We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Christine Pizzo. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Christine below.
We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses. What works well, what are the pitfalls. Would you want your children to join your business – why or why not? Are there any stories you’ve seen play out or experiences that help shape your view on family businesses?
I own and live on a small private airport in New Hampshire, which odd as it may sound, is about as much of a family business as you can get. My partner was literally always in a plane as a baby, his Dad has more than 50 years of flying experience owning a charter company and is an instructor. I’m currently working on getting my private pilot’s license as well!
The day-to-day of owning a private airport is as interesting as it sounds. We have random people show up all the time – women who were the first air traffic controller in the 70s, pilots still flying at 92 years old, a group of older gents that fly in to go to the pancake house across the street once a month, paraglyders… you name it we’ve seen it!
There are also the companies we lease to locally, including drone businesses, drone helicopters, autonomous vehicles, acrobat pilots, all testing their equipment.
It’s not all sunflowers and roses though – maintenance is a labor of love – when it snows 18+, and you need to plow over 3100 feet of concrete, that’s no joke. We do have a SnoGo from the 50s that is 16ft tall and shoots the snow 100ft in the air while plowing though, so there are some silver linings!
For folks who may not have read about you before, can you please tell our readers about yourself, how you got into your industry / business / discipline / craft etc, what type of products/services/creative works you provide, what problems you solve for your clients and/or what you think sets you apart from others. What are you most proud of and what are the main things you want potential clients/followers/fans to know about you/your brand/your work/ etc.
My background has been quite the journey! I joined Designit following a seven-year stint at Accenture Song, which I left as principal director and northeast market unit lead for digital production studios having also been head of experience design for the Eastern Region. Before this, I’ve also held positions with Intrepid Pursuits, DigitasLBi, VCU Brandcenter, and Advertising Age.
I’m also an adjunct professor of Human Interface Design at Tufts University and a digital experience advisory board member at The Idea Factory.
Designit is where I’m at now, and its a global experience innovation company with human-centred design baked into absolutely everything we do. We have a presence in more than 14 countries, with over 700 designers, analysts, creators, strategists, and marketers. In short, we’ve got a lot of creative people doing a lot of great work all around the world!
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I want to say something altruistic, but the truth is so fundamental in that I can’t not be creative. I have to solve the puzzle, fill the gaps, get crafty with solutions and dream big. I used to say I went to grad school to “become the ideas person”, like my strategy director at the time who would later become my professor and the school’s experience design director. I not only happened upon opportunities, but intentionally carved out a path that really is using my intrinsic traits and how my brain works, and that makes life very rewarding.
I know my path will be fluid and ever changing as I grow and shift within my own life. So not only will I constantly be fed by new challenges I can work through creatively, I‘ll be feeding my relentless curiosity.
Did your side hustle turn into your main/full time business or career? If so, please tell us the story of how you got started with this side-hustle and how it scaled up to where it is today? What were some of the key milestones?
It didn’t turn into a full-time career, but the amount of time I spent on it, it sometimes felt that way. I started an inclusive motorcycle community in Boston called @babesbikesbeards to create a safe space for women and those usually not so easily welcomed into such a tough, tight-knit lifestyle. Our tagline was “all bikes all types” for “show up if you ride, and everyone is welcome”.
For more than 5 years we ran meet-ups every other week throughout the summer, that sometimes saw more than 300 people attending.
Making it profitable was never the point – in fact, I lost money! What I gained in building this community and exercising my design, branding, marketing and event planning muscles in a different environment was worth more than those dollars.
I do have a big dream version of this idea though (read big dream as lottery winnings-funded big), which would see this become a permanent business in New England… maybe with an airport for plane meet-ups as well.
Contact information:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.motozo
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinepizzo/
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