively seeking and embracing change. Now it seems the challenge for me is how to have my peace and maintain it too, while also staying flexible and open to the world and the opportunities it presents. 
neighbors, New York, transportation

Unreasonable drivers

Christa Avampato


Why is it that people in cars in New York City feel they have the right to tell people how to park, where to park, and when to move their cars? And why do they think it’s okay to do that by screaming at others from their own cars? I returned to New York today with my sister, brother-in-law, and baby niece for a vacation. We found a parking space right in from of my building with enough room to easily move in and out of when leaving. 


We had arm-loads of things we were carrying inside(including my niece!), and a man with a large station wagon yells at me to move my car forward so he can shimmy his way in behind my car, wedging me into the space.  I tried to ignore his screaming, telling him we couldn’t just drop our things in the middle of the sidewalk and we certainly were not going to wedge in the car in front of us, and then be wedged into the space ourselves. Then he yells “Well, I hope your car will be safe!” We walked inside and didn’t think anything of it, except that he was rude and bordered on crazy. 

I came back out to the car a minute later to gather the few remaining items and he is putting a note on my windshield, and I asked him to back away from my car. His response (after removing the note): “next time, be a little more civil. Parking is at a premium around here.” “What?” I asked. “In case you didn’t notice, we have an infant with us and arm loads of things we’re carrying. And why would I box in the person in front of me and then have you box me in? How would I move my car out with you wedged in behind my car? And besides, even if I did move all the way up to the next car, you still couldn’t get your big car in that space.” He walked away in a huff.

I’ll never understand people like this – people who are naturally so irate that they feel they have the right to upset and harass other people who are minding their own business. I find these people generally are those who drive in the city. Does the driving cause them to go crazy or is it their craziness that encourages them to drive here? I wish people like this guy didn’t make me so upset and stressed; I wish I could chalk it up to funny and weird experiences. And maybe I will once this car is a thing of the past in my life – I’m so looking forward to returning to life as a subway girl.  
blog, blogging, family, technology

savvyauntie.com

Christa Avampato

In my TrendCentral newsletter this morning, I discovered a site that I love! Savvyauntie.com. A community for people just like me – PANKs (Professional Aunt, No Kids). FINALLY someone figured out how awesome it is to be an aunt, figured out that there are other women who love being aunts, and developed a platform to bring them all together.

The site has all kinds of cool features, tips, ways to contribute, advice, and it is stylishly designed. I love the site because it recognizes that there are many women out there who either love kids and don’t want any of their own or aren’t ready for kids of their own. On occasion I read mom blogs, but a lot of that information doesn’t pertain to me as an aunt and many of them love being a mom so much that they don’t understand why any women would choose not to have children, or delay the decision to have them. (Even when I was at the BlogHer Conference, which I found incredibly useful from a professional stand-point, I felt outside the circle many times because I wasn’t a Mommy blogger.) Melanie Notkin, the site’s founder, CEO, and editor, appreciates the p.o.v. of aunts and caters to it.

The other feature that I love about savvyauntie.com is Melanie’s willingness to share how she started this business. She’s passionate about entrepreneurship and wants to help other people on that journey if they’re so inclined. You can read all about her journey to building her own company at http://blog.savvyauntie.com/. With all the recognition and traffic she’s getting while the site is still in Beta, savvyauntie.com is going to have a long, happy, and healthy life. And the aunts of the world will be better for it!

apple, business, corporation, customer service, Mac, technology

Now I really love those folks at Apple

Christa Avampato

I received a survey from Apple today about my experience at the Genius Bar. They wanted me to rate my experience and give them feedback. Perfect — I had called the store and tried to find an email address but to no avail. So I filled out the survey and one hour later, a Genius called me to follow-up, capture the info from my survey, and then is going to get the info to the stores so they can better service the next customer that comes along that has the same issue with iWeb that I had. How incredible is that?

