Category: apple

apple, business, family, friendship, social media, technology, website, writer, writing

My new website is up and running! http://www.christainnewyork.com

Christa Avampato

Hooray! After a steep learning curve and months of agonizing over every word, photo, and design decision, my personal website is up and running. I created the website to drum-up freelance writing work and to grow my practice of helping small business effectively use new and emerging media to augment their marketing strategies. Launching my website today was the first step down the road to this new and exciting venture. The website links heavily to this blog and I will continue to maintain this blog with near-daily writing. I’d love your feedback on the website! http://www.christainnewyork.com

It is a scary thing to put myself out there alone. While secretly I consider myself an expert in communications, now that sentiment is out there in the world. While I’ve contributed to efforts via a company I work for, this is the first time I am putting my own talent and ambition out there, entirely on my own. That website in a very real sense says who I am, what I do, and what I believe. While there’s a tremendous freedom that comes with that kind of action, there is also a fair amount of fear and trepidation. “One step at a time,” I keep telling myself.
I must recommend the kind people over at GoDaddy.com, where I registered my domain name and purchased their hosting service. Their website, while very cluttered, is fairly easy to navigate after a bit of practice. What won me over is their fantastic phone support. I talked to a real person (!) three times this morning, no waiting, and very few menus. Great customer service!
I bought my new Mac earlier this year for its web design capability with the iWeb program. Love it! They saved me the pain of learning anything beyond my rudimentary html knowledge. I applaud people who can write code elegantly – I just have no desire to do it myself and Mac understands that.
I must especially thank my dear friend Dan for his wonderful photography and all of the advice he gave me when I was considering the design of the site. 
I have so many friends who gave me ideas and encouragement as I’ve considered free-lance writing and this small consulting practice. In brief: Alex, Kelly, Steve, Monika, Katie, Amy, Lisa, Trevin, Brooke, Ken, Heather, and Richard. And to my great family who always believes in me.  
apple, business, Mac, Steve Jobs, technology

What is Apple Without Steve Jobs?

Christa Avampato

I’m a little bit disturbed this afternoon. My boss sent me an article from today’s Fortune Magazine regarding the fate of Apple should Steve Jobs be hit by a bus. There are a myriad of comments flying around on-line about who would be best suited to take the reigns. And then I flipped through the candidates. I was surprised, no shocked, that one glaringly obvious problem with the article was never addressed. Every single one of the *11* possible replacements for Jobs is a white male, and 10 of those are middle-aged. (Jonathan Ives appears to be the one young face in the crowd). Out of 11 hopefuls, not a single woman, nor a single racial minority, and only 1 person who isn’t half way through his working life? How can this be? If that’s truly the case then I think Apple indeed has something to worry about.

And I’m not trying to stand up for some kind of quota system. I’m not even talking about what’s “fair” or “socially just”. I’m concerned that with Apple’s lack of diversity at the top, they are short-changing their future. And they’re putting their “cool factor” at risk. Who’s their biggest growth market? Hasn’t the success of Silicon Valley been driven by diversity of experience and thought, by people who “dared to be different”? If anything, that line-up looks like every other corporate board room of a company that’s struggling to get by in this crazy economy.

Before Jobs decides to exit, I hope he’ll take some time and really look at his A players, and then do something to build up those who don’t fit the same-old traditional brand of American CEOs. I hope he’ll be thoughtful about the experience of women as his team members and as his customers. I hope he’ll consider how a range of ethnicities interact with and utilize technology. And for goodness sake, I hope he bets on youth. His legacy depends on it.
apple, music

Soundtrack for life

Christa Avampato

David Sedaris once wrote about how his Walkman helped him survive in New York – it gave him a soundtrack to live his life in, a way for him to drown out any of the noise around him on his walks. I feel the same way about my ipod. I suspect most people in New York with the signature white ear buds do, too.

This past weekend I had a great group of buddies from Darden in town. A bit of a reunion. Our semi-annual sixth month club has begun. I was talking about my birthday with my friend, Kelly, and telling her about how my birthday is really my New Year’s. I was wondering how I would commemorate a new year. And Kelly suggested a soundtrack for my year.
I’ve been thinking about the project. Considering songs here and there. Some people put together scrapbooks (which I never even thought of doing), others keep a journal (which I used to do). I write in this blog, and now I’ll be compiling yearly soundtracks.    
apple, creativity, design, Mac, retail, technology

Meet Mac

Christa Avampato

My new love – my Mac. After months of trying to justify the cost of a new laptop, even though my current laptop works just fine (most of the time), I took the plunge. I’d done my research, I’d attended some workshops, and finally made an evening appointment with the Mac concierge service. They were waiting for me when I arrived and I was out of there in 15 minutes with my new Mac in hand, plus a free printer / scanner / fax/ personal assistant to make me breakfast in bed. 

Their reputation for excellent service is well-deserved. Paul, my Apple guy, was friendly, funny, and best of all, honest. I happily wrote him a note and one for his boss on his behalf as soon as I arrived home. It was the best retail experience I’ve ever had – and I am a very tough sell when it comes to service. In just minutes I was up and running. 
It is amazing what I can now do with photos, my music, personal websites. Even powerpoint presentations are a joy to build. This is the ultimate toy. And it’s so intuitive that I find myself having to unlearn all of the work-arounds I’ve had to learn over the years to operate a PC. I almost have to be re-trained to think naturally about how a machine operates.  
My Mac is also affording me the opportunity to learn design skills and expand my creativity to movie making and original music. I could go on and on, but I really need to get back to Mac. He’s got a lot to teach me. 
apple, career, discovery, dreams, innovation

Realism isn’t the road to success

Christa Avampato

This week I spoke to a friend of mine and our conversation turned, as it usually does, to entrepreneurship. Like me, she isn’t part of the corporate cookie cutter mold that defines many people who get their MBAs. I like to think of us as trail blazers, people who carve their own way through the world. We have a hard time in large companies because they prefer us to stay on the sidewalk and we’d prefer to be stomping around in the grass.

Recently my friend told a family member of hers that she didn’t think she was destined to stay in her corporate job for too long, and was very interested in starting her own business. The family member’s response – “well, you have to be realistic.” I would argue that no, you don’t have to be realistic when it comes to career aspirations, and I would argue that if you are ever going to be happy in a career, you had better not settle for anything realistic.

This disdain for realism may come from my days in working in theatre; it may be genetic; I’m a Pisces – that could be the cause. The world of dreaming, imagination, and wild aspirations is really the only world I understand and in which I feel at home. I have to draw from some of the people I most admire and again, must reference Apple’s commercial that salutes “the crazy ones.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUfH-BEBMoY

Einstein, Amelia Earhart, Picasso, Martin Luther King, Jim Henson. They were not the slightest bit realistic, and in the end their defiance is what saved them and inspired us. Here’s to hoping that we all fight the urge to be realists and forge ahead towards dreams.

The photo above can be found at: http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/images/henson.jpg