What's your craft?

I wrote yesterday about how beautiful the new Path was. Behind that statement, though, is the belief that the people working on the application have honed their craft to such a point that what they are producing vergers on being art. I’d like to offer that up for discussion today, with a beautiful clip from the Made By Hand series being produced at the moment.

I love that in the video above, Joel walks us through the progression of how his craft came about. He talks about familiar ideas, like the need to invest 10,000 hours or more to get to the point where maybe, just maybe what you do could become art. Xavier Shay and Col Duthie have both written great blog posts I often reflect upon where they discuss what drives them in the pursuit of their crafts. My favorite passage from Col’s post is this one:

“There is something that moves deep inside when I come to the end of a complex or challenging facilitation assignment and have delivered over and above. I love the look in people’s eyes when they reflect back on what we have accomplished. Inside I say to myself, “It’s what I do.”

I recommend reading Col’s post, Nice Work and Xaviers “Quitting A Six Figure Job: One Year Later” to get the full stories.

In my world, even though I’m very rarely making things by hand I’m constantly trying to understand what my craft may be. What am I, or have I, spent 10,000 hours working towards perfecting in my life and what do I want to continue investing my time in? It’s not clear to me yet, but I believe I have a great skill in helping groups come together to solve new problems they’re facing in their organisations. It’s a theme I’m going to continue to invest in and see what comes.