Category: innovation

books, courage, creative process, creativity, innovation, writing, yoga

Beginning: Advice for Writers and Innovators from Kathryn Stockett – There’s Genius in Pain

Christa Avampato
Emma Stone, Viola David, and Octavia Spencer in The Help

“Write about something that bothers you and nobody else.” ~ The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The holiday slew of movies at the box office makes this one of my favorite times of year. I love going to the movies, watching movies on my couch, on a plane, or in an outdoor venue. One of my favorites this year was The Help, based upon Kathryn Stockett’s wonderful novel.

The heroine, Skeeter, wants very much to be a writer. (I can relate.) A publisher in New York gives her just one piece of advice – write about something that bothers you and nobody else. In other words, find what gives you pain and invent something to alleviate that pain. Pain in its many forms – anger, angst, anxiety, sadness, disappointment, heartbreak, injustice – is useful for writers and innovators. There’s genius in there.

I founded Compass Yoga on this same philosophy – simply, I was irritated. I’m glad that there are so many beautiful, shiny studios in New York City for people like me to take classes. What really bugs the heck out of me is that there aren’t a lot of places for people to go if they don’t have the financial or physical means and the confidence to take that first step. I’m also highly irritated that there isn’t more scientific research about the benefits of yoga in treating disease.

It’s terrific that 16 million Americans practice yoga. What about the other 291 million, especially those who don’t even know how much they could benefit from yoga because no one told them it could help? Who’s going to get to them and teach them and help them? And why are we so astounded and pleased that a measly 5% of Americans practice yoga when 100% of Americans could benefit from it? And why on Earth doesn’t it seem to bother anyone else? You see, my irritation is readily evident. And growing, right along with the Compass Yoga business plan.

People sometimes ask me what my big, audacious, out-of-this-world goal is with Compass Yoga. My answer: I’m going to get to those other 291 million people and at least give them the chance to give yoga a whirl. We, as individuals and as a society, have so much to gain and all I’ve got to lose is my irritation. It worked for Skeeter and this thinking can work for all of us.

art, books, business, comedy, creativity, innovation, inspiration, invention, theatre

Beginning: Make Your Own Funny

Christa Avampato
Carol Burnett and Jane Lynch on the set of Glee

“Comics say funny things and comedic actors say things funny.” ~ Ed Wynn via Carol Burnett, Happy Accidents

Over the winter holidays I started reading the wonderful book Happy Accidents, a memoir by comedic actress Jane Lynch. At turns the book is hilarious, heartwarming, and heartbreaking. Jane has the incredible ability to make people feel for her without making them feel sorry for her. I hope she’ll be writing many more books in the years to come. Carol Burnett, one of my creative heroes, wrote the forward for the book and in it she recounts a story the legendary Ed Wynn told her regarding his ideas about great comedy.

Jane Lynch is hilarious not because she tells jokes. She plays every one of her characters with a sincere sense of seriousness that makes her characters even more funny. It’s a rare and beautiful gift that she worked very hard to craft and hone. While Ed Wynn was talking about comedians and actors (and Carol Burnett extended this story as explanation of Jane’s abilities as a comedic actress), it got me thinking about how applicable this idea is to so many areas off the stage, especially to business. We have to make our own funny, meaning we need to make the very best of what we’ve got and shape into what we want it to be within the context of circumstances.

Jane Lynch isn’t handed a script full of jokes and one-liners. No one even tells her how or when to be funny. She’s given a script detailing a situation of her character, and then she runs with it. She doesn’t find the humor in the circumstances; she makes it.

Running a business is similar. We’re handed a set of market circumstances, not a business plan or even an idea of a business plan. We have to build the creative business idea and the plan that brings it to life that links to the market circumstances. We don’t happen upon a relevant and desired idea; we make it so.

I started my career working in professional theatre, and I was always surprised by the perceptions of those outside the industry who thought we were just playing. My theatre work was the very best business training I ever received (and yes, it did teach me more than my MBA.) Theatre is a lot more than actors, sets, costumes, lights, and a stage. It added up to be far greater than just the sum of its parts. It taught me how to craft not only a show, but a story, a life, and a legacy. It showed me that the very best road to take is the one we pave for ourselves.

creativity, imagination, innovation, media, Muppet, Steve Jobs

Beginning: Steve Jobs, Tim Russert, Jim Henson, and How to Honor an Icon

Christa Avampato

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” ~ Steve Jobs from his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford

I audibly gasped when I got the nytimes.com breaking alert that Steve Jobs had passed away. I turned to Twitter and saw that in the past few minutes the outpouring of gratitude and empathy had begun to build and would reach dizzying heights within the next 10 minutes. My favorite tributes were from Wired Magazine and on the Apple site itself. His was a passing heard and felt round the world, mostly by people who never had the honor to interact personally with him. Yet, he is with us all the time, in our homes, cars, and offices. We take Steve with us everywhere through his ingenious inventions and as the spark that so often lights our own imaginations. The legendary Apple ad “The Crazy Ones” continues to be an anthem for innovators all over the globe. Steve gave us something to aspire to – our highest selves.

