SMARTDRAW IN EDUCATION:

Dean of Professional Studies Selects SmartDraw for Continuing Education

Melea Fields works as the Dean of the School of Professional Studies at Southern California University of Health Sciences. She is responsible for overseeing and managing the graduate continuing education programs, community education and certificate programs.

Melea was looking for easy software to create a floor plan for an event, but also needed to create brochures, as well as timelines, forms, and meeting agendas. She found SmartDraw on the Internet, and was amazed with its breadth of templates and the different types of materials she could create.

"SmartDraw is much easier to use than the alternatives," explained Melea. "Without it, I would have had to use some program like Word^®, Excel^®, or Publisher. SmartDraw was easy to navigate, it was very user-friendly, colorful, and turns out a meaningful product."

Melea quickly learned that SmartDraw automates the process of creating virtually any sort of business graphic, from flowcharts to project schedules, to flyers, forms and more. Unlike other programs that provide users with a blank screen and expect them to draw, with SmartDraw, users select from a template that is specifically designed to create the type of illustration they need. For example, SmartDraw contains hundreds of templates for org charts, marketing charts, mind maps, decision trees, and more.

"I'm very impressed with my results using SmartDraw," said Melea. "It saves me hours because I have all the templates ready, I just drop in text and graphics, and I'm good to go!"

SmartDraw allows users to select an appropriate template, and then enter in the relevant information. The software does the rest: building the graphic automatically using built-in rules and professional design themes to guarantee polished, presentation-quality results in just a few minutes. With SmartDraw, there's never a need to pay for an expensive graphic designer.

"SmartDraw has definitely saved me money," said Melea. "I don't have to hire a designer every time I need something created such as a brochure or flyer. Designer costs are roughly $1,000 and up per piece."

SmartDraw also features one-click export to popular document types such as PDF and PowerPoint^®, making it easy to share SmartDraw creations with others in presentations.

"My SmartDraw creations are easily understood by all, and enhance communication in a classroom lecture or presentation environment," said Melea.

Melea has been a faithful user of SmartDraw for more than one year, and recommends it to others every chance she gets.

"SmartDraw enables me to do my job to the best of my ability," said Melea. "I'm able to easily create forms, agendas, brochures and more, and use them in presentations, or for just personal reference."