SmartDraw For Dummies: Conversation with Daniel Hoffman

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As Vice President of Marketing at SmartDraw, Daniel Hoffman is responsible for the continuous improvement of both the Internet and product customer experience, and for growing the installed base through online and offline marketing efforts. At Microsoft, Mr. Hoffman was a key member of the Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office teams, and is a graduate of Stanford University. In this conversation Daniel discusses his book: SmartDraw For Dummies.

Geetesh: Tell us more about your book, SmartDraw For Dummies.

Daniel: SmartDraw for Dummies was written originally to provide new and potential users of SmartDraw with a solid how-to understanding of the product. It became clear through the process, however, that many people need to learn as much about how and when to use the proper visual to improve their communication skills, as they do “how-to” instructions for creating a specific visual. SmartDraw is an amazingly easy-to-use product for many people, but its breadth and power need to be explored further in some cases. This is why traditional graphics software has had such great difficulty becoming standardized in businesses – it is much too difficult to use for untrained users, and businesspeople have very little understanding why they should take the time to learn in the first place. They just don’t see the benefit for their most common forms of communication (written documents, presentations, email).

Geetesh: Who is this book addressed to, and how can it help them?

Daniel: SmartDraw for Dummies is a book for any business user who wants to improve their communication by using visuals – which we know can be up to 6