film, movie, New York, news, Pangea Day, TED

Tribeca Film Festival Talk: Pangea Day

Christa Avampato

Every year, TED gives a set of honorees a “prize” – the chance to articulate their wish for the world. Sometimes the world is fortunate enough to witness the work that brings one of these wishes to life. May 10th will be a day that one of those prizes comes into being.


Two years ago TED awarded its annual prize to Jehane Noujaim, an Egyptian-born film maker best known for her document “Control Room” which chronicles the role of media in war. Her TED wish was that the whole world would have the opportunity to sit down together at a common time for several hours to enjoy a set of short films that represented universal themes. Pangea Day, May 10th, will provide that opportunity. 


The Tribeca Film Festival hosted a discussion this week to promote Pangea Day. Held at the Director’s Guild Theatre, Chris Anderson, the host of TED, moderated a panel that included Jehane, Christiane Amanpour, the famed CNN journalist, and Gideon Yago, the journalist largely credited with bringing the world’s news to MTV. This 90 minutes gave me such hope for the future of this world, and the role that art, and particularly film, can play in bringing about social justice and mutual understanding. As Christiane Amanpour so brilliantly stated, “An attempt to understand someone else is the soul of diplomacy.”


From the talk, the most poignant and powerful sentiment communicated by the films of Pangea Day is empathy. For example, an agency called Johannes Leonardo created a set of films that feature a choir of one nationality singing the national anthem of another nation. France sings US. US sings Mexico. Kenya sings India. The film of France singing the US was so powerful that I teared up and actually shivered. That feeling of compassion through music was indescribable.


Many of the short films are up on YouTube, and they will all be available on the Pangea website on May 11th. Not surprisingly, Jehane means “world” in Farsi. And in her closing thoughts of the talk she provided perhaps the best quote of empathy and understanding I have ever heard. “If we could read the diaries of our enemies we would find enough pain and sorrow to extinguish all hostility.” It’s my hope that the short films on Pangea Day will start us down that road.       

environment, green, media

Vanity Fair’s misstep on the 2008 Green issue

Christa Avampato

While Miley Cyrus’s photoshoot maybe the talk of the hallways over at Vanity Fair, I think they have bigger problems – that of leadership. This month every magazine had their version of a Green issue. Finally, it seems that the wake-up call to protect the environment and reverse some of the damage we’ve done is reaching the mainstream. Last year I was so impressed withVanity Fair’s Green issue that I subscribed to the magazine. When this year’s Green issue arrived in my mailbox, I couldn’t wait to read through it. And now I’m completely confused.


In spite of all of the incredible innovation and creativity happening in the world of sustainability, this year’s VF Green issue simply rehashed the same old topics and players that have been kicking around for years. I didn’t see anything about entrepreneurs with green-collar jobs, young companies that are making a big difference (i.e., Method), the growing popularity of CSA’s, or the locavore trend. All of these are timely, trendy topics in Green. Rather than the fine reporting I’ve come to admire in VF, this issue’s features are pretty much the same as those found in nearly every mass media source. 


And then to add insult to injury, there’s a double-sided, heavy stock coupon for cigarettes right in the middle of the magazine! I guess I’m supposed to feel better that at least the tobacco is “additive-free”, the coupon is printed on recycled paper, and the executives at the tobacco company are “passionate about the environment” and have organic growing programs. Gross – the ad was an exercise in how many environmental buzzword the company could haphazardly throw together on one sheet of paper.  Their product still causes illness, and is not part of a healthy lifestyle. Healthy living is exactly what Green is all about! What was the VF advertising department thinking when they accepted and prominently featured that ad? Clearly, they weren’t thinking at all. 


Here’s to hoping that VF makes better choices in the 2009 Green issue and that the rest of us take-away the power of being genuine. The damage being anything less than genuine can cause is not something any company can afford.

blogging, business, corporation, technology

Blogging the competition: adver-blogging

Christa Avampato

On frogblog today, Tim Leberecht discusses a small group of corporate blogs that we are now seeing pop up. Brew blog is one example. It’s run by Miller Brewing Company, and rather than promote Miller, the writers spend their time chronicling the fumblings of its biggest rival, Anheuser-Busch. Ick – is this what we’re going to do with our new connectivity tools? Use them and spend our time bashing one another? I’d be disappointed in any company who engaged in this kind of activity, and what’s more, I’d stop patronizing the brand doing the adver-blogging.

The theory of glass houses applies. I understand wanting to keep tabs on your competition. I understanding wanting to your own horn to drum up business. But just as it does so often with political campaigns, I think the people and companies doing the bashing will ultimately get bashed themselves, with a vengeance.

