Category: technology

career, creativity, learning, technology, time

Leap: Why I’m Learning to Code

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

For a few months, I’ve been taking mini coding lessons at on Codecademy. They’re hard for me – I’m learning a new language, turning my thought process on its head, and getting familiar with a whole new way of structuring my creativity. I’m not good, but I’m getting better. This weekend, I received a new book that’s geared toward teaching the very basics of Python, a popular programming language.

I have no interest in becoming a programmer so why would I devote time to gain a basic understanding of coding?

1.) Our world is becoming increasingly influenced by technology. Knowing the basics of coding will soon be as necessary in the workplace as knowing how to use Microsoft Office.

2.) It’s difficult for me. By forcing myself to learn something that doesn’t come naturally to me, my mind must look at challenges in new ways and create new neural pathways. Just as we work muscles so that they get stronger, we must also work the brain.

3.) It grows my understanding as a product developer. There’s noting worse than a business people who ask the world of tech teams without having a clue exactly what their requests entail. I saw this all the time in my old job. Hardly anyone on the business side ever truly understood what they were asking of others. I want to do better.

4.) All it takes is time. Not so long ago, I would have had to enroll in a class to learn these skills. Now there are sites like Codecademy that offer these lessons for free and online. There are excellent manuals and books that will walk beginners through the basics. If it’s there to learn, then why not give it a try?

Are you working on learning something new? Would love to hear how the adventure is unfolding for you!

books, technology

Leap: Dave Gray Wants to Help You Connect with His New Book, The Connected Company

Christa Avampato

“The 21st Century is a terrible time to be a control freak.” ~ Alec Ross, US State Department

Dave Gray’s new book, The Connected Company, helps us understand that the old idea of control as the surest way to safety is dead. Companies that seek to control anything – their image, the market, customers, and employees – are fighting a losing battle. To really have control – to be competitive, relevant, and respected – companies must come alive. They have to learn how to learn. They have to be in close and constant contact with their customers and employees. In other words, they must become more human.

At first blush, this seems an impossible order for companies, particularly those with a long-standing history of doing their work their way. What is certain is that this MO that worked quite well in the past will not work going forward. Customers and employees have too many choices and too much information literally at their fingertips. More importantly, they have many channels to voice their experiences, concerns, opinions, and questions to a worldwide audience. So should big corporations throw in the towel? Is it even worth it to try to compete in this new world?

Dave Gray thinks so, but to do that they may need to throw out every preconceived notion they have about how to do business.

Incredibly organized, The Connected Company‘s counsel falls into 4 rough categories:

  • Find comfort (as well as challenge and fun) in complexity
  • Understand and appreciate the vital role of technology to everyone associated with a business
  • Blow up the silos and create self-governing teams
  • Experiment

In addition to giving solid advice to C-suite executives, Dave Gray’s road map is valuable for entrepreneurs (present and future) as well as employees in large corporations. Much of his advice comes back to the idea that service is everything. And in Gray’s world, service takes on a far greater context than calling the 1-800 number to reach a customer service representative. How we treat one another, be it in a business setting or otherwise, on the phone, online, and in-person, has everything to do with our future success because the impressions of others, and their ability to share their impressions, matter more than ever before. Everyone is watching, listening, and learning – every customer, employee, critic, and competitor.

Initially, this plain, honest truth is terrifying. Our first reaction may be to feel like we are on eggshells every minute. It’s tough to live that way. It’s stressful, uncomfortable, and unsustainable.

A better way forward is to admit and own the fact that we don’t know everything. We may have to face up to the idea that we actually don’t know much at all. But if we commit ourselves to closing our mouths and opening our ears, to listening for a far greater percentage of our time than we spend talking, then there is hope for us. To do that starting Monday morning, Dave Gray has some ideas for you in Chapter 22.

Get the book. Get connected. Get going.

adventure, New York City, technology, travel

Leap: Unplug and Play

Christa Avampato

This morning I am happily unplugging from my devices and taking a field trip up to City Island, a tiny fishing village in the Bronx.

Did your face just crinkle in confusion? You read that right – a small bucolic fishing village is nestled into the shoreline of the Bronx. I’ve been fascinated by its existence for several years and I finally blocked out the time for a visit. My friend, Moya, is joining me for the adventure.

