Look to the Past

Let's check in with the Creative Whack Pack for some inspiration. Today's card is Look to the Past. This is what it says.

History is loaded with creative analogies. Napoleon marching on Moscow is really just project management. Mao waging a guerrilla war is like launching an ad campaign. What ideas from history can you apply to a current project?

The past is gone. We can't get it back. Nor should we want to. But history can give us some valuable questions to help us understand the present.

For example, I recently spent several weeks reading about the Peloponnesian War which took place nearly 25 centuries ago. I found this to be a quite useful prism to view current events, e.g., politics, ethics, and distant wars.

Pick a culture from the past. How would someone from that time deal with your issue?

How about from your own personal history? What were you doing in each of these times that might be useful to you now: ten years ago ... last week ... when you were a sophomore in high school ... exactly twelve months ago ... when you were two ... last spring ... the year you had your greatest athletic achievement ... the year you had your first big love ... the happiest day of your life ... the year you learned that life wasn't all fun and games.

What ideas from history can you apply to a current project?

Comments

[Valeria Maltoni]

I always enjoy the creative whack pack card posts. Lately I have been so focused on the moment that I have not really had any sense of time -- except for when it's gone. So maybe time is the thought.

Before we turn 18 (16 here for driver's license?), time is incredibly s l o w. Then we can't wait to be 21 (here, I was happy at 18 :). That, too, is rather long to wait for. Then we turn around and we are in mid-career. How did we get there? Looking back, we can see the dots we connected.

Thank you, Roger. I needed this!

[Roger von Oech]

Valeria: 21 wasn't so long ago for you, no?

[Valeria Maltoni]

You are good, Roger. Thank you!

[Randy]

I'm involved in determining how to have a new Renaissance in the physical reality of our cities and towns. Pre- and post-Renaissance, leaders of purpose had new avenues, plazas, gates, city additions and major buildings designed and built to solve infrastructure problems including transportation while bringing new life to areas of their cities. Examples include Sixtus V in Rome (great streets), Baron von Hausmann in Paris (unfortunately to clear slums for clear fields of cannon fire), the leaders of Urbino, Parma, Verona, St. Petersburg, Washington DC planning. Unfortunately, it took "raw land" and power/money and/or (benevolent in some cases) autocratic leadership to get it done. Big problem!! City wide democratic solutions haven't been possible, so small scale interventions that set the stage for future "visionaries" to build on the foundations are the key, as in Florence, Italy with its Renaissance.

[Jay, writer MemberSpeed.com]

I actually have my own Creative Whack Pack. A living, breathing version in the form of my girlfriend. Anyway, making historical analogies is always fun. I love history and I sometimes tend to apply political situations in decisions I make in life. It would be pretty interesting to trace the campaign of the future President of the United States, too, actually. I bet that's just loaded with lessons.