Sharp but not narrow
CTMOMENT
I am, by vocation, two things: a prob- lem-solver and a communicator. Skidmore gave me the chance to de- velop these skills, and for that I’m forever grateful. I started as a Filene Music Scholar, an aspiring jazz musician, and the next short-story-writing wunderkind for The New Yorker. I still try to write tightly crafted narratives, and I still improvise on my feet
cope with globalization? No two problems are the same, and every single one of them has factual, legal, and/or financial constraints. Skidmore’s liberal arts education taught me how to begin when faced with such challenges. If there’s anything that connects an Igor Stravinsky to a Twyla Tharp to a Steve Jobs, it’s that they all
BY DAVID JOYAL ’97
noon). It never gets easy, and it never gets old. One adage about law school is that it sharpens minds by narrowing them, but also narrows minds by sharpening them. A creative liberal arts background helps to keep the narrowing at bay.
Liberal arts courses also taught me how to communicate creatively. It’s critically important to be in full command of the facts and technology of which you speak or write, whether before investors, a board of directors, or a jury. But narrative is very powerful too—being able to tell a simple, compelling story that resonates with your listener while still conveying enough de- tail. My law school writing professor de- scribed the process as akin to making a topographical map of Colorado look like Kansas. In other words, you’ve got to sim- plify a very complex terrain without los- ing context.
RESONANCES: DAVID JOYAL ’97, A BIO AND MUSIC MAJOR, IS NOW A PATENT LAWYER.
from time to time, but my artistic expres- sion these days is limited to noisy Satur- day-morning jam sessions with my three young sons and wife (Deb Layendecker Joyal ’97).
By the time I left Skidmore, I’d had the chance to pursue my intellectual passions as they developed (majoring in biology and music) and to meet and learn from some wonderfully tal- ented and creative people. Those people also taught me some-
TWICE A WEEK, WE WERE HIT
WITH A COMPLETELY ALIEN
SUBJECT AND ASKED TO
ABSORB, ANALYZE, AND SYNTHESIZE IT.
thing I never majored in: how to solve problems. In my everyday work life as a patent attorney with Green berg Traurig, I am called on to help clients deal with seemingly intractable problems. How do you write a patent application to describe something that’s never been done before, capturing where the technology will be in 10 years? How do you respond to an eco- nomic crisis that’s reshaping our profes- sion? How do you help business clients
understood how to get the most out of whatever materials they were given, using all of the information they had available. The secret to Stravinsky’s success wasn’t a fully formed natural vision; it was instead in the choices he made when endlessly re- viewing and revising his masterpieces, and in borrowing from other sources to make something new. Twyla Tharp’s
book The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life offers a
wonderful descrip-
tion of the plain hard work that goes into the creative process. Masterpieces don’t usually arise in final form; they are the re- sult of a thousand revisions and adapta- tions. So it is when advising legal clients. Solving intellectual-property and business dilemmas requires patient, thoughtful problem-solving, creatively tailored to each client, type of dispute, and even technology (aerospace metallurgy in the morning, cancer therapeutics in the after-
Liberal Studies I was a particularly great preparation for my current job. Twice a week, we were hit with a completely alien subject and asked to absorb, analyze, and synthesize it. Writing assignments and oral presentations over four years taught us all how to discuss multiple subject areas (for me, mostly science and music), become conversant in the vernacular of each field, and find, recognize, and navi- gate essential connections across disci- plines. I still see the value of this training every day—in learning a new technology, or in addressing audiences, from Chinese courts to investors to lay juries, that have very different communication needs. Telling a compelling story and making connections across disciplines are skills that will always be in demand. Seventeen years after dropping my creative writing major, I find my Skidmore education still helps me use those skills daily.
YOUR MESSAGE HERE
Got your own story of how Creative Thought Matters? Submit your
“CTMoment” to
srosenbe@skidmore.edu or to Scope c/o Skidmore College.
SPRING 2010 SCOPE 3
GEORGE TENNEY
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