This is relevant to the advice column, because I would like to know how others deal with this. Further, I would particularly like to hear from Ann Arbor area performing artists and people in the business community about their thoughts. It is pertinent, because of the ongoing discussion we are having in Michigan about the loss of young people, and thus talent, and even genius from our state. (for information on this issue go to the website of Michigan Future, Inc: www.michiganfuture.org).

So, anyway, this brings me to "A Disappearing Number." Not as in the numbers of young people disappearing from Michigan, but instead to the performance of a play by the theatre group, Complicite at the University of Michigan Power Center a few weeks ago. I have been thinking about it on and off ever since. The play is a multimedia delight, which while too frenetic and ambitious in the use of music and video for me, offered some pretty amazing ethics challenges.

The storyline swirls around the arrival of a letter just before WWI that Cambridge mathematician G.H. Hardy received from a young Indian, Srinivasa Ramanujan. Ramanujan, had sent several of his mathetical ideas and answers to difficult and unsolved mathetical problems for Hardy's review. Hardy realized that the young man had amazing talent and promise. And that he was potentially a genius, and for Hardy, a possible protege. He invited Ramanujan to come to work at Cambridge. The young man left his home, and traveled to England where he worked with Hardy, until soon before he died at the age of 33. Ramanujan's impact on mathematics has been profound.

I suppose that famous professors and teachers at our local universities and colleges today get such "letters" every now and again. The main difference is that they may be packaged in video as well as in other electronic forms. And business people, especially venture capitalists, get these appeals routinely, based on the 'finding talent' nature of their work.

And given that in the current workplace, self-branding is the norm and portfolios from out of the blue are routinely circulated to people in high and powerful places, the letter sent to G.H. Hardy would now be considered quaint.

So, here's the asking for advice part.

1. Are there codes of ethics that we should be applying to these kinds of approaches? So, for example, what if G.H. Hardy had been wrong about Ramanujan's talent? Would he have been sent back? Would he have languished and fallen through the cracks in England (as for example do some of the talented athletes who are wooed from African countries and promised positions on European soccer teams, only to end up unemployed and left on their own without family supports)?

2. At the same time, genius is relatively easy to spot. How about finding individuals who have alot or even a fair amount of promise? So, for example, how do theatre directors go about deciding this question? How do they determine who is 'right' for the part? What is right about it? Are there ethical standards that they follow here?

And how do venture capitalists decide what businesses are 'right?' Are there some similarities between the finding of acting talent and of new business talent?

Most of us are not geniuses, but all of us have promise and talents.

I guess, in the end, I am asking how do, and how should we get this promise noticed? Shouldn't there be more paths, beyond what has now become "a how outrageous can I be to get attention" cottage industry, to reach the few with power to take notice than there are now? And isn't the most unethical if we don't have ways to notice this promise?