Work Designed to be Shared

There's a difference between work designed to go viral and work designed to be shared.

Work designed to go viral is based on the lowest common denominator. It's often unsubstantial, even though the number of people who experience it may not be.

Work designed to be shared inspires us to tell our friends about it. Not because everyone will like it, but because we hope that those around us will be similarly impacted by it.

When we create something for others, we have a choice about who it's for and the impact we want it to have. It's easy to confuse audience size with impact because the latter is harder to measure.

But impact is more important than virality, if we choose.