I hope that we don’t see this emerge as a growing trend. I’m much more interested in hearing a company’s own stories in their own words. See Tim’s original post at http://www.frogdesign.com/frogblog/adversarial-blogging-the-brew-blog-and-co.html

game, gaming, technology, The Game Agency

McDonald’s attempts to answer the age-old question: http://www.whatcamefirst.com

Christa Avampato

I love that companies are getting on the gaming bandwagon. I’m tired of company websites that don’t make an effort to entertain me while I’m there. I was a huge fan of the Elf Yourself Christmas card from Office Max this past holiday season – I sent my elffed-self tap, tap, tapping along to everyone I know. These kinds of things can seriously amuse me for hours.

Now McDonald’s has come out with a new and improved version of the elf game through it’s website http://www.whatcamefirst.com/. Concepted and designed by Steve Baer and the cool folks over at The Game Agency, the site lets you choose which side you’d like to be (chicken or egg), and then lets you put your face into the character, select the theme of the dance off, the genre of music, and then a series of five dance moves. “You” then face off with the character from the other side, and are scored by the computer. At the very top of the screen, you’ll see a total collection of points for everyone who’s made themselves a chicken or an egg, allowing you to unite with fellow debaters of this timeless question. Think of it as Dancing with the Stars for fast food. Thank you McDonald’s for filling the elf void in my life! badabababa, I’m lovin’ it!

Build your own sequence, and enjoy a litte boogie time courtesy of McDonald’s. You deserve a break today. http://www.whatcamefirst.com/.
creative, creativity, design, Janet Grace Riehl.

What does "Curating a Creative Life" mean?

Christa Avampato

Many, many thanks to Janet Grace Riehl who left a comment on my recent post about how music and art can tap into a part of the mind that has been damaged to “re-teach” it. That post deals with a kind of therapy known as melodic intonation therapy. In a nutshell, the therapy teaches people to speak after a stroke by teaching them first to sing. Janet shared a very personal story about her mom, and I am very grateful for her comment.

She also asked if I could say a bit about the subtitle of my blog “Curating a Creative Life” and I realized that I may have always talked about this in a round-about fashion though never specifically discussed my philosophy on it. When I first moved to New York City over a decade ago, I was entranced by the window dressers of the department stores. And I was taken by set designs I saw in the theatres I worked in and by exhibits in so many of the incredible museums that make their home in New York. I wanted so much be someone who designs and chooses what goes where and how it all hangs together. I wanted to be a curator.

I went about my professional life thinking that design was beyond me, something that only the elite had a right to do as a profession. So, I put my business skills to work and toured with theatre shows, and later got into fundraising. I went to business school for my MBA, and now work for a toy company. All the while, I have been meeting interesting people in interesting places all over the world, and collecting their stories and my reactions to their stories. I recorded them in a journal for a very long time and now I write on this blog. In addition to my interest in curating, I am also intensely interested in narrative and story lines. I am a writer. And now I curate that writing.

“The hardest thing in the world is deciding what matters,” says Susan Monk Kidd in The Secret Lives of Bees. She right; it is always hard to choose. There are so many amazing things to do and see and be in this world. Our job, our only job, is to choose which experiences, places, and people are the ones most deserving of our time. We are choosing, and therefore curating, the different pieces of our lives. Our lives are creations always evolving, morphing into something different than they were yesterday. With every new interaction, there is a new learning and we incorporate that, somehow, into how we approach the next interaction, and so on.

Like a museum curator chooses what to put in the exhibit and where to put it, we all choose where and when and with whom to place the events that make up our lives. We are all creatives, carefully weaving a tapestry of the events, people, and places that make up our lives, designers of the highest order.

Thank you, again, Janet!

The photo above can be found at http://www.fotosearch.com/thumb/UNN/UNN256/u10097124.jpg

New York Times, technology

How to make, do, fix everything

Christa Avampato

There is no shortage in the world of people and their respective websites that tell you how to do something. A few months ago I found a site that is actually created by Barnes and Noble, Quamut. I’ve been poking around on it. Very well-written, very dense, and the number of topics is incredibly broad.

The New York Times did a piece on Quamut with some interesting insights. I won’t steal their thunder and will just provide the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/technology/28ecom.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=quamut&st=nyt&oref=slogin&oref=slogin. Instead, I want to focus on the generosity of these sites. In an effort to virtually “strut their stuff”, experts are on-line writing out more how-to manuals than ever before. All for free. If you want to learn to play the guitar, fix a toaster, or hike the Appalachian Trail, someone (and likely many people) want to give you instructions, tips, tricks of the trade, and their experience.

Who says the world is a selfish place? Check out http://Quamut.com/

GEL conference, gel2008, health, hospital

GEL 2008: Bridget Duffy

Christa Avampato

If there is any industry that needs a major make-over, it’s health care. And if I or anyone I know ever needs a major procedure done, I am am likely to make the decision to choose the Cleveland Clinic as a result of Bridget Duffy’s talk at GEL. She is an accomplished doctor, as well as the Clinic’s Chief Innovation Officer. She’s involved with everything from empathy projects to redesigning the hospital gown. Originally she wanted her title to be “Chief Empathy Officer” – that’s how much she believes in empathy’s value.

