career, choices, Second Step

Beautiful: How to Move Ahead When We’re Behind

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

To move ahead, an arrow must first be drawn backward. So it is for us, too. We take one step forward and two steps back. We feel like we are in a perpetual game of catch up, make ends meet, and CYR (cover your rent). I hear you. I live it, too. For every success I’ve ever had, the have been hundreds, maybe thousands, of strike outs. Sometimes I’ve even gotten up to bat to find out that the whole game was cancelled and everyone heard the news except me.

It takes a certain resilience, a certain beautiful brand of lunacy, to carve our own paths, to buck convention, to make the career we want rather than take a job someone else creates. It is a grind, and a grind is what makes diamonds brilliant; it’s what turns wheat into flour that makes bread; it’s what helps aged spices release their gift of fragrance and flavor. The grind is necessary.

We can’t get ahead without first being behind. We can’t give the best that we have without first undergoing some refinement. Our refinement as entrepreneurs is rejection. Rejection shows us in no uncertain terms what really matters to us, and more importantly it shows us what we’re made of, just how strong we really are.

Life is hard in some ways for everyone, and for some of us it’s hard in many ways. We are all battling something, healing from something. We’ve only really got two choices – we can let what happens to us build us up or break us down. I prefer up.

business, film, marketing, media

Beautiful: Giving Without Asking For Anything In Return. Now That’s Advertising.

Christa Avampato

Have you seen “Giving”, a short 3-minute film created by TrueMove, a Thai mobile telecommunications company? It tells the story of two families – one facing extreme hardship and the other in a position to help. It showcases the beauty of giving without expecting anything in return. I saw it during a digital storytelling session at Advertising Week. This might just be the best 3 minutes of your day. And who knows – maybe it will inspire you to take action in your own community.

business, creativity, culture, future, technology, writer, writing

Beautiful: We Are on the Brink of Something Amazing. It’s Called The Future.

Christa Avampato
A pic I snapped during one of the tech session at Advertising Week

Day 3 at Advertising Week blew my mind. Literally. Technology is taking us right to the brink, in a good way. The brink is where you want to be. The brink is where we push the boundaries of possible, where our wildest dreams become the realities that we seamlessly integrate into our daily lives. The brink is where it’s at. It’s where I want to spend all of my time.

In one particular session, I began to see my future come together, how all the pieces of experience I’ve collected throughout my life gel. I may have even heard a “schumpf” as the picture of my future as a writer in the fields of technology, culture, and business became so much clearer. The steps to the end game aren’t all laid out in a perfect sequence. There are holes that I don’t quite know how to navigate, but I do know where I’m going and why. And I do know the very next step I need to take. That’s enough to keep going.

I also know this: I needed every job I’ve had, every person I’ve ever met, and every place I’ve traveled to make sense of it all. Some were delightful and some were awful. They were all necessary. It is a satisfying thing to look back on our days and see the logic in the madness, the order in the chaos. It makes the day-to-day so much more manageable.

creativity, New York City, theatre, writing

Beautiful: How You Set the Stage Can Make or Break the Play

Christa Avampato
A pic I snapped before heading into B.B. King Blues Club in NYC

Yesterday was the first time I set foot inside 3 top tourist destinations in Times Square – Hard Rock Cafe, BB King Blues Club, and Dave & Busters. Why? On day 2 of my journalism gig for Allvoices.com covering Advertising Week, I trekked through these spaces to gather the inspiring bits and pieces from a variety of panels that ranged from women media makers to white-hot advertising idea generation to the 21st century talent wars. These spaces were much more intimate, with a creative vibe, than The New York Times building where I spent my entire day yesterday. That intimate look and feel fed my creativity to the point that my mind is now whirring with ideas and possibilities in the media space to grow my work as a writer.

There’s a lot to be said for the spaces where we spend our lives, whether at work or at play. Many people say to me, “it’s so great that you are a writer because you can write from anywhere.” While technically that’s true, in reality it’s not. I need to be in an inspiring space. I need to be surrounded by other creatives who jive on the same types of ideas that get me up out of bed in the morning and make me want to toil away into the wee hours of the morning. My work makes me feel alive. I need to be with other people who feel the same way about their work. Without that energy, I feel dull, almost lifeless.

