TThe next time you’re sitting in a company-wide meeting and listening to leaders talk endlessly about updates and product launches (and hoping they don’t announce any layoffs or budget cuts), remember that at least they’re not rapping.
That’s exactly what happened at the Canva Create summit in Los Angeles last week. Canva is a graphic design company known for helping non-designers create flyers good enough to advertise yard sales and middle school talent shows. In Los Angeles, Melanie Perkins, co-founder of a $40 billion Australian brand, talked According to Variety, she spoke to attendees about “building brands, maintaining a strong company culture and scaling the business.” (Something she knows well: Disney CEO Bob Iger, who spoke at the summit, is an investor and board member of the platform.)
After the usual discussion and debate, the team decided to put on a show: two presenters and a band of backup breakdancers, all of whom were no doubt regretting their lives at that moment, would perform a “rap battle” in which tech companies would explain updates they had made to their design apps.
Sample bars included, “You can redesign your own work / Canva shines / We redesign everything / from start to finish,” and on the topic of AI being known for stealing art from actual human workers, one performer said, “We won’t train your work without your permission / If that’s what you want, safe and secure.”
As many online commentators have said: It pointed out,stupid, Hamilton-style narrative Typical shudder.
“Call 911. He’s having a severe overdose,” said Finn McEntee, a YouTube and Twitch streamer also known as Punk Rock MBA. I have written “There’s no project more important than spending a long weekend watching Kamba the Musical,” says comedian Katrina Davis. Added.
Canva aims to empower users to effortlessly create beautiful graphics, the words no one uses to describe song and dance.
Canva’s bankruptcy came shortly after Apple released its infamous ad for the iPad Pro, which depicted a series of objects — including a piano, books, and busts of classical music — being crushed in a mechanical press. The brand wanted to show how the latest iPad compressed the world’s creativity into a single device, but many people took it as a metaphor for technology’s potential to destroy culture as we know it. (Apple later apologized for the ad.)
It wasn’t always this way. Every now and then, a video will go viral of the Windows 95 launch party, showing Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer dancing awkwardly and excitedly to the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” in Papa Dockers and polo shirts. It’s corny, but it’s also endearing because it doesn’t seem as try-hard as Canva’s big-budget musical revues.
Let’s be honest, pulling off a fun corporate event is tough. Being locked in an auditorium with coworkers and industry peers after hours isn’t really fun for anyone. “The problem is, while event planners want to be innovative and modern while still being relevant to their brand and industry, that doesn’t always work out,” says Rich Ribner, president of MCP Talent, a company that plans corporate and private events. “Most of the time, events aren’t modern and they’re overly branded and overly covered up. It comes across as cluttered and inauthentic.”
Gianna Cardinale Gaudini, a former Google event planner and author of The Art of Event Planning, added: “Humans are intuitive, emotional beings who can tell what’s authentic and what’s not. There’s a fine line between tapping into nostalgia or tongue-in-cheek humor and falling flat, and brands can suffer greatly if they miss the mark.”
Gary Feller is a magician and mentalist who performs at these events. Recently, a client texted him a script for what to say at the beginning of the show: “Welcome! [REDACTED] Dear team members! Today is a day to celebrate you. [REDACTED]YOU MATTER! We hope you enjoy this special session. [REDACTED] Team members, let’s get started.”
“We tried really hard to convince participants that this opening message conveyed the exact opposite of ‘You matter,'” says Feller. “Participants knew where they worked and didn’t need to hear the company name three times in three sentences.”
But the higher-ups won out, and Ferrer had to deliver the line “as honestly as possible.”
Ultimately, neither tech companies nor Silicon Valley giants have figured out how to meaningfully communicate with us regular people. In recent years, Mark Zuckerberg has traded in his nerdy hoodies and jeans for designer clothes from the likes of Alexander McQueen and Rahul Mishra, and is probably sporting a very visible chain necklace. To convey a refreshing atmosphere.
So did Jeff Bezos, whose newfound interest in fashion sparked a friendship with Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour (both of whom I got it. Union They’re the Bastards, so they probably have a lot to talk about.
Despite both being rich, they both struggle to look good, and in fact, they dress as if an algorithm is telling them to dress.
Source: www.theguardian.com