I remember having this same wave of thankfulness flow over me when I heard about the passing of Tim Russert several years ago, and I remember the exact moment when I learned Jim Henson had passed away. They all died long before their time – Steve was 56, Tim was 58, and Jim was 53. All taken in the very prime of their careers, and in a short time they grew to be a part of our lives. They all share the magical gift of being able to make the seemingly complicated simple, approachable, and knowable for people from all walks of life – Steve in the field of technology, Tim in politics and government (particularly elections), and Jim in education and the power of television. All of these men were intensely involved in media, the creation and dissemination of information and knowledge. They defined our times.

Though the sting of Steve’s passing is obviously still being felt by so many, we can take comfort in how the legacies of Tim and Jim have thrived. Tim Russert’s CBS Sunday Morning, though not the same as when he anchored it, is still a top-rated show and a source of enjoyment and education for millions of people each week. At election time, we still miss his wipe board where he demystified the numbers for us. Jim Henson’s tributes can still be found in every corner where education is discussed and debated. Sesame Street is still a much beloved show. The Muppets are still iconic figures in our lives and the much-anticipated new Muppet movie will be released next month. The Museum of the Moving Image is currently showing a retrospective of Henson’s brilliant work in honor of his 75th birthday. (My post on that outing will be run this weekend.)

And while tributes to the work of these three icons are touching and thought-provoking, their greatest legacies live in the people whom they inspired, including you and me. They set a fire in our bellies and in our imaginations to do something extraordinary with our time. The best way to honor them and show our gratitude is to make our days as meaningful and creative as possible.

Steve, we miss you now and will continue to turn to the counsel you’ve left in speeches, in writing, and in your creative work as we wrestle through our own creative processes. “What would Steve do?” will be a phrase we turn over in our minds again and again as we try to design a better world. You showed us how to be a beginner and love it. Thanks for being here with us and showing us the way. We’ll do our best to carry on the great adventure into the imagination that you started. 

[I am a firm believer in the power of a well-crafted letter. If you’d like to send your thoughts, memories, and condolences for Steve, click here.]  

creativity, discovery, friendship, innovation, inspiration

Step 220: Life on Our Own Terms

Christa Avampato

“We start off scared, and we stay scared until we’re done.” ~ Ed Catmull, President and Co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios

I wish someone would just eliminate acronyms like BAU (business as usual) and SOP (standard operating procedures). At various times in my life, I tried to live by someone else’s standards. I wince with embarrassment when I think about those times. They landed me in situations that left me supremely unhappy. Those times of living by someone else’s definitions of success and happiness were like death by a thousand little cuts. I lost myself and spent a long time digging my way out of those messes.

Many of my friends are now going through intense times of self-rediscovery. They’re trying new things, exploring, re-framing, and growing. This work isn’t easy. Sometimes it’s painful and scary. They’re unsure where all of it will lead, if it leads anywhere at all. They keep reaching even when it feels like they’re reaching into the dark. I’m right there with them. I get it; we’re in this together. I’m proud of them and inspired by them. I can’t wait to see what they create next.

From the outside it might feel foolish to upset the apple cart, to take our perfectly fine lives and chuck it all for a more authentic, original dream. But I know we’re all right in taking this route. The truly crazy, risky path is to stay in place. Fear is a healthy, helpful feeling to have so long as we have enough courage to put that fear aside and keep going. I’m all for continuous re-invention. It keeps life interesting and regret at bay.

books, game, innovation, play

Step 214: A Review of Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers

Christa Avampato

For several weeks, I’ve been combing my bookshelves for activities to incorporate into my LIM College class on social media marketing. I wanted games to drive home the information in unconventional, interactive ways. I went to my theatre books, my business books, and my books filled with writing exercises. Nothing seemed quite right. And then O’Reilly Media sent me Gamestorming. It felt like a gift out of the sky. My anxiety about the class diminished a bit more with every page.

Gamestorming details games that engage groups, both large and small, in learning and discovery. They work in corporations and in schools, and I’d like to add that they are a valuable tool for navigating just about any decision and complication in life. I found myself noting in nearly every margin how to use each game. The clear, concise description, depictions, and plan for each took a great deal of thought and care from the authors.

