Category: technology

art, community, creativity, talents, technology, TED

Step 291: Collaboration Gives Life to Dreams

Christa Avampato

“Have a collegial, supportive, yeasty, zany, laughter-filled environment where folks support one another, and politics is as absent as it can be in a human (i.e., imperfect) enterprise.” ~ Tom Peters

“If you want to be incrementally better: Be competitive. If you want to be exponentially better: Be cooperative.” ~ Author Unknown, via Daily Good

Here’s the most exciting development in an increasing global marketplace and integrated society: collaboration is no longer an option. To get anything done these days, we must play nice in the sandbox and we must encourage and support the dreams and visions of others. I used to have a refrigerator magnet that read “Be Nice or Leave. Thank You.” I used to post it up at work and people would think “oh, isn’t that funny?” And actually it wasn’t. It was my truth. If people can’t be nice, then I can’t work with them. I’m 100% fine with people who passionately and vocally stand by their convictions and have opinions. I have loads of them, and I love people who have a strong point-of-view. But respecting and accepting that different ideas are possible and viable is critical to the kindness I’m looking for in others and cultivating within myself. We learn a lot from the opinions of others, particularly if they don’t match our own.

My friend, Chris, just spoke at TEDxGotham, whose theme centered on collaboration. (Check out his Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/Chris_Elam.) His dance company, Misnomer, is working on a technology platform that greatly enhances an artist’s ability to connect and collaborate with an audience. Artists are the perfect group to lead this charge for collaboration across the board because their livelihoods are predicated on it. They must work with others to convey their visions, and rely on the opinions and actions of others to spread the message of their work.

We all have that artist spirit within us. We all have visions of the world we’d like to live in. We have dreams and hopes and fears. It’s one of the underlying aspects of being human – our imagination. The tie that binds. And so even if we don’t understand or agree with someone, we can take comfort in the fact that all people, everywhere, have the desire to build the life they imagine.

There’s a tendency for a little voice inside us to get too much air time. “How could you possibly do “x”? or “Are you really qualified to make “y” happen?” We can sometimes feel selfish for getting all that we work for and deserve. Thank that little voice for its efforts and then turn its volume down to zero. You deserve to see your dreams come alive, and then some. When we base our lives on our imaginations, we’re giving others the inspiration and strength to do the same. Living the life you want is actually the most generous gift you can give the world because you’re giving us the very best of you. It’s the very highest ideal of collaboration.

creativity, technology, yoga

Step 231: My SXSW Presentation Submission – Yoga and Creative Focus

Christa Avampato

During my yoga teacher training I spent a lot of time thinking about the link between yoga and creativity. Then I took it one step further and began to wonder if yoga could be a tool to call for creativity at will. To further explore this interest with a creative audience, I submitted a presentation idea to the 2011 SXSW Interactive Conference. SXSW Interactive is a collection of ridiculously talented people in the digital space who get together every March in Austin, Texas to share, learn, and create.

In my presentation, Taming the Money Mind: Yoga and Creative Focus, I would teach conference attendees about getting into the creative zone at will as opposed to waiting and hoping for creative inspiration to strike. Attendees would walk away with answers to the following questions:

1. What is the scientific link between yoga and creativity?
2. Can yoga help us to access our creative inspiration at will?
3. What physical techniques are useful to cultivate creativity?
4. Can I practice these techniques anywhere, anytime, regardless of my physical condition?
5. Can I teach these practices to my team to help them cultivate their own creativity?

A portion of the decision-making process that determines which presentation ideas will be accepted involves voting by anyone and everyone who cares to vote. It does require you to do about 30 seconds of work to create an account and log in, but it’s pretty painless. I’d love (and greatly appreciate) your support!