I’ll be taking pictures and noting points of interest that we find during our day of meandering. Tomorrow you’ll have the full scoop. Get out there and enjoy your Sunday!

Africa, philanthropy, social change, social entrepreneurship, social media, technology, thankful

Leap: Day #3 of Mashable’s Social Good Summit Wraps Up With Inspiring Calls to Action

Christa Avampato

This year’s Social Good Summit was full of examples of people fusing their passion for a cause with their expertise in technology. Thankfully all of the sessions are available online if you need a healthy dose energy and motivation. Here are my favorite highlights from yesterday’s events:

Making It Real
Nicholas Kristof, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and co-author with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, of the book Half the Sky, delivered one of the most-anticipated and talked-about conversations about their partnership with Games for Change. Kristof and WuDunn have dedicated their lives and careers to covering social cause issues in the most ravaged parts of the world. To raise societal consciousness, they have co-developed a set of Facebook games to help others understand the impossible choices and desperate circumstances of marginalized populations. Their book has also been expanded into a mini-series that will air on October 1st and 2nd on PBS. Details here: http://www.halftheskymovement.org/

Empowerment Through Low-Tech Solutions
Anthony Lake and Clay Shirky made the case for low-tech two-way communication over high-tech one-way communication. They highlighted u-report, an initiative in Uganda, that is empowering local communities to take responsibility for their health by disseminating information and results of programs through mobile SMS service. To date, u-report has 147,000+ users that are spreading information and local data about health topics such as vaccinations, sex education, and breast-feeding. This program fits the principle that, “Ideas must be aggregated for impact,” said Shirky. “Go where the people are. Tech in the field needs to be low-tech to be widely accessible.” Follow the conversation on this topic on Twitter, hashtag #Promise4Children, and come together for child survival by visiting APromiseRenewed.org.

It Took a Village to Get the Lady to the Harbor
The crowdfunding discussions rehashed a lot of the facts and figures on their impressive impact that have been surfaced over the last few years. There’s no doubt that tech has vastly improved the efficiency and speed of crowdfunding. In all of our tech crazed eyes, we forget that crowdfunding is an ancient concept. For centuries, people have been banding together to do good work in their communities. My favorite example comes from New York Harbor. When France gave the Statue of Liberty to America, they forgot to create a pedestal. The people of New York, rallied together by Pulitzer, the publisher who ran a small print publication that would become the New York Times, pooled their funding to construct the pedestal. Over 100,000 people gave an average of $0.89 each to make it happen. Thanks to Danae Ringelmann, Co-Founder, Indiegogo, for reminding us of this historic act of generosity that demonstrates the power of community.

Of Food and Music
Angelique Kidjo is a world-renowned singer and songwriter. Originally from Benin, she is a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, and never one to back down in the face of adversity, she spends a lot of her time advocating for women and girls around the globe. Anthony Lake shared the stage with her and explained that simple basic nutrition information is a tool that is incredibly effective and drastically underutilized in development work. He went on to detail the condition of Stunting that affects 160 million children worldwide. If children do not receive proper nutrition (not quantity but quality and variety of food) by age 2, they will suffer from permanent cognitive impairments. Getting help to these children in the earliest days of their lives is critical to building a peaceful, productive world.

In honor of the work of UNICEF, Angelique sang a gorgeous impromptu spiritual for all of us. I have no idea what she was saying, but I felt her emotion in every syllable and she brought tears to my eyes. For the first time in 3 days, the auditorium went completely silent except for her voice.

Everyone’s an Idea Person
So, you’re an idea person who wants to stretch the boundaries of human impact? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has thrown down the gauntlet. Get your idea down, send it in, and they’ll evaluate it for funding – $100K for a pilot with the potential of $1M to gain leverage and grow it. Visit grandchallenges.org for more information.

Audacious Ideas Get Support
The Global Fund and Wikipedia called on all of us to get creative with our mission statements. If Wikipedia had called people together to write a series of articles on any given topic, the reaction would have been mild at best. Instead, Founder Jimmy Wales put together a far grander vision – “to create a free encyclopedia for every person in every language.” It’s an enormous, unfathomable goal, and impossibility excites people to get involved. Who doesn’t love to be the underdog and triumph?