New York City is full of hidden spaces in plain sight. I would have never guessed that Hard Rock Cafe, B.B. King, and D&B had such wonderful conference spaces. I used to manage Broadway shows and now I am an enormous fan of the theatre so I’ve spent a good portion of my life tunneling through Times Square. Most people hate it. I love it because I did so much growing up in those streets. They still have much more to teach me. Spaces, and the lessons they provide, the experiences they foster, become characters in the acts of our lives. Today I am grateful for these stages that provided so much food for thought.

business, marketing, writer, writing

Beautiful: The Writer’s Filter at Advertising Week

Christa Avampato
Pic from Advertising Week – digital storytelling presentation

The lines to get into the sessions at Advertising Week are long. People begin to queue in The Times Center 30 minutes before the start of each one. This makes for an opportunity to chat with people I might not otherwise meet. I ask them about their businesses, their marketing challenges, and what they hope to learn in these sessions. They’re quick to tell me the good stuff – the popularity of their brands and the ideas that went right. What’s more interesting to the writer in me lies in the grey messy mass of TBD initiatives.

One Director of Advertising at a large consumer packaged goods company told me that they’ve made a fortune on the back of an animated character who represents the illness their OTC medicine is meant to eliminate. Now in the age of social media, consumers want to interact with that character but since he is the animated representation of the illness, he’s not going to sell product for them via Facebook.

“So what are going to do?” I asked.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “We have no idea. We fight a lot over it.”

If I was at Advertising Week representing a company, I don’t know that I would be so bold as to ask pointed questions without easy answers. It’s liberating to be there to dig, write, and illuminate the stories that are not so readily seen. It’s freeing to be there as someone just trying to learn rather than someone who’s trying to teach. It’s fun to be marketed to instead of being the one doing the marketing.

business, creativity, marketing, media, new media, news

Beautiful: I’m at Advertising Week This Week

Christa Avampato

imagesToday I’m off to start a week-long journalism stint covering Advertising Week, the largest annual advertising industry event. As pre-conference coverage, I’ve written pieces about Google Glass as the next best personal assistant, voice-controlled photo and video editing, drones in the field of journalism, and blended learning’s promise to revolutionize education through technology.

I’ll be writing 3 features per day on cool finds, interesting people, provocative ideas, and leading edge innovations in media, marketing, and technology. You can see all of my posts on the conference at http://www.allvoices.com/users/Christanyc. On this blog, I’ll draft a more personal piece each day on this experience chasing down my stories. Comments, feedback, and questions are welcomed and appreciated on both sites.

love

Beautiful: Keeping Love Weird

Christa Avampato

7667598e1f05313c164b01446712b63aPut away the list. That list. The one that says all the things you have to have from your love. And all the things you refuse to accept. Just write this, “I want someone whose weirdness matches my weirdness.” That’s all we need. The rest works itself out.

love

Beautiful: Love is an Adventure

Christa Avampato

Wise words from the 100 Acre Wood. The world needs more Winnie the Poohs.

love

Beautiful: Off to Eat, Drink, and Watch My Friends Get Married

Christa Avampato

I’m off for the weekend to stand up for my dear gal pal, Kelly, as she ties the knot to her true love. If off in the distance you hear whoops of laughter and good cheer, feel an inexplicable source of happiness and joy rise up in your own heart, know that it’s from all of us, spreading the love to a circle as far and wide as possible.

Raise your hands in the shape of a heart. Love is always something to celebrate.

community, time

Beautiful: Entrepreneurs Must Protect Their Time

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

There is no end to the number of good causes that can benefit from your time and expertise. In the past, I’ve had a tendency to volunteer my time too freely to community-based projects. When I started my own business, I discovered the true value of my time. I am a big believer in good causes, and it took me time to realize that I must be selective and careful in how I choose to engage.

Pam Slim, one of my mentors and inspirations in building a freelance life, cautions her readers about this in her book Escape from Cubicle Nation. As ambitious, driven people, we know how much of an impact we can make, especially when it comes to good causes in our communities. It’s important to feel connected to missions that make us feel alive. It’s equally important to make sure that we have the reserves to give ourselves to the ideas that matter most to us. To do that, we need to treat our time as irreplaceable. After all, it is.