The metaphor of life as a game is well worked over. The trouble with the game of life is that there are no rules. You don’t make them and neither does anyone else. They change from moment to moment, and the rule that seemed to work today may never be useful again. We are forced in every situation to think on our feet. Gamestorming gives us more confidence and empowers us to take our futures in our own hands. Get it here.

business, cooking, creativity, innovation

Step 160: Share Like a Chef

Christa Avampato

Yesterday I read the transcript of an interview between Brian Clark of Copyblogger and Jason Fried, Co-founder of 37Signals. The interview is part of a series that Brian is using to kick-off his initiative Lateral Action, a program to support would-entrepreneurs as they take the leap into their own businesses. Now that I’ve started Compass Yoga, I find that I read about entrepreneurship with an even greater interest than I did when I was just writing about entrepreneurship for Examiner. These stories take on a whole new meaning when my first goal is to figure out how to apply them directly to my own venture.

One piece of advice that Jason offers up is the idea of every entrepreneur emulating a chef. “They tell you everything they know.” There’s a tendency to keep our strategic advantages, our ways of doing things, close to our chests in business. The conventional business wisdom dictates that if we give away how we work, everyone will copy us, and we will never be able to stay afloat. Chefs don’t think that way. They let it all hang out – where they shop, what’s in their pantries, and the mechanics and exact ingredients that they use to create a dish. They even write books divulging all of their secrets with glee! Walk into any restaurant and a chef’s philosophy and skill is on display for everyone to see.

What gives? How do chefs give away everything they know and stay in business? In practical terms, chefs have a few things going for them:

1.) Everyone’s got to eat and not everyone wants to cook all the time. Chefs fill that gap with their services.

2.) Going out to eat is an event, usually a social one, so it’s just as much about the experience as it is about the food and drink.

3.) Chefs have the idea of feeder businesses down pat. Their cookbooks, TV shows, restaurants, and retail merchandise all feed into their individual brand, creating a loyal audience who craves their wisdom.

4.) Chefs constantly re-invent themselves, giving us all a reason to go back to see what’s new. That’s the nature of cooking. Every fresh pan is a clean slate for something new that will not be exactly as it was before and will never be again.

Beyond the practical nature of their work, chefs have put their finger on the best way to thrive in business: their strategic advantage is their individuality. No one can exactly copy what they do because every dish, every time, is unique. I could have every ingredient and miniscule detail of the process that any chef uses, and when I make the dish it will taste different than their creation.

So here’s what we really need to do beyond sharing like chefs: we need to identify what really makes us our gorgeous, talented, creative-beyond measure selves and then work the heck out of that. Being part of the pack isn’t going to serve us going forward. Break-out, share, and celebrate your individuality. It’s the only truly strategic advantage we can keep. What makes you, you?

The image above depicts Mario Batali, one of the most generous, talented, and unique chefs around. I love him.

failure, innovation

Step 159: Labs – a Place for Pros

Christa Avampato

Today, Chris Brogan wrote about the value of having an on-line lab. Chris just launched his new travel blog (seperate from his main site) to experiment, try out some new ideas, play, and build another business. Chris also makes the points that labs transform failures into learning opportunities and invite us to continue rolling up our sleeves and getting into the nuts of bolts of making things work.

I have thought about this subject in relation to Compass Yoga, the site I set up 10 days ago to begin my yoga training business. I wondered if I should have fully-baked Compass Yoga into my personal site rather than building out a separate site with its own URL. Was I just shying away from really putting Compass out into the open on my personal site because I was afraid of how it might go? Then I read Matthew Russo’s excellent comment on Chris’s post: “The difference between a pro and an amateur in any field is that pros take the time to “practice off the court” while amateurs practice on the job. Labs are a perfect business example of this analogy.” I do want to be a pro with my yoga business, so I better give it its own court.

Here’s what the separation of my personal site from Compass Yoga does for me:
1.) Gives me a place to solely discuss all things yoga, wellness, and health, which while important to me, is only one of my passions.

2.) Compass is the very first business I’ve ever started. I’ve spent over a year intensely studying entrepreneurs and they have inspired me so much that I could no longer keep from jumping off the cliff. I’m sure I will make lots of mistakes and missteps, and all of them will be valuable to me in the long-term. Having a separate site for Compass lets me take risks and try some new, wild ideas, without worrying what impact it will have on my own personal brand.

3.) Giving Compass its own space keeps both my personal site and the Compass site clutter free. I can’t stand sites that have 800 things to look at. I’m always impressed by a clean design, easy navigation, and the ability of a content provider to edit out the unnecessary so the necessay can speak. I wanted Compass to have its own space, clutter-free, to stretch its wings.