Transfer this kind of thinking to the issue of HIV / AIDS and you understand why The Global Fund has the audacity to dream of a world free of HIV in our lifetime. As they pointed out, we have eradicated diseases before. Small Pox is an excellent example. So why couldn’t we do the same thing with HIV / AIDS?

Reuniting Families Torn Apart
The Danish NGO Refugees United has partnered with Ericsson to reunite refugees separated by war. They have developed an online and mobile platform that creates profiles of refugees and then runs these profiles through a series of algorithms to match people to family members. They’ve engaged with 200,000 people to-date, mostly in Sub-saharan Africa. In 3 years, they want to grow the platform to 1 million people. Find out how to be a part of the solution at RefugeesUnited.org.

Now What?
Conferences like the Social Good Summit fire people up in the moment, but what happens when they get back to their everyday lives. How do we keep this goodness going? Here’s my advice: go through the agenda from this year’s Social Good Summit, identify the cause you care about, and then connect with the people from the Summit who are involved with that cause.

Email them, follow their blogs and social media channels, send a card, or heck, send a carrier pigeon. Do what you can to reach out and build a bridge to someone who cares about the issues you care about. Build something together for the good of the world. In the words of Timothy Leary, “Find the others.”

creativity, design, social change, social entrepreneurship, technology

Leap: Day 2 of the Social Good Summit and Day 1 of Clinton Global Initiative

Christa Avampato

If you’re looking for a bit (or a tidal wave) of inspiration, head on over to the livestreams of the Social Good Summit and the Clinton Global Initiative. You can watch the sessions and participate in the conversations through Twitter with the hashtags #SGSGlobal and #CGI2012.

Here are my favorite highlights of the day:

Government is Worthy of Our Innovative Spirit
UN Ambassador Susan Rice spoke eloquently and passionately about public education, technology, government, and the need to serve. Every sentence had a nugget of wisdom in it, and the one that impressed me the most was her argument that we cannot give up on government as inefficient and hopeless because there are things that government can do that no other entity can do. She used herself as an example – as an African-American woman, she has the right to vote in this country because of government. She reminded all of us that government can and should provide opportunity for everyone within its reach.

A Lack of Secrets is a Blessing
Sol Adler, Executive Director of 92Y, gave a concise and powerful contemplation with these two questions: What would the world have been like in 1939 if we had Twitter? How many more relatives would I have been able to know if we actually knew what was happening in Europe? (Most of Mr. Adler’s family perished in the holocaust.)

He introduced Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Former Prime Minister of Poland, who explained that our world now is suffering from atrocities that are as grim as the holocaust and that technology has the ability to end that. If we can raise awareness and encourage action to support peace and understanding, then we will be able to truly be able to create a better world.

Unemployment Is a Flaw of the System, Not the People
I’ve heard Muhammad Yunus speak a number of times before and he never fails to impress and inspire. His life mission is to alleviate poverty through opportunity, and this is within our grasp if we can harness the collective creative power of people through technology. His message is clear, “Concentrate on building businesses to solve social problems. Human creativity is limitless.”

Designing for Impact
The Clinton Initiative took the definition of design and expanded it exponentially to serve as its theme for this year’s event. President Clinton kicked off the event with this poignant sentiment – “We live to prove the cooperation works better than conflict. We act with far great impact when we rely on one another’s strength.” And in that spirit the conversation turned to the subject of design.

Tim Brown of IDEO elegantly explained that all designers, no matter what they are designing, no matter if they have formal training or not, begin with the same question: “How can I be helpful in this situation?” And they find that answer in the field. They roll up their sleeves and work. “Design is learning by doing, not just thinking.”

The conversations continue today and tomorrow for both events. Check out their websites for more details. Talk soon.

adventure, social change, society, technology

Leap: Social Good Summit Day #1 Highlights

Christa Avampato

We need to create our own solutions. Technology gives us a way to rise up and speak for ourselves.” ~ TMS “Teddy” Ruge, Co-Founder, Project Diaspora

TMS created the rally cry of the passionate individuals who are coming together from all over the world for the Social Good Summit. The first day of the event brought a giant wave of excitement and possibility for the use of technology to solve the world’s greatest social challenges. From health to education to environmental conservation, enthusiastic and insightful individuals across the globe are banding together with others to conceive of solutions and bring them to life.