It’s this kind of customer service that keeps people converting to Macs, iPhones, iPods. While a lot of companies are trying to copy the design and slick details of the devices themselves, what’s winning people over is the friendly, helpful service – a much more difficult business to copy. I like that I’m treated humanely with a sympathetic ear, that they go out of their way to help me, see if I’m satisfied once I’ve left the building, and if it turns out I’m in any way disappointed, they want to mend their ways.

Imagine if every business, big or small, regardless of industry, was striving to be the Apple among their competitors? Apple would be well within its right to set up a consulting arm to teach companies how to do business the Apple-way. And we’d all live in a better world thanks to their efforts.

apple, customer service, Mac, retail, social media, social network, technology

The Wisdom of Crowds on Apple Forums

Christa Avampato

At the outset, I would like to be honest that I love the Apple Store and the Geniuses that work there. Truly. I’d be interseted in marrying one. I get fantastic service every time I walk in the door, they’re kind, understanding, and go out of their way to be helpful. Plus, they have t-shirts with funny sayings on them.

I took my Macbook into the store on 5th Avenue on Sunday because I couldn’t get my iWeb-designed website to open on Internet Explorer. At the Genius Bar, I was told that’s just the way it goes – Internet Explorer can’t read iWeb properly; it’s iWeb illiterate. I walked away feeling very frustrated and upset by all of this – I bought my Macbook expressly for the purpose of easily creating a website in iWeb and uploading it to my own URL. Now, it appeared my efforts were for naught.

My friend, Ken, a fellow Mac lover, suggested I try the on-line forums. I was hesitant. I mean, who knows more than one of Apple’s Geniuses at one of their premiere stores? Well, it turns out that a lot of people are Geniuses in their own right, and they love posting advice and tips to those forums. One in particular had the exact same problem I was having and after much fiddling found an easy fix for it. My pictures had a reflection and shadow that I chose for stylistic purposes. Turns out that the code that creates those edits in iWeb makes Internet Explorer choke. I removed the reflection and shadow from each picture and now the pages load perfectly. My website was saved! All by the kindness of a stranger who posted to one of the forums.

Geniuses are everywhere…

business, Business Week, economy, environment, money, recycle

Cash for Trash

Christa Avampato

Who doesn’t need a little extra money these days? Pretty soon you may need to look no further than your trash can. This week, Business Week ran an article on the recycling and waste – an area of our economy that is booming despite the loses being felt in many other industries. Green collar jobs and green collar crime are on the rise, mostly in the area of how to use trash. VC and PE firms are tripping over themselves to invest in new trash technologies, throwing a million ideas at the wall and hoping that a couple of them stick. 


You really want to make some money in trash? Figure out the most efficient way to sort it. As with so many other projects that require a clear, concise reason for being, the value of trash is in the edit. And there isn’t a top of the line sorting system out there that does away with ever form of human sorting. What we need is a WALL-E. Actually, we need thousands of them. And some people still think that cartoons are only for entertaining kids! Who knew those folks over at Pixar were moonlighting environmental engineers? 

books, career, childhood, dreams, Randy Pausch, technology, travel

Randy Pausch

Christa Avampato

A few months ago, I wrote a post about Randy Pausch after seeing The Last Lecture on YouTube. I followed his blog, read his book, and thought a lot about my childhood dreams. At 47, Randy passed away on Friday leaving us inspired to have as much courage to live our dreams as he did living his. Even as he was dying from pancreatic cancer, he was still having a blast, still living out dreams. 


As adults we sometimes forget about those dreams we has as children. We become too realistic, too practical. We box up our dreams, tape that box shut, and shelve it under the title “nostalgia”. We can lose sight of ourselves, living out lives that we never intended to have. Who we really are is housed in that little box, and it’s worth re-opening. 