Do you have an online lab where you play and experiment, separate from your main online presence? I’d love to hear about it!

career, economy, innovation

Step 154: Getting Serious About Innovating Your Career

Christa Avampato

“If you’re serious about innovation, you have to get serious … and systematic … about forgetting. PERIOD.”
~ Tom Peters

Tom Peters projects the exact message I need to hear, exactly when I need to hear it. I subscribe to his daily emails and each one gives me a little jolt. Sometimes he times them particularly well, allowing me to share his wisdom with another soul in need of a good talking to.

Today a friend of mine called me to talk about her job. Bright, enthusiastic, and innovative, she toils away on stop-start projects in a very gray cubicle. Today, her CEO gave a rousing speech about innovation and the forward path of the company. “He just gave the speech to the wrong company,” she said to me. “We cut innovative, game-changing projects right and left here, and then complain about being beat out by our competition. I felt like I was living the book The Emperor’s New Clothes. I think he was trying to convince himself of his plan more than he was trying to convince us.”

Despite a very tough economy, she started looking for a new job today. For a few minutes after the CEO’s speech, she said she felt disappointed, let down. Just a few months ago, she felt so excited and inspired by her company. Last week, collective fear about innovation set in around the office, some champions of innovation were let go, the remaining leadership pulled funding for new product development, and she found herself twiddling her thumbs.

I know senior leaders at companies have a lot of pressure on them to produce bottom-line results. In their angst some forget that when they pull the plug on innovation, their most innovative team members, the ones they really need in this tough economy, don’t stick around for things to improve. They look for other opportunities, find them, and take off. Like it or not, CEOs, you can’t keep innovative people down for long. They need appreciation for their efforts, and if you show your appreciation by cutting funding for innovation, you lose their loyalty.

As my friend told me about her story, I listened patiently, and then read this Tom Peters quote to her. She worked hard in her role at this company, and they didn’t recognize the value of her contributions. Now she needs to forget them and start looking for greener pastures. If I put on my yogi hat, I remember that this latest turn of events must mean another place needs her right now. So, she’s setting off on the road toward greener pastures.

design, Examiner, innovation, product development

Interview with Ben Kaufman, Founder of quirky

Christa Avampato

Another great innovation interview over on Examiner. I had the extreme pleasure to connect with Ben Kaufman, Founder of quirky. quirky is for every person who has an idea for a product or service (and don’t we all?!) and isn’t quite sure how to start bringing it to life. Check out the interview here.

education, innovation

Step 37: Go the Extra Bit

Christa Avampato

“We’re so close to greatness. I can feel it!” ~ Cliff, Citizen Schools Teaching Fellow working with Innovation Station

Last week at my training session for Citizen Schools, Cliff, the Teaching Fellow who will be with me every step of the way in the classroom, let this quote fly as we talked through ideas for the apprenticeship that begins next week. The apprenticeship, Innovation Station, is going to help students build their own prototypes and models of products and services that they would like to turn into businesses. On Tuesday, students at M.S. 45 will have the chance to attend an apprenticeship fair where I’ll be giving an elevator pitch on the subject of the apprenticeship and what we’ll do during the ten weeks that we’re together.

Originally, I thought I’d run a brainstorming session. Cliff looked at me, kindly, and said, “I think that’s going to get really out of control really fast. Let’s hold off on that idea. All the content is here – we know what the apprenticeship is about and the ultimate goal. We’re so close to greatness. I can feel it! We just have to figure out how to get and keep their attention.”

Cliff’s enthusiasm for the subject and for the kids helped me see that there was a better way forward. I could communicate the same content as originally planned, but there are so many other interactive avenues to get the kids interested than I first thought. Infomercials, celebrity examples, new uses for every day items, the element of the strange and unknown as a catalyst for curiosity. Cliff’s got a million tricks up his sleeves. More importantly, he believes in the idea as much as I do, and he can quickly get inside the minds of these kids. He knows what piques their interest.

What I needed was that extra push, that extra encouragement to knock down any perceived boundaries to what we could accomplish. As Cliff and I talked it out, we began to discover so many new ideas that we could barely keep track of them all on the paper. And the real beauty, is that the ideas were spontaneous. Neither of us had even considered them before sitting down to talk about the apprenticeship fair. Like little pings of inspiration, I could feel their magic falling down all around us.

We just needed to up our game a little – that’s what the prospect of a middle school student’s critique will do for us. It pushes us to go that extra bit. They don’t just want an apprenticeship that’s decent; they want one that makes them run to the session every week, one that makes them believe that they really do have hope for a brighter future and the ability to make it happen. They want greatness in action, and I mean to create that for them.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.