Canva is a superpower

Recently a friend sent a small video he had created with the caption, "I cant believe I created this". I opened the video and it was a nice video with text, images and a simple background score. He had created a small clipping of the Bhagavad Gita. And he wanted someone to create the video - but he created it on Canva and was thoroughly pleased with the effort.

This is why Canva is so loved. It makes you feel that you can design your folder, brochure, ppt, video - you name it. The free version is so generous - it is possibly the most generous app - and it makes you feel that design is accessible, affordable and captures your unique voice.

Ideally if you are building something, you want the users to feel the way they feel after they use Canva. That satisfying feeling when a painter takes two steps back from the canvas, admires her work and says "I did that".

Canva makes users feel they are designers. They can do it. It is easy. It is unique. And of course, it captures their voice the way they want it.

PS: Nothing that most of you dont know - but to see it in action with someone who would never done something like this actually create something and feel proud was something...

Comments

The man who saved Pumpelsdrop

This was a story we had in college if I am not mistaken. Perhaps it was in school, but a delightful story it was. The story goes somewhat like this ( reproduced from here ), but the college version we had was slightly different from this. I t was a dull, gloomy and a depressing morning in a town named Pumpelsdrop in northern England. The Great Depression had brought all the businesses to a standstill. The bored automobile dealer was spending time alone, as usual. But, this seems to be an unusual morning as an odd entity (customer) appeared on the horizon. A man in a bright suit walks up to the dealer and says, "I need to buy a Rolls Royce Phantom II. We have a business conference coming up and I need to impress my customers". Then proceeds to pay 10% of the deal with a single check for 2000 pounds. The rest he says will pay when he takes the delivery. The auto dealer was stunned. He was delighted to hear that someone is holding a business conference of some kind and ...

Zero to One

Zero to One by Peter Thiel is a nice read. (Yes - if I sit down to write a book review - the book has to be worth it - and usually good - so most of my book reviews are about good books.You can stop here if that's the information you seek.) Where this book scores is in contrarian thoughts and contrarian questions that make you think. It starts with a four big lessons learned from the 90s dot-com crash that is, Make incremental advances, Stay lean and flexible, Improve on the competition and Focus on product, not sales. Just as you warm up to it, he says, the opposite rules are more correct - which are: It is better to risk boldness than triviality. A bad plan is better than no plan. Competitive markets destroy profits. Sales matters just as much as products. And finally leaves with a simple definition of contrarianism - it is not to oppose the crowd (or follow a smaller or newer or older crowd) but to think for yourself. "All happy companies are different"...

Playing to win

This bright green book with a yellow title has always caught my attention, but I had never read it. Imagine my surprise that when I finally picked it up as part of a preparation for a workshop that it was such a fantastic book. Playing to win by Alan Lafley and Roger Martin is one of those books that is up there when it comes to learning about how strategy can be crafted and implemented in real business. There is much in the book - and unlike other books - this book is really a leaf out of P&G, but with frameworks and models that can be applied anywhere. Image from here . It is these 5 questions played in a loop (well, iteratively) that are the juiciest part of the book and as simple and obvious as they are, it is this place where the strategy play happens. So, yes, simply put a great book to be read by anyone who is anywhere close to strategy...

Serendipity and Learning

Search This Blog