Data is only useful when applied for the public good
With election season upon us, we’re bombarded by sparring matches, claims of past actions, and future promises. Here’s my biggest question: Where is the innovation in government? And today I got my answer.

In Washington, Todd Park, U.S. CTO and Assistant to the President for Tech, is leading the passionate charge by unlocking previously unusable data and making it downloadable by third parties who use it to build, in his words, “awesomeness”.  The federal government is hosting hackathons to ignite and unite appliers, people who want to take that data and build something that helps others.

The innovations coming from these hackathons are incredible and you can take a look at the examples at data.gov. My favorite example is iTriage, a mobile app and website that gives users the ability to plug int their symptoms and their location, and find out the closest place for them to receive the right care at the right time. The results: it’s saving lives, creating jobs, and improving healthcare delivery, all from publicly available data filtered for individual use.

Women and girls get a voice and advocate
Jill Sheffield of Women Deliver made the case that supporting women and girls around the globe isn’t just the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do. Globally, we lose $15B of productivity every year because of unwanted pregnancies and pregnancy complications. Nearly all of this expense can be eliminated by utilizing technology to teach reproductive education to the 3 billion young people around the world who are under 25.

If women can’t plan their fertility, then they can’t plan their lives. How they plan their lives affects how the world evolves. By making women and girls the center of the development conversation, we can craft policies, programs, and actions to alleviate poverty more effectively.

Google Earth to the rescue
If a picture is worth a thousand words and knowledge is power, then Google Earth is the greatest powerhouse for social change ever created. Rebecca Moore brilliantly and expertly illustrated how Google Earth is being used to remove land mines, help indigenous tribes protect the rain forests, stop dangerous mountain top mining, and end genocide. It is used to influence policy, empower local communities, and raise philanthropic funds on a global scale.

If you thought Google was just for search, think again. It’s fast becoming a synonym for conscience, safety, peace, preservation, and community. In Rebecca’s words, “It’s going to be a great adventure.” More info at Google Earth Engine.

Tomorrow the Summit will kick off at 1pm Eastern. View the livestream here and follow the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #SGSGlobal.

education, productivity, technology

Leap: Me and My New iPad – It Had Me at “Tap”

Christa Avampato
Phineas and iPad, both in sleep mode

Finally, I am the proud and more-productive-than-ever owner of an iPad. I fell in love at first tap.

Why did I wait so long?
Contrary to my tech loving nature and my job as a product developer (sometimes of mobile products), I am not an early adopter for 2 reasons:

1.) I never buy into hype because whatever device of the moment that is being hocked by a mass amount of people usually disappoints

2.) I’m frugal (read: cheap). If I’m going to spend my hard earned cash on something, it’s going to be worthwhile, something I love, and the very best deal I can get.

So why did I take the plunge now?
Like most big purchases, this was one that I thought through carefully, meaning I put it through my OCD checklist lovingly entitled, “Christa, why the hell do you think you need to buy this?”After several rounds of this sport, I made the sound and measured decision that this iPad is a fantastic investment for me personally and professionally for wide variety of reasons:

1.) My sister, Weez, teases me that if I could find a way to get paid a good salary to be a student forever, I would likely never leave a college library. Bingo! It’s my lifelong dream to be in school as much as possible. Learning is my addiction. Unfortunately, I haven’t cracked the nut yet on professional studenthood, but the iPad is getting me part of the way there. From Anatomy to Italian to painting to piano, there’s an app or a website with gorgeous visuals just waiting for me to show up and use it.

2.) Now that I’m working for myself, I spend a decent amount of my time in meetings at various locations across the city. I’ve been carting my Mac around with me at the expense of my shoulders to take advantage of downtown throughout the day. And that Mac is much heavier than I ever thought it was. I love being able to work remotely but I need to be able to be remote without a busted shoulder.

3.) Convenience and productivity when traveling. I hop on a plane to take a minimum of 6 round trips per year. That’s a lot of flying, a lot of packing, and a fair amount of schlepping. I find a lot of inspiration in this travel and it will be great to record this inspiration more easily in a variety of forms.

My iPad will get its first travel test run when Phin and I jet off to Florida at the end of the month for some fun in the sun with my favorite people on the planet (my fam.) Until then, we’ll be about town snapping photos, learning Italian, and making art. I’m prepared to be amazed. Off we go into a whole new age of productivity!

business, career, entrepreneurship, technology

Leap: Got a Technology-based Startup Idea? LaunchHouse Wants to Hear It!

