Communication is art
The goal of art is twofold: to create something beautiful and tell a story. The artist aims to take their vision, unpack it, define it, and transmit it to the observer in as clear a form as possible.
Their clarity often takes the form of skill:
👨🎨 A classically trained painter creates photo-realistic images
👨💻 An adept software engineer executes his vision efficiently
👨🏫 A high school counselor helps a student see the value in their education
But life doesn’t reward pure skill :
📸 No one knows the photorealist. We know Picasso, Monet, Cézanne, Haring
🤷♂️ Without users, the most elaborately complex piece of software does little good
📚 Making a difference in one life is remarkable, but what about the rest of the school?
We reward vision, story, and creativity. Execution, while necessary, is secondary… What separates the great from the good is their ability to have a unique (and valuable) vision for the future, and then communicate it in a way that moves others to act.
Great art is communicating a vision to others, independent of the medium. That could be code, word, video, or whatever. The constant is that great artists ship. Which is to say, they communicate. Often.
The next time you evaluate your goals, try to frame your outputs as art and measure them on the effectiveness of communication of ideas.