Where Work Connects: Explain the Relationship Between Tasks and Goals

Read the campaign story

Asana announced Where Work Connects on 21 May 2024. Its brand post, signed by CMO Shannon Duffy, describes a campaign linking teams, projects and organisational purpose, with AI included in the stated vision. It also points readers toward a forthcoming Work Innovation Summit. The announcement establishes the campaign’s language and intention, not independently measured improvements in collaboration or productivity.

The opened announcement does not identify an external agency, so none is invented. Its expansive descriptions are treated as positioning rather than guaranteed software outcomes or a current feature specification. This case concerns the platform as one family, not separate cases for each department or goal named in the messaging. It does not endorse claims that technology can remove every organisational boundary or eliminate low-value work.

Editorial interpretation: the word connects directs attention toward relationships that can be hard to see in a list of tasks. A person may know what they are doing without understanding how it supports a larger objective or depends on another team. A campaign can make that missing relationship the problem to solve. The creative challenge is to show a concrete connection, because repeating broad terms such as people, projects and purpose does not itself explain one.

Editorial interpretation: a cross-functional platform has to speak to several roles without collapsing their needs into a single generic promise. A marketer, operations manager and technology team may care about different consequences of coordination. The communication can retain one organising idea while showing each role a relevant example. That flexibility needs a factual boundary: an attractive story about alignment must not imply that priorities, authority or disagreement disappear when work enters a shared system.

Draw the relationship the audience currently misses

Select one ordinary task and trace its connection to an agreed objective, a dependency and a responsible owner. Use a fictional example if real work contains confidential information. The explanation should reveal a meaningful relationship rather than decorate a task list with arrows. Ask whether a reader can explain why the task matters and what would need to change if the objective changed.

Make each role’s contribution specific

Develop examples with the people who understand the work rather than assigning benefits from a central slogan. A useful operations story may concern a handoff, while a marketing story may concern an approval dependency. Keep the shared structure consistent but let the practical question differ. Review whether the communication respects existing expertise and makes clear which decisions remain with people rather than the platform.

Keep AI ambition separate from demonstrated workflow

If a campaign includes AI, show what is being assisted and which assumptions, checks and limits apply. Do not imply that adding an automated component guarantees better priorities or removes the need for review. A historical brand statement is not a current capabilities document. Before adapting it into a product demonstration, verify the actual available behaviour and evaluate the explanation separately from the system’s performance on a defined task.

A small test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: a fictional community arts organisation could compare two explanations of its event-planning service. One lists activities; the other shows how a single programme goal connects a schedule, a publicity task and a room-booking dependency. Use the same factual content and a simple diagram, with no live system integrations or actual staff-performance records.

Measure whether readers can explain the objective, identify the dependency and say who should resolve a change. Assess perceived usefulness separately from claims about time saved, revenue or organisational effectiveness. Ask which parts of coordination still require a conversation.

Stop if the diagram implies automatic agreement, hides decision responsibility or encourages uploading confidential work merely to make the demonstration feel realistic.

• Define one clear objective and three realistic tasks with named fictional roles.
• Show a dependency that changes what someone does, not merely a decorative connecting line.
• Include a plain-text explanation and an explicit final decision owner.