Carolyn Jack
Editor and CEO, Geniocity.comA project of The Genius Group LLC
Creative Nerve
Washington (not D.C.) and creativity
Abe’s been getting all the attention.
Not that he doesn’t deserve a great deal, especially in light of Barack Obama’s election. And his birthday does come first in the chronological list of February presidential anniversaries.
But George Washington, who would be turning 277 next Sunday, Feb. 22, is due for some notice now.
Many historians imply that Washington’s greatest contribution to the founding of our nation was, in effect, his character. A man of great dignity, resolution and incorruptibility, his determination to do the right thing by his countrymen in all situations – war or peace – made him a uniquely awe-inspiring hero, a unifier of factions and a quiet reproach to malcontents more concerned with self than service.
But he also had creative nerve that was second to none. If he had been playing chess instead of fighting an actual war, you could say he won with only a knight, a castle and a handful of pawns against the full forces of his enemy.
Take, for example, his execution of the plan at Dorchester Heights, outside the city of Boston, at the beginning of the American Revolution. Frustrated by the impasse he had been facing for months there because his generals repeatedly vetoed a direct attack by the ill-supplied and -trained Continental Army on the strong British force trapped in the cul-de-sac of the city, Washington took his counselors up on another plan they suggested exactly 233 years ago today: fortifying a series of hills directly across a narrow stretch of water from Boston, a position that would directly threaten the British and provoke them into leaving the city to attack the fortifications.
(George Washington. Charles Willson Peale (1776); Washington on Dorchester Heights after the siege of Boston. The White House Collection, Washington, DC)
As Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough recounts in his 2005 chronicle, “1776,” Washington moved with a speed and canniness that may be unequaled in the annals of war. In two weeks and two days, he mustered 2,000 extra troops from the Massachusetts militia, rounded up wagons and 800 oxen, had his army’s hospital over in Cambridge stocked with extra beds and thousands of bandages – miraculous for such an impoverished and amateur army.
Most important, he had fortifications built offsite, including multitudes of dirt- and rock-filled barrels that could both fool the British by looking, from a distance, like stout barriers, and also serve as deadly bowling balls when rolled downhill at the enemy.
And then, in one night, from the fall of darkness on March 4 to dawn on March 5, Washington moved all of it – men, materiel, animals and large cannon brought down from Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain in a perilous, two-month-long winter mission led by a 25-year-old colonel with a maimed hand, Henry Knox - and got it set up under cover of a diversionary bombardment of Boston proper.
When the sun came up the next morning, the British essentially took one look at what was looming over them and – after a potentially suicidal attempt at attacking the American position that was thwarted by a terrific storm – fled, frantically provisioning their fleet and sailing away.
Most Americans of school age or more also know about Washington’s creative cunning against enemy forces at Trenton on Christmas night of that same year, when he dared – in the worst possible conditions of frigid winter, storm and big, loose chunks of river ice – to cross the Delaware in three places at midnight with a total of 4,600 men and surprise the holidaying Hessians who were holding the town.
But perhaps his most imaginative and effective tactic was the very opposite of ambush: evasion. With an army so outclassed by the British in resources and training, Washington realized his best bet was not to worry about taking territory, but to keep his army as intact as possible and pick off parts of the opposing force as he could . By avoiding battles in which the Americans were likely to suffer great losses, the general was able to prolong the war and, with some talented officers, score a few key wins, finally convincing the French that the nascent United States was worth a bet and bringing them in on our side.
His strategy of keeping his army alive to fight another day with better odds would be taken up four score and less than seven years later by a U.S. president who won the Civil War with it and so kept together the nation that Washington helped create.
And so we’re back to Abe, an immensely capable leader we perhaps know better and identify with more. But without George’s creative courage, we would have had no nation for Lincoln to lead.
Metropolitan Museum of Art Photograph Studio
Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, American, 1816-1868
George Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851
Angels, earn your wings
Why is reality never like the movies?
Specifically, why is it so for hard for an entrepreneur like me to get an angel when George Bailey didn’t even have to ask? From what I remember of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, all George had to be was suicidally frustrated and hopeless and presto! He found a kindly silver-haired guy talking him off the bridge and making his life seem worthwhile again.
I think could work myself down to that level of despair. Of course, I’d want my angel to show up with a big check made out to The Genius Group LLC, along with the usual store of life-affirming wisdom.
Anyone?
Anyone?
I’m not hearing any bells.
I keep hoping that my state or local government will finally create a program that connects entrepreneurs like me with angel investors. There was even a story about angels in the online New York Times yesterday saying that a report by the National Governors’ Association Center for Best Practices finds that state officials are working to develop more ways to help entrepreneurs find private investors. I quote:
“Among other strategies, this includes creating seminars on private equity investment, connecting entrepreneurs with existing educational opportunities, forming statewide angel networks, and appointing angel investors to state economic advisory boards, the report said.”
I got a excited for a nanosecond, until I saw the rest of the story:
“Angel investing in entrepreneurial ventures can range anywhere from $5,000 to $100,000, with investors typically backing new medical devices, software, biotechnology, business services, IT and energy initiatives.”
Rats. Rats and mice with cheese on top. That’s why I keep saying “an entrepreneur like me” – I’m not in new medical devices, software, biotechnology, business services, IT and energy initiatives. I’m in new media, wanting to inform the public about all those technological innovations and many other kinds of creative developments. And so my state officials in Ohio (oops, did I name the place?), along with the other set of 49, apparently couldn’t care less whether my business and other nonbiotech, non-IT companies fulfill their great potential or not.
Guess we’re going to have to keep trying to do it for ourselves, huh? Boo! Happy Halloween!
It’s scary out there. Will I ever find someone(s) with the imagination, vision and enthusiasm to materially join me in this great quest to change how the world perceives and practices creativity? To revolutionize human problem-solving and change our societies into peaceful, constructive cultures?
Does anybody here see what I see? (Let’s count how many shows I reference today. That was “1776.” Title, not tally.)
Anybody? Nnnnnot yet, apparently.
Ok, so – Here’s a guide I found online to help those of us on whose lines of business the venture people and programs spit. There are probably more, but this is a start. And remember: There’s no money anywhere right now except for the eight hours every third day when stockholders have taken their puppy uppers. But we can be prepared with strategies for when the money comes back, Little Sheba. Or bahk. Or ba-a-a-ak. We hope.
And for those of you who were counting, the correct answer is six.