The SmartDraw Blog

The Secret to Saving 80% on Training Costs

SarahM — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:35:00 GMT

Training a new employee is one of the biggest costs of doing business. Often, it’s intangible; hidden from view on your profit and loss statement. A new hire needs to learn – as quickly as possible – how to do the job correctly.

Industry experts estimate that the cost of the productivity that is lost as a new employee comes up to speed is 33% of their annual salary! That’s four months of wasted time.

Not to mention on-the-job-training mistakes that can cost you money and really eat into your profit margin.

Why does it take so long to break in a new employee?

Simple: We don’t give them the information they need in an easily accessible manner.

Three Simple Steps to Faster OnBoarding

Companies have reduced the time it takes to train a new employee by up to 80% with these three simple steps.

1. Make a list of all of the tasks that the new hire must perform as part of the job.

A hub-and-spoke diagram is the most effective way to show this. It allows both the trainer and trainee to see, at a glance, what tasks need to be done.

This visual should also include internal systems that an employee must learn, like the timecard system, the email system and the phone system.

2. For each regular task, carefully document the steps that must be performed.

The easiest way to record these steps is a flowchart, rather than a text document. A flowchart more easily shows the different steps that occur as the result of a decision.

3. Create a simple access system to this information using a hub-and-spoke diagram.

A hub is a place where you can group large amounts of information electronically. Link the task documentation to each shape in the hub and link to useful documents. The manuals for the phone, copiers and other internal systems are examples of this, as shown in the graphic below.

The hub becomes an on-boarding reference for a new employee, providing easy access to all the information they need. Once in place, it is available as a permanent reference. Cross-training another employee to do the job, or replacing this employee in the future, will be much easier. All your new hire has to do is open the hub then point, click and learn. It really is that easy!

The Best Tools for the Job

You could use a word processing document with links to other documents to build a hub, but it’s far easier to use a tool designed specifically for this purpose. SmartDraw is that tool.

SmartDraw is designed to help you build interactive hub-and-spoke diagrams (mind maps). It lets you link them together effortlessly. You don’t need to waste time creating and formatting your visuals – SmartDraw does it all automatically. Want to export them to a Word® document or PowerPoint® presentation? With SmartDraw, you can do it in a single click! Download a free trial of SmartDraw today!

How to Easily Create Charts that are ‘Off the Chart’

SarahM — Wed, 16 May 2012 02:14:00 GMT

Successful business people know that to communicate effectively, you need visuals. Studies have shown that communicating with visuals is up to six times more effective than using words alone.

But if you’ve struggled to come up with effective presentation visuals using Excel^®charts, you aren’t alone.

Excel offers several types of charts and graphs with some customization features. The problem is, unless you’re a “power” Excel user, their charts can be difficult and frustrating to use.

Even if you are a wizard with Excel charts, there is only so much you can do with them. Excel is an excellent spreadsheet program but as far as visual presentation, well, let’s just say it’s an excellent spreadsheet program.

Charts that are Quick, Easy, and Intuitive

SmartDraw, on the other hand, is designed for creating great visuals. It does most of the work for you, automatically. Unlike Excel, which requires the average person to spend a lot of time hunting through tool bars, drop down menus, and so forth, SmartDraw offers options that are easy and intuitive. Most of your work can be done directly on the chart itself.

Let’s look at a very simple Excel data table and use it to create a basic line chart using both Excel and SmartDraw.

In Excel, we have to click the graphs tab from our spreadsheet, which opens a default graph on the screen. After serveral clicks, and probably a few searches on the “Help” tab, we have defined data from the table above, our Excel chart looks like this:

This chart is a mess and, frankly, the task of completing it can be daunting if you aren’t experienced using the charting features in Excel. Clearly, there’s going to be a lot of work needed to clean this up and make it presentable.

Okay, let’s bring in the same Excel data table using SmartDraw. We begin by selecting a line chart template and clicking on the “Import from Excel” button on the SmartPanel. SmartDraw asks us to select the data we want to use from our table. Next, we click on one of the standard chart formats and SmartDraw gives us this as a starting point:

What a difference! This chart is almost presentation ready right now. In fact, you can click on the data labels, type in the title and information you want, and have a very basic chart that’s ready to go in seconds.

Now let’s go back over to the clean-up job on our Excel chart. After several more points, clicks and a considerable amount of jumping between toolbars, we have a chart that looks like this:

One of the first things you’ll notice about the above chart is that the X-axis labels lie below the “zero” line on the vertical axis. Because we have some negative numbers, those labels run right through the data on the chart. This is the default setting in Excel, and while it can be corrected, the fix isn’t at all intuitive. (In fact, if you haven’t done it before, you’ll probably need to do a web search to find the answer, which is what we had to do – and, well… good luck with that!) If your data include negative numbers, this can be a frustrating situation. Chances are you’ve probably seen a PowerPoint^® presentation with a chart that looked like this ugly thing.

