It’s Friday, March 17, and the appointment is at 5pm at Passo delle Erbe, between Val di Funes and Val Badia. A place far from the usual touristic routes, a magical place where internet rarely works. Facing the massif of Sass de Putia (2875m), suddenly you can find yourself surrounded by one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world, the Dolomites.
This is not going to be one of the usual weekends spent in the Alps, rather one of the most awaited weekends of the year: the #LaMuntCrew Event weekend. We are a group of women coming from Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria, with very different stories, ages and careers, united not only by the passion for the mountains, but by an incredible story we’re building together step by step.
The idea of creating a crew comes from LaMunt: a brand that brings together femininity, attention to detail and sustainability and is also able to capture the deepest aspect that this passion conveys to us.Because the mountains are a space to explore, not only the environment around us, but also what we have inside us. A way to live in nature, but also to get in touch with the deeper side of ourselves. Challenging our own limits, but also discovering ourselves, regenerating and regaining balance. In short: the mountains are the place to feel good about ourselves.
The story of the crew began somewhat as a challenge. It´s December 15, 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, when we meet for the first time behind a computer screen in a video conference. We introduce ourselves with a bit of curiosity and shyness: no one would have ever imagined that we would become a real family, bonded not only by common values and passion for trekking, hiking or mountaineering, but also by great affection. Yes, because now, having reached the fourth edition of #LaMuntCrew Event, every time the fateful date of this special #MountainUsTime approaches, we feel a special emotion, similar to the one we used to feel as teenagers when leaving for a school trip.
To take part to the #LaMuntCrew Event we cancel appointments and, if necessary, even move birthday celebrations with friends, as happened this year to Katharina who blew out the candles with us! In short, this event is a must for us, proving that the mountain creates strong bonds, gives moments of freedom and eliminates language and generational barriers. Event after event, we have become a group of women sharing joys, experiences, challenges, professional skills, emotions. Together we laugh, we move, we have fun, we share experiences and we learn new things each time.
But back to March 17... We arrive at Passo delle Erbe in the light of sunset. Getting reunited with the girls of the crew coming from other countries is exciting: we all have the same desire to catch up on talks left unfinished for a few months and find out if there is anything new in our lives. This time LaMunt has reserved a hut just for us, Ütia de Pütia, with rooms that smell of wood and a chef in the kitchen who makes us dream with his canederli and apple fritters. We spend the after-dinner time, as always, with laughter, playing games in pairs, with irony and a touch of creativity!
The next day's alarm clock goes off at 7 a.m. After a rich breakfast prepared by our chef, we are ready to get to work with the right energy! It's time for the workshop organized by Antonella Girone - digital innovation expert from the LaMunt team - who makes us think about how to make our social content more engaging, Because "engagement is key to the success of any content creation. But engagement doesn't happen by accident." No need to deny it, there are many ways to tell one's story, but only by talking about what makes us unique are we able to convey emotions. This is why artificial intelligence and the boom of ChatGPT -chatbots that can generate text and language very similar to humans - while opening up new possibilities for creating quick and effective content, cannot replace us.
This is demonstrated by the real-life testimonies of Bianca Bonetti, Sophia Metzler, Dörte Kashdailis, Eliana Salvi, Giada Zhang, Elena Iacopelli, and Sara Canali. Their stories, although so different, managed to create an emotional connection with the whole group: that is something artificial intelligence cannot yet do.
Bianca tells, for example, how she manages to combine different souls and various faces in herself. That is why she does so many jobs: if she had only one, she would not be able to fully express herself. Bianca, indeed, is at the same time manager, ski guide, traveler, conference organizer and, often, speaker. "In Europe everything is measured on performance," she says. "I, on the other hand, prefer to define myself by my values. And I build my life by following my passions." Like sports. "After all, according to a research by EY, Ernst&Young, 94 percent of women executives have been athletes, and a sports background accelerates a woman's career in 74 percent of cases," Bianca continues. Her motto? "Embrace who you are."
Sophia, on the other hand, is a graphic designer. She lives in southern Germany and began her web adventure by creating a blog in 2011, which was created for girls who love sports, the outdoors, traveling, and fashion. Over time maybe-you-like.com - that's what it's called - has evolved, becoming an increasingly personal "space." Sophia also tells about the evolution of her Instagram account, at first made only of pictures, then enriched with stories and reels: "Storytelling then became easier." Her secret? "Always follow my personal style." And here are some of her little tricks to be copied: for stories use the Unfold app, for reels Videoleap and, if you have an Iphone, try Photo Editor.
With Dörte - entrepreneur, consultant and speaker - we talked about Linkedin, a social media useful for expanding one's business, finding, for example, new clients, interesting contacts and insights into the current economic situation. Dörte explains how she uses it every day, giving us some tips on how to use it best, but she also explains how Linkedin can be interpreted in a much more personal way. For her, it is not only a social media for work, but also a showcase to talk about herself and her passions. That is why she sometimes talks in her content about her love for the mountains, her need to recharge herself by walking. Linkedin is not just a cold, impersonal tool; it can also convey emotions.
In our crew, Eliana is, on the other hand, the queen of TikTok: she founded, sensing the cruciality of this business long before others, a successful company, Cosmic, which creates and distributes vertical short videos. Could ChatGPT be a help for video creators? "It can give you some ideas, it allows you to compare different videos, but in the end the feeling, emotions and authenticity can only be given by human beings."
It is amazing how Giada joined Linkedin as early as her high school years. She tells us how her profile has evolved from when she was just a student to the present day: it has now become increasingly important for her to tell the story of the brand she founded, Mulan Group, but without forgetting her story as a successful young entrepreneur that makes her so unique. Originally from China, raised in our country, Giada in fact represents the face of a new Italy, where diversity and contamination between cultures become main assets of an increasingly inclusive society. Elena Iacopelli, digital native, is one of the youngest in the group. She grew up with social media, and she does exactly that in the LaMunt Team. Her secret to managing a brand's Instagram account? "Focus on entertainment, telling a story, not just the product," says Elena. "The Internet has become a big city, where people communicate even living far away. Everyone can tell their story with a unique, personal style. That's why when I look at one of Sophia Metzler's stories on Instagram, for example, it's as if I can hear her voice."
Sara, a journalist, took us into another world, "which tells another aspect of communication," that of the book constructed after research, even from a sociological point of view. "In the volume "Le grandi prime femminili" (Studio Dispari for Corriere della Sera) I tell my story in connection with that of the first female mountaineers," Sara says. "For them, reaching the top was not just the culmination of an athletic gesture, but a real revolutionary act that coincided with the history of emancipation, which began with a small step and culminated in a great achievement." In a sense, the mountain was one of the first places where gender equality was established: "There is no difference between genders in performance, the only difference is that men started earlier," Sara concludes.
Elena, with a Ladin family from Canazei behind her, brings us a precious testimony about the strength of women in the mountains. "In the past my family sold fruit, then got a small hotel where the general manager was my grandmother. I always saw women who could manage everything in the mountains. As if they were really the successors of Dolasilla, the protagonist of a South Tyrolean legend. The warrior heroine of the Fanes people who defended her kingdom alone was in fact herself, a woman."
