SMARTDRAW IN TRAINING:

Purple Heart Service Foundation

The Purple Heart Service Foundation (PHSF) is the charitable wing of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, the only congressionally chartered veterans organization in the country dedicated exclusively to America's Combat-Wounded Veterans. After research indicated that thousands of combat-wounded and disabled veterans were ready and able to work, the PHSF created the Veteran's Business Training Center (VBTC) to specifically address their employment needs and meet the employment demands of the 21st Century.

The VBTC provides online job training and placement services to disabled and combat-wounded veterans by using the Internet and web-based technology. In setting up the training center, the PHSF was challenged with finding a new career for these veterans that would allow them to make a good living while working from home. After researching a number of different fields, the Foundation discovered that many call centers were hiring at-home agents. Based on this finding, the PHSF decided to develop an intensive training program, focused on graduating highly-skilled, at-home call-center agents.

Ken Smith is architect of the VBTC, and serves as program director. Because the agent training program is remotely conducted across continents, he needed a software tool that was easy-to-use, could visually illustrate his training methodology, was compatible with Microsoft Office^®, and could overcome language barriers. After laboring in Microsoft WORD^®, he found SmartDraw in an Internet search, and hasn't looked back.

"If you run an organization and don't have SmartDraw, as far as I'm concerned, you're wasting your time," proclaims Ken. "SmartDraw has made things so much easier to articulate from a training perspective. It clearly illustrates things like 'here's how it works, here's where we want to go, and here is step 1 in getting us there. From a training perspective, SmartDraw is hands-down the best."

Ken uses SmartDraw for a variety of functions, but most of the time, he finds himself using the flowchart and mind map SmartTemplates^TM. "Obviously with training I'm going to use a lot of flowcharts, but I also use mind maps to articulate a thought. It's important to document my thought process to bring it downstream to my instructors so they understand where I'm coming-from. I also use the organizational chart SmartTemplate to communicate our chain of command. You don't need training, and if I ever do get stuck, SmartHelp^TM is there to assist."

Most recently Ken had to document how to move from Microsoft Office^® 2003 to Microsoft Office^® 2007 on an organization-wide basis. "I needed to create a series of diagrams and flowcharts documenting how to move from one software platform onto the next on a step-by-step basis. In addition, I needed to develop a Gantt chart to manage the upgrade, and show end-users how to acclimate from an XP environment to Vista^® and Microsoft Office^® 2007. Keep in mind I'm simultaneously and remotely training 125 combat and wounded disabled veterans all over the world. Once again, SmartDraw made the project a breeze, enabling me to easily create a professional training guide, that boiled down a lot of information in to a clean series of graphics everyone can understand."

To learn more about SmartDraw, please visit www.smartdraw.com.