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Human interconnectedness

On Friday we had our quarterly “season opener” at Canva. It’s a day when the whole company gets together and talks about what they achieved in the past 3 months and what they hope to achieve for the next 3 months. It’s also a moment when we can pause and think about the bigger picture of what the company is trying to do and align us all to that vision.

Alongside our team and company goals, we’ve also recently taken to having a cultural goal for the season. It focuses on one of our values and asks what we can do – as individuals, teams, and a company – to support it in an extra special way throughout the season. This season’s goal was focused on our value of “be a force for good” and we asked each of our teams (all 50 of them!) to set a goal that helped them be a force for good this season.

Looking through the ambitious goals they came up with, an underlying theme that emerged was connection. Connecting teams together strongly, connecting our office with the community around us, and connecting us with the people in the world who most need help. It made me think about the important role that connections have played in my life, and the opportunities and richness that they have brought to me personally. One of those connections helped us celebrate on Friday, in a prime example of the interconnectedness of all things.

I first met Mr. Percival when I was helping out with some visualisations for Ignite Sydney. He made awesome music by just sampling his own voice, and I made slightly less awesome visual stuff that piqued his interest. We’ve never quite managed to pull off a collaboration (fingers still crossed!) but whenever Darren’s comet has passed in my vicinity it’s always been an invigorating, heartwarming, and creative whirlwind.

We had a breakfast catchup last Sunday and as I was describing what we were doing this week with our season opener, his immediate reply was “would you like me to sing?” His response was perfect Percival – selfless, enthusiastic, and wholly focused on exploring a creative moment. How could I pass it up?

His session at our opener was one of the highlights for me – kicking off our afternoon of being-a-force-for-good with a catchy singalong woven out of that theme. Everyone got onto their feet, sung along, and truly took the message to heart. It was the perfect way to open our minds to what crazy goals we could set for ourselves that afternoon.

These moments – these collisions of peoples’ skills and passions – are almost unmakeable. You couldn’t create them in a laboratory; they are the randomness of the universe. But the more you connect, the greater the chance you get to experience them.

Last Friday I was reminded of that. And of how happy those moments make me. And I resolved to double my efforts to be interconnected.

Cameron Adams Cameron Adams is a co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Canva, where he leads the design & product teams and focuses on future product directions & innovative experiences. Read a bit more about him ›