To read more about my presentation check it out by clicking here. Thanks for taking a look!

entrepreneurship, New York City, technology

Step 146: The Inspiring Story of Start-up My City Way

Christa Avampato

As a blogger I am constantly introduced to new, interesting people who are bringing their ideas to life. My friend, Erica Heinz, over at Yogoer.com recently introduced me to her friend, Sonpreet Bhatia, Co-Founder of My City Way. My City Way creates mobile phone apps that roll up 50+ hyper-local apps into a city-specific guide. Tailored for use by local residents and visitors alike, My City Way is a tour guide in your pocket.

From our first email, Sonpreet impressed me with her passion and ability to see beyond what’s already out there in the world. The mobile landscape is highly competitive with a constant stream of new competitors. Just when we think we’ve got our head wrapped around its potential, some entrepreneur mixes it up again with a new innovation. My City Way did just that in a big, useful way.

In February, Bhatia and Co-founders Puneet Mehta and Archana Patchirajan took home the prestigious Popular Choice and Investors’ Choice Awards at the NYC BigApps Competition for the company’s first app, NYCWay. Since then, the trio has launched a similar app in a host of other cities including San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Boston, and London. My City Way has also been busy working away on new features to delight its customers including a reservation service, discounts and deals on local merchants, up-to-the-minute public transit info, wi-fi locations, even apartment and job listings.

My City Way’s founders were focused on using technology to create something that would help local businesses manage through this difficult recession. They wanted to put something in the hands of tech savvy consumers that would direct consumer spending to local businesses, particularly those that don’t have lavish marketing budgets. Whether you believe in karma or the idea that there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come, their ingenuity and drive paid off. With the success and rapid growth of My City Way, all three founders left their lucrative jobs on Wall Street earlier this year to focus on this startup. They never looked back and that keeps me looking forward, too.

My City Way is available for iPhone, iPad, and Android phones. For more info, check them out at http://www.mycityway.com

career, Inc. Magaine, technology, work

Step 127: A Job You Like

Christa Avampato

“Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.” ~ H. Jackson Brown Jr., American author

I thought about this quote as I read the profile of Tim O’Reilly in Inc Magazine this month. Tim is known as the Oracle of Silicon Valley and for good reason. He has a way of seeing what’s coming next about 5 years before other really smart people begin to put the pieces together. His road has been unconventional. He’s not a trained businessman, nor is he a trained engineer or tech expert. Trend identification is his specialty. And so is happiness. He’s a keen people watcher and listener. And he’s got an important message for us: work should support what’s important to us in life, not be the axis around which we build every other moment of our days.

“Sure, sure,” we might say. “Get a job we like. Of course everyone wants to do that. But what if I can’t pay my bills by doing what I love? What then?” I’m not sure what Tim would say to that. Maybe he’d just smile. My response would be: “find something else you can really love. Don’t do something you don’t like just to make money. There’s too much fun stuff out there to learn to waste your time doing something you hate.”

I’m not telling you to go out and quit your job tomorrow. Maybe you should do that – actually, you should definitely do that if you absolutely loathe every waking moment at your current job. But if it’s bearable, find a way to make it useful. A project you can start or help out with, a contact who you can cultivate, a skill you can learn. Or switch roles within your company to something that’s of more interest. Or use that energy to actively seek out a new job, quickly.

Truly, I hated the last role I had at work. Starting around October of 2009, I woke up every morning and groaned; that’s when I knew I just couldn’t physically stay where I was. So it was either on to a new adventure in another role, or out into the world to a new company. And once I shared that sentiment with enough people, I found my way to a new role very quickly. Finding the new job wasn’t hard; deciding that it was time for me to get on with it was the tough part.

Once we admit to ourselves that we just can’t keep going down the road we’re on, there’s no turning back. And that can be scary. But if we’re willing to really seek out happiness and satisfaction in our careers, if we’re willing to say “I can do better than this”, then the world has a funny habit of opening the way forward.