Let’s go back to our SmartDraw chart. Unlike Excel, SmartDraw actually lets us point, click and edit virtually any of our changes right on the chart.

With a few clicks, you can see that we’ve added a title, some labels and a splash of color to our SmartDraw chart below. This chart was actually created in less time than the Excel chart above. Which of these two charts would you rather use at your meeting or presentation?

You could certainly stop at this point and have a very nice-looking chart to present. But let’s go just a bit further and add a picture to the background to really give this visual some pizzazz. There’s really no reason to just inform our audience when we can also entertain and impress them, as well.

In just a couple of minutes, you can make your SmartDraw chart look like this. Compare this chart to the ones you’re used to seeing in meetings and presentations. This is just one example, created easily, with no training or special skills using SmartDraw.

Because SmartDraw is a visual processor, it allows you to take your charts into new and exciting dimensions that just aren’t available to you in Excel. But because SmartDraw works seamlessly with the entire suite of Office^® products, you can use your SmartDraw charts in Word^® documents or PowerPoint presentations with a single click.

Get Started Now

Why use ordinary charts when SmartDraw visuals can be created quickly, easily, and are proven to be more effective? Impress your boss and your audience! Discover for yourself the powerful benefits of SmartDraw by downloading a trial.

Are your Visuals often Lost in Translation?

SarahM — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:07:00 GMT

"What Does That Mean?"

Those are the last words you want to hear from your audience! Have you heard the phrase "Bite the wax tadpole"? Are you just as confused as we are?

When the Coca-Cola Company was first introducing its product in China in 1928, it was searching from among the 40,000 Chinese characters (from which about 200 would make the sound, “ko-ka-ko-la”) without creating a nonsensical or adverse meaning. While the company was searching for the right character set, Chinese shopkeepers impatiently made their own signs without regard to meaning. Translation problems occurred. For example, in many dialects, one symbol for “la” means “wax.” As a result, signs were made that, when pronounced, created nonsensical meanings, such as “female horse fastened with wax,” “wax-flattened mare,” or “bite the wax tadpole.”

(Just for fun: we’ve uncovered some other humorous translation errors that you’ll find toward the end of this blog post.)

Visual Grammar Bridges the Language Barrier

Today, the rapid growth of visual communication in business can create a similar problem faced by Coca-Cola in China. Visual communication, just like the written or spoken word, can easily be misunderstood if not communicated properly.

Until now, there has been a lack of common rules – a language, if you will – for communicating with visuals. What the creator of the visual wants to convey is not always easily understood by those receiving it. This reduces the effectiveness of the visual for widespread communication.

To solve this communication problem, SmartDraw developed Visual Grammar—a set of simple rules that ensures effective visual communication. Just as a word processor automatically applies proper formatting to text documents, SmartDraw automatically applies Visual Grammar rules to every visual. As a result, the visual language barrier is bridged.

Visuals are consistently formatted, no matter who creates them.
Attention is focused on the message – not the formatting.
Productivity improves because the potential for miscommunication is reduced.

Look at the flowchart below. The logic flows from the left to right, from top to bottom, and from bottom to top. The shapes used for each step are random. Instructions are virtually incomprehensible. Do you want to attempt to figure this out? Do you suppose the author’s audience even tried?

Basics of Visual Grammar

Visual Grammar is based on two simple rules:

The Consistency Rule
The One-Page Rule

The Consistency Rule

The appearance of equivalent shapes, lines and text in a visual should be consistent (i.e. the same).

For example, our flowchart uses the same color, font and size for each shape. Only the start and end shapes have a different outline to indicate their status as starting and ending points.

Gratuitous use of different colors, sizes, spacing, shapes and fonts only distract the reader, just as they do in text. By eliminating this distraction, the reader can concentrate on the content of the visual.

The One-Page Rule

The visual must fit on one page and the text must remain readable. If the visual is intended to be viewed on screen, consider the “page” to be the area of the screen that is visible without having to scroll.

This rule is common sense, but it is also the most often violated. What happens when there is too much information to fit on one page? The answer is to create a hierarchy of multiple linked visuals, each of which does fit on one page.

These are Funny – If They Don’t Happen to You!

Good visual communication means not letting your message get lost in translation. As promised, below are some translated messages that didn’t quite hit the mark.

Athens hotel - Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11am daily.
Leipzig elevator - Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up.
Tokyo hotel - It is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such a thing is please not read this notice.
Bangkok dry cleaners - Drop your trousers here for best results.
Sarajevo hotel - The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.
Hong Kong tailor shop - Ladies may have a fit upstairs.
Moscow hotel - You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists and writers are buried daily except Thursday.
Swiss menu - Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.
Hong Kong advertisement - Teeth extracted by the latest methodists.
Copenhagen airline - We take your bags and send them in all directions.
Acapulco hotel - The manager has personally passed all the water served here.

Have you suffered from or witnessed a case where yours or someone else's message was lost in translation? Tell us about it in the comments below!