One New Year’s Eve, I made a little list of the dreams I had for myself. I’ve lost track of the paper in all of my moves but I remember some of the dreams I had. Of the 7 I can remember, I’ve done 3, and I’m working on a 4th:

To travel to a foreign country

To go on an archeological dig
To be fluent in a second language   
To make an artistic contribution to a film
To go on a safari in Africa
To publish a book of my own writing
To run a marathon

A lot left to do, and I need some new dreams, too. It’s easy to let a list like this fall by the wayside because we’re too busy, too consumed with being an adult to remember how to dream like a kid. The greatest thing that Randy Pausch taught me is that it’s possible to do both at the same time. He had a career, a family, and many demands on his time. And he still made it a focus of his life to live those childhood dreams with equal parts of gusto and grace. He knew what he wanted and he went after it. 

For sure, his life was cut short. With his imagination and talents, he would have been able to usher in more sweeping advances in our technological world. He still had so much to teach us. The best way to honor him and the incredible life he lived is take that box of dreams down from the shelf, dust it off, and rediscover ourselves. At the very least, it’s worth the trip down memory lane, and we may just find a new road take. 
career, economy, job, money

Advice for Young People in Tough Economic Times

Christa Avampato

Money concerns and economic worries are top of mind for nearly everyone in my life at the moment. Front page news, top of the evening nightly news broadcasts, and the subject of blog post after blog post. As an econ major and MBA, I’m fascinated by the psychology of money and it’s ability to shape the quality of our lives just by the very perception we have of it. Feelings and emotions move markets at a mad pace.

For young people, these tough economic times are particularly worrisome. High debt from school, fewer job prospects, trepidation about their very lengthy futures. It can be discouraging, though I think there is reason for hope. This week, CNN Money offered up advice from a variety of people from money managers to authors. I didn’t agree with all of the advice, but wanted to add my own anecdote and advice about money in the hopes that it’s helpful in these troubled times. 

1.) Regardless of the economic situations, there are jobs out there for people who are diligent, ambitious, and optimistic. In a bad economy, many people assume they can’t find a job and don’t even bother to look. Take advantage of that and cast a wide net. 

2.) Use new technology to control your spending, especially on your credit cards. Sites like Mint.com and AmericanExpress.com offer text messaging and emails of balances to help you keep tabs of where you are in your spending so you aren’t surprised at the end of the month when you receive your bills. American Express also offers a myriad of on-line consumer resources with tips and advice to help you manage your financial life.

3.) Stay diversified – and not just in your portfolio, but in your career, too! Most people I know work hard at their day job without having anything other source of income. As you get further in your career, think about how your skills can be utilized in a freelance capacity that you enjoy. It gives you extra money to sock away when times get tough or unexpected expenses arise (case in point – my recent car troubles), you’ll be more in control of your career and finances as opposed to the company you work for having all of that control, you’ll build your network, and if you are the subject of a layoff, cut in salary, etc. during a downturn in the economy, you’ll have a bit of a cushion to tide you through a job search or switch. You’re the CEO of your career – make sure you’re watching out for it. 

Would welcome any comments an other suggestions. Times like this require group action and efforts – a rising tide lifts all boats. 

Africa, career, travel, volunteer

Finding Purpose in Africa

Christa Avampato

Running off to the developing world to make a difference and contribute to humanity used to be the realm of young college graduates. Now, more and more professionals, solo or with family in tow, are finding themselves drawn to areas of the world where they can see the direct impact of their work improving the lot of those who cannot improve the quality of life on their own. 

This week, USA Today ran an article about Americans finding purpose in Africa, specifically Rwanda. For me, that country conjures up images of the gentle mountain gorillas juxtaposed to the images from CNN and MSNBC of the brutal genocide that the country endured. Today, there are ex-pats living and working Rwanda who think that the country is poised to be the next Singapore. After years of unrest and violence beyond measure, the country is fighting its way back to peace and prosperity. And Americans looking for purpose are flocking to lend their expertise, time, and energy. And while Rwandans are reaping the benefits of lower infant mortality, higher education rates, and greater economic opportunities, Americans are gaining a sense of self and purpose, empathy, acceptance, and faith in the goodness that we can create for one another.  

As someone who’s always thought that my time for the Peace Corp had passed me by, this article left me encouraged by all of the future opportunities that exist for me to lend a hand, my heart, and my spirit.