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

Examiner, technology, website

My interview with Anthony Casalena, Founder of Squarespace

Christa Avampato

My interview with Anthony Casalena, Founder of Squarespace, a very cool web publishing platform: http://ow.ly/1zO60

technology, tradition, yoga

Step 93: 6,000 years ago and decades down the line

Christa Avampato

I am currently studying for my yoga teacher certification, carrying on a tradition that is more than 6,000 years old. At the same time I started this certification process, I also took on a new job where I spend my days thinking about mobile technology and its useful application to everyday life now and in the years ahead. I have one foot in two very different worlds. The irony isn’t lost on me.

When I have tried to reconcile the paradox in my mind, I hit a dead-end. How do I stay true to an ancient practice and stay equally focused on the cutting edge of personal technology that is set to rival any science fiction model to-date? “Why do you have to?” Brian asked me. “Sounds perfectly balanced to me. Upper chakras. Lower chakras.” I think he really wanted to tell me, “Stop worrying about nothing and just accept that we spend our present living in both the future and the past. That’s life, sister.” But he didn’t – he’s too good a coach to say something like that.

I like this idea of innovative thinking coupled with ancient study. It helps me realize that we really are on a continuum, especially when we consider how the world around us is evolving and changing with our hearts and minds and bodies remain a blessed constant. Even 6,000 years ago in caves in India, where yoga began, people longed for peace and safety and love. They longed for belonging to an energy, a life-force, prana far more vast than they could be alone. They had a thirst for knowledge. They were curious. They were creative.

This constancy of spirit is a welcome thought to ponder when we consider how quickly everything around us is changing. We can feel overwhelmed by technology and communications and the great speed of life. We don’t have to be. In our hearts, we are all the same. We have been for thousands of years, and likely will be ages and ages hence.

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

poverty, social entrepreneurship, technology

Step 58: Kopernik – Connect Breakthrough Technologies to the People Who Need Them Most

Christa Avampato

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been reading the book Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. It traces the travels, travails, and triumphs of Dr. Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners in Health (PIH). PIH has been at the forefront of the Haitian earthquake coverage. For decades, Farmer has been plugging away in Haiti, Peru, Roxbury, MA, and Moscow, advocating for the use of innovative methods and technologies to fight infectious disease. His tireless work is awe-inspiring. The man never quits.

I’ve still got another 100 pages to go so I’ll hold off on the book review. Reading it every morning and every evening on my commute, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to put technology in the hands of people around the world who are living in poverty. Technology transforms communities; we’ve seen examples of this phenomenon all over the world. The trouble is that they’re priced out of the market. It’s been bothering me because this conundrum represents a real injustice in the world. People should be able to get what they need to survive and thrive, and too often our world just doesn’t work that way.

And then I found a little bright spot a few days ago through Kopernik. In 4 steps, we can contribute toward the goal of putting technologies into the hands of the people who need them most around the globe. From solar-powered hearing aids to rollable water containers to self-adjustable lenses, the innovative products featured on Kopernik are providing help and hope that’s been a long time coming.

Here’s how it works:
Step 1: You browse the proposals submitted by technology seekers and choose one to donate towards.

Step 2: Once sufficient funds have been raised, Kopernik transfers the cost of product and shipping to the technology provider.

Step 3: The technology provider ships the products to the technology seekers.

Step 4: The technology seeker reports on how the technology is being used. Reports and updates are posted on Kopernik.

No money to contribute? You can still play a part by volunteering. Interested in exploring a career social tech? Kopernik is currently looking for interns. Want to read about their success in beta? Click here and get inspired. Together, we can transform communities around the world thanks to Kopernik.

media, technology

Step 57: Igniteshow.com – a New Site by O’Reilly Media

Christa Avampato

O’Reilly Media is at it again – offering up innovation and creative inspiration at the click of a button. In conjunction with Global Ignite Week, O’Reilly Media is serving up extraordinary ingenuity by and for ordinary people through their new site igniteshow.com. And here’s the best part – all the inspiring videos on the site are five minutes long, give or take a few seconds.

