comedy

Step 62: A Night at The Colbert Report

Christa Avampato

My friend, Rob, and I were in need of a good belly laugh and where better to get a healthy dose of humor served up with a side of news than at The Colbert Report. During the years of the Bush administration I relied on Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart for much of my news coverage. The actual political news was just too depressing to take in on a daily basis. When watching Comedy Central, I wondered if the Stephen Colbert we’ve all come to know and love is an entirely fictional character. And if his character is manufactured, what’s the real Stephen Colbert like?

He does an out-of-character Q&A with the audience for about 10 minutes before the taping begins. Almost any subject is free game in the Q&A. He night just be the single nicest, most genuine, humble guy in television. He plays with his staff and his audience. We could easily see the sense of camaraderie, even family, among everyone on the set. The guy is having a blast, and so is everyone alongside him. The dance of his show is complicated and quick-moving, and even with that pressure, he sees and communicates the comedy in every moment without ever appearing flustered.

“Off camera, I’m just a guy who says sh*t,” he said to us during a commercial break. While that may be true, he’s much more that. He’s a an incredible role model for us: someone who’s doing exactly what he loves with people he cares about that’s actually making a difference in our world. He gives us another viewing lens for our news and the society we’ve created in this country. He has an opinion about everything and rather than beating us over the head with it, he took the other side and made it entertaining. And both in and out of character, he’s one seriously hilarious, intensely intelligent, thoroughly likable guy.

change, decision-making

Step 61: Valiant Struggles

Christa Avampato

“You, too, God willing, will be 65 some day–and when you look back it’s never the easy times that pop up in the viewfinders; it’s the valiant struggles and adversities suffered and occasionally overcome that fill the highlights tape.” ~ Tom Peters

Memory is a funny thing. It’s amazing what will surface at specific times, without us even actively asking it to make an appearance in our minds:
– This morning I woke up thinking of our family dog who we had to put down in September. I thought about how hard that day was and also how grateful it made me we for his love all those years.
– For a few weeks I’ve had dozens of conversations about relationships – the good, the bad, and the ugly. After a string of recent ones that didn’t end so well, I realized that finally I think I’m ready to find one that really works for me and becomes a blessing in my life.
– Occasionally, I will be walking around my neighborhood and still imagine the event that would have unfolded if I hadn’t gotten out of my burning apartment building exactly at the moment when I did.
– September of 2009 will forever be a month that I remember as one long struggle that I survived.

Struggles and their after-effects can play out in two ways: they can be things that send us spiraling down into misery or they can become the hour of our greatest teaching. It’s a choice. Our choice. Yes there’s a grieving period and it may be far longer and more filled with despair than we’d like it be. Eventually we have to decide to stay down or stand up and start over. Pain can be a powerful motivator to transform our lives in ways that we wouldn’t without its prompting. Struggles can be valiant.

dreams, movie

Step 60: Alice in Wonderland

Christa Avampato

“Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” ~ Alice in Wonderland

“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” ~ Saint Francis of Assisi

Tonight my friend, Dan, took me to see a screening of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, the journey that Alice takes on her second fall down the rabbit hole. In Tim Burton’s colorful, magical style, he re-creates a Wonderland transformed into a wasteland by the Queens of Hearts. The story unfolds as good battles evil, as a young girls grows into a woman, and as the repressed gain the confidence and courage to fight for freedom. It’s a story as old as time, and yet it’s something more, too. That’s why it’s my favorite book.

My favorite quote from Alice is the one about imagining impossible things. So often we spend our days saying why something can’t / won’t / shouldn’t work. We make excuses and justify inaction. How much of our time do we imagine impossible things, and then take them a step further as Saint Francis counseled us to do. Impossibility is an alluring things to strive for.