Christa Avampato

The world just got a little brighter for tech entrepreneurs who are looking for a combination of funding and support to launch their ideas out into the world.

Introducing LaunchHouse: an Ohio-based seed capital investment fund, like Y Combinator or Tech Stars, will invest $25,000 in 10 technology-based entrepreneurial teams from around the world. And the best news is that you still have time to grab your shot at being one of the 10 brilliant teams to receive funding.

What is LaunchHouse looking for?
New startup technology-based companies with 2-3 cofounders, 1 of whom must be a programmer
Willingness to relocate to Cleveland, Ohio for a 12-week, full-time commitment to the LaunchHouse program

What kinds of applicants is LaunchHouse looking for?
High school graduates to baby boomers, LaunchHouse is looking for the 10 best ideas for new startups from around the world. Period.

When is the application due?
July 1st

What happens once all of the applications are submitted?
In July, there will be an “un-conference” where the 30 top teams will be invited to Cleveland to compete in a pitch session to clinch one of the 10 final spots in the program. Then the top 10 teams roll up their sleeves and get to work for 12 weeks building their dream companies.

What’s the goal of LaunchHouse?
Identify 10 promising teams of entrepreneurs and work with them over 12 weeks to launch their new companies and set them up to either raise follow-on funding and secure their first paying customers.

Your dream of entrepreneurship could be just an application away. Stop waiting. Start doing. Apply here.

creativity, movie, technology, women, work

Leap: Plan B for Technology’s Unsung Hero, Hedy Lamarr

Christa Avampato
Hedy Lamarr

“All creative people want to do the unexpected.” ~ Hedy Lamarr

We look down on Plan B, as if its accomplishment is not as worthy of our time and attention as Plan A. I’m glad Hedy Lamarr, a stunning actress of the golden age of Hollywood, had a Plan B, and so are you. Of course Hedy Lamarr didn’t need a Plan B to survive and thrive, but she had one and she worked on it diligently, seeing to it that it was as successful than her movie career.

In 1942, with the world immersed in war, Hedy did her part to help the efforts of the Allies. Along with her friend and collaborator, composer George Antheil, she developed and patented frequency-hopping spread-spectrum. In short, it was meant to encrypt communication messages to prevent them from slipping into enemy hands. The technology of the time was not sophisticated enough to take full advantage of Hedy’s invention, but she pushed on. Today, this technology is still hard at work within Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. We use it every day.

Not bad for a Hollywood actress – shaping and transforming the entirety of the tech industry. We need more Plan B’s like that, and more people like Hedy Lamarr.

human factors, technology, yoga

Leap: Steve Jobs Built the Mac Based on Yoga

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest member http://pinterest.com/sunshineater/

The similarities between yoga and technology continue over at ISHTA.

Last week, I wrote about yoga as a form of spiritual technology. In our Saturday lecture, Alan Finger talked to us about the subtle body (the energy lines within us that connect us to a greater intelligence), and its linkages between our karma and our physical body. He spoke about these energy bodies as things waiting to be double-clicked. Once we open up these energy channels, we find they are able to pull in information that is beyond our own experience. By freeing these channels, we literally tap in to something greater than ourselves.

Sound too hippy dippy yoga for you? Steve Jobs didn’t think so. 

Think about your computer, and specifically think about a Mac (just because Alan and I both love our Macs.) Think of its intelligence and the way it ladders information. We don’t have code cluttering our desktops, do we? Of course not. The code is contained in programs. We open programs and we’re able to tap into different capabilities and functionality available at different levels within the programs installed on the computer. Computers pull from different systems, guided by our physical directions, our double-clicks from the mouse or track pad.

Our yoga is the same way. Our physical actions, our asanas, allow us to link into the different layers of programs installed in our being. Some of them relate to our physical body, mind, spirit, or energy channels. How a computer works is based very much on how we work, and yet we are so much more intricate, so much more amazing, than any machine will ever be. Steve Jobs understood that fact to a frightening degree and it fueled his creativity. He made machines more human.

The technologies we love so much are a reflection of our fascination with things so complex that lie at the outer edges of our comprehension. We are our greatest experiment, our greatest tool for discovery. Go within and really wonder at what you find. We are amazing!