I love the TED videos and I frequently watch them. The trouble is that all the presenters at TED are rock stars, making them a bit inaccessible. All of the presenters on Igniteshow are passionate people who could be your neighbor, the guy in line in front of you at Starbucks, or the person you pass by on the street every day. They’re every day people who are working on projects that they’re passionate about. And O’Reilly is helping them share their passion with all of us. The presenters aren’t perfect. There’s nothing slick about most of the presentations. That’s my favorite part – they’re real, honest people out there fighting the good fight.

I plugged in “creativity” in the search box and a slew of videos came up on igniteshow.com. Here are three that caught my eye:

Choose Your Own Adventure, In Real Life – What drives you to take risks? That thing is your passion. What’s the idea you’re willing to go out on a limb for? That’s the thing that is going to bring you the most satisfaction in life. Get with people who get you excited to live your life – they’re the key to your happiness.

Visual Thinking: Boost Your Creative IQ – Connect the right and left sides of the brain by drawing, and everyone can draw. Drawing provides us with the practice we need to generate “innovation on demand”. Now that’s a service this world needs.

Creating Communal Creative Space – Space sharing among entrepreneurs, artists, writers, and freelancers is gaining popularity all over the country. These spaces provide us with access to resources, space, new ideas, and creative people. Want to know what the future holds – hang around one of these joints for a while and you’ll see what lies ahead.

From the O’Reilly Media press release:
“From March 1-5, 2010, roughly 10,000 people will congregate at more than 60 Ignites on six continents, as the first Global Ignite Week rolls across the planet. They’ll gather in local venues, grab a cold beverage, and watch a series of 5-minute talks from geeks, entrepreneurs, creative professionals, farmers, educators—people in their community who rise to the challenge of the Ignite motto: “Enlighten us, but make it quick.”

About Ignite
Ignite got its start in Seattle in December, 2006, as a personal project of O’Reilly’s Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis. They dreamed up an event where people could share their ideas over beer, and sent word out through their network. On December 7, two hundred Seattle geeks looking for “a fun night of geekery and networking” squeezed into a bar on Capitol Hill. They found beer, but so much more. First up, a friendly but intense competition to build the sturdiest popsicle-stick bridge. Then 25 intrepid locals took a turn on the stage for their five-minute Ignite talks. The consensus was that it was a blast. Word got out, and other communities wanted Ignite in their cities. Brady and Bre turned the event over to O’Reilly, and nearly 200 Ignites have been held, about half of them in the past year. As Ignite enters its fourth year, O’Reilly is launching Global Ignite Week to both celebrate and amplify the Ignite phenomenon.

About O’Reilly
O’Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.”

blogging, social media, technology

Step 56: My Alltop Listing

Christa Avampato

Natalia from New York Women Social Entrepreneurs suggested to me that I put together an Alltop page to keep track of all of the tech blogs I’m utilizing to get up to speed on my new job. A few weeks ago, I put the page together and have been making good use of it ever since. After spending some time on the site and seeing all of its value, I decided to apply to have my blog listed in the ‘innovation’ section. Today I received an email from Noe Mendiola saying my blog was accepted and listed. I’m thrilled!

A few of my favorite Alltop attributes:
1.) The interface is clean and well-organized – a huge improvement over the readers I’ve been using;

2.) Searching by topic has introduced me to new sites that I may not have found on my own;

3.) I’ve been on information overload, especially since I got this new job. Because I trust Guy Kawasaki‘s opinion on which blogs I should be reading on any given topic, I can leverage his knowledge rather than sifting through a lot of blogs on my own;

Give Alltop a whirl and let me know what you think. My Alltop page of blogs I follow on the site can be found here.

business, Examiner, technology

Examiner.com: Interview with Brandon Kessler, Founder of ChallengePost

Christa Avampato

Everyone loves a good contest, especially when it’s a contest that organized, efficient, and dealing with cutting edge challenges that need to be solved. Enter ChallengePost, the conduit that makes contests accessible and fun, and delivers powerful , buzz-worthy results. With ChallengePost, competition truly is a game again.

Click here for the full interview with Brandon. ChallengePost is a start-up based in New York City.