In Tim Burton’s re-telling, Alice is fighting the jabberwocky and to strengthen her own resolve, she begins to recite six impossible things. So I’m testing myself a bit tonight, imagining my own list of six impossible things:

1.) To ride the subway on a weekday morning with a car full of people excited for the day ahead
2.) A world where everyone has just enough of everything they need, and they’re content with that
3.) An education system that bases every ounce of learning on creativity
4.) Me doing advanced arm balance poses in yoga class
5.) A world that fully appreciates the wisdom of the aged, children, and animals
6.) A year full of days that feel like that first day of spring after a long, hard winter

dreams, yoga

Step 59: Ingenuity

Christa Avampato

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” ~ George Smith Patton

This weekend I began my yoga teacher training. After 16 hours over two days, my body is drained and sore, and my mind is full, in a good way. I gave my best at every moment. My mind expanded. Emotions long-buried surfaced in ways that surprised me. This is progress.

Sonic Yoga, where I am doing my training, is a classic Vinyasa studio with a relaxed, fun feel. The answer to every question is “it depends”. We are all treated as individuals, unique in our abilities to give and receive, unique in our needs and wants. And Sonic Yoga honors that individuality.

In our two hour practice this morning, our instructor, Jeffrey, said something during the midpoint of a particularly challenging pose for me. “Dance on the very edge of your practice.” That idea sat with me as I twisted more deeply into Parivrtta Trikonasana (Revolved Triangle Pose). It’s out on the edge, on the very fringe of our existence and our abilities, that we find out what we’re really made of. It’s when we are pushed to our limits, physically, emotionally, and spirituality, that we hear those life-altering truths that are so hard to hear amidst the hubbub of our every day existence.

Jeffrey got the best from all of us, 22 women strong, not by telling us what to do but by telling us the destination. Go to the edge, just a little further than you ever thought possible. That edge will be different for all of us, but the intention is the same. Go out there and live, really live. Whether than means twisting more deeply into a pose, taking on a job that seems a bit beyond our abilities, or chasing a dream that seems just out of reach, it’s amazing what we can achieve if only we focus and extend and keep aiming for the edge. Our own ingenuity never ceases to surprise and delight.

The image above is not my own but it sure makes me laugh. 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.

finance, money, success

Step 55: Smart Cookies

Christa Avampato

I’ve heard a lot of people resolve to get a hold of their finances in 2010. 2009 knocked us all for a loop. Almost every one of our preconceptions about working and earning was turned on its head last year, and we’ve vowed to never be in that position again. Trouble is, how are we going to avoid 2009, the sequel? Where do we start?

Welcome to Smart Cookies, a clan of 20 and 30 somethings who got together for one main reason: to turn around their financial futures. They were successful women with good jobs and not much to show for it. They formed a money group and together developed strategies to improve their finances and still have fun. Now they’re sharing what they learned in a few ways: in their book, on TV, and through their on-line community.

My favorite feature on the website is the opportunity to join a local money group to get your financial engine running in the right direction and keep it that way. Check out what the Smart Cookies have to offer you on your road to financial good fortune.

career, leadership, work

Step 54: A Parade of Orange

Christa Avampato

Today I packed up my desk at work and at this very moment, the orange moving crates have are moving to a new floor where I’ll be sitting and working starting tomorrow. As a Pisces, the end of the zodiac cycle, I like endings because they allow us to complete a goal and look forward to new opportunities. I like the feeling of wrapping up a project, looking back on accomplishments that I worked so hard to achieve.

I do get a little sentimental during a wrap-up. Today it was a little hard to say good-bye to some co-workers, to know that I won’t be on the phone with them daily the way I was before. I’m so proud of the work we were able to do together, and I’m so grateful for the time I spent with them. This new opportunity before me is a dream position, and before I springboard head-first into the new job, I spent a little time reflecting on my last role and what I learned there:

1.) There’s no such thing as over-communication

2.) Never underestimate the power of honesty and reason to leave a lasting impression on people at all levels of an organization

3.) Saying what you mean and meaning what you say are the two most important things you can do on the job and in life

4.) Take care of a team so that the team can take care of customers so that customers’ opinions of and loyalty to the brand will take care of the shareholders’ investment; leaders need to focus their time on the base of the pyramid, not the top

5.) Leadership, above all else, is service and requires a high degree of empathy; care and concern for a team, as people first and employees second, is the surest way for a leader to be successful

Deep breath in, deep breath out, and here I go. In a new direction, on a new journey, armed with another experience to draw from.