Empathy is a funny thing. Kids have tons of it. In our early adult years through midlife, we lose a large amount of it, and then as we move into our later years, we revert back to our empathic capacity from childhood. So we have it – we are born with it. And like the creative spirit, we bury it somewhere deep within our recesses, until some life-altering event brings it back. Our challenge is to find a way to keep our empathy from being beaten down in the wake our busy lives.

My favorite quote from Bridget’s talk: “Everyone needs GPS – a guide to take them through every system. And companies need it, too.”

GEL conference, gel2008, media, social media

GEL 2008: Clay Shirky

Christa Avampato

Clay Shirky is a professor who studies media, intently. During his GEL talk this year, he spoke about the changing role of newspapers, and all major media outlets for that matter. And his ideas are thought-provoking. Newspapers would be wise to follow his lead in order to stay alive.

Newspapers were begun as a way to disseminate information. Radio and TV have followed this same lead. Today, they are not so much information designators (bloggers can on-line news sources can do that much faster and much more conveniently). They are now taking on the role of being “places” where coordination is happening. Publishing is changing its purpose from printing to acting.

In his book, “Here Comes Everybody”, Shirky discusses how individuals are using major media channels to organize themselves, be it for social justice, to demand better services, or to get the word out about a cause, even though they themselves do not belong to the newspaper staffs. Said another way, we as a society have moved from following news to the news following us, or creating and reporting the news ourselves. Mass media’s challenge is to figure out how to best serve the people by providing new, more useful coordinating tools.

My favorite quotes from his talk, “Thinking is for doing.” ~ William James and “If you have the same problem for a long time, maybe it’s not a problem. It’s a fact.”

experience, GEL conference, gel2008, innovation

GEL2008 – making time for special moments

Christa Avampato

There are a pile of posts just waiting to be written about my experience at the GEL conference. They will be coming shortly. There are a few points that I think are worth making in a separate post.

I have never been to this type of conference – it’s not focused on a particular industry, but a particular aspect of every industry. Good (G) Experience (E) Live (L). From the first female film maker in the UAE to the Chief Innovation Officer at the Cleveland Clinic to a Brew Master, this conference was filled with speakers and participants that are all interested in making time for and creating special moments for employees, for customers, and inspiring others by reaching out and sharing the stories. This is particularly interesting to me because of my early career in theatre, which was very much focused on experience and taking people out of their element by sharing a story with them.

The first day of GEL2008 was filled with different activities to choose from – I chose the game of Werewolf and a trip to a farmstead cheese farm in NJ. And then Day 2 had a slate of speakers, most of whom I had never heard of. I walked away inspired and energized. I felt like the creativity of the world was buzzing all around me. It was empowering, and made me believe that there is no end to the extent of the work and impact that impassioned people can have.

Posts to come on the speakers…stay tuned.

game, GEL conference, gel2008, werewolf

GEL2008: Werewolf – the best party game ever

Christa Avampato

My first activity for the GEL conference was learning and playing the game Werewolf. I m now obsessed and planning my first “Werewolf” party. It’s a game of trickery, deceit, and cunning. It’s also tough to imagine walking away from it. I learned it from Charlie Todd, a comedian and creator of ImprovEverywhere, and his team of highly skilled players.

What you’ll need:
a deck of cards with two aces, a king, a queen, a jack, and as many numbered cards as needed to have a card for everyone playing
at least 8 people

Roles:
The moderator (no card)
Two Aces – werewolves
King – doctor
Queen – fortune teller
Jack – hunter
Number cards – townspeople

Object of the game:
For the werewolves: to kill all the townspeople
For the townspeople: to kill the werewolves

There are two cycles to the game:
Night: everyone is asleep. at the moderator’s command, each werewolf wakes up separately and silently points to choose someone to kill. (They must choose the same person in order for that person to die and be out of the game.) The fortune teller wakes up and may silently point to ask the moderator if any one person is a werewolf. The doctor wakes up and chooses someone to save – if that person has been chosen by both werewolves, the person survives.

Day: everyone’s eyes are open and discussion along with accusations of werewolves may be made and voted on. The moderator will let the group know if anyone has died in the night. (If someone dies in the night, they do not reveal their card so the group does not know their role. The group discusses who may be a werewolf. Accusations are made. An accusation must be seconded and then is voted on by the group after the accused takes 10 seconds to defend their position and why they shouldn’t be killed. Majority wins. If the person is voted to be killed, they reveal their role by showing their card. If the person holds the jack card, they are allowed to take another person out with them.

So while it may sound rather gruesome, the game is an absolute blast. Even with a group of strangers, it took one round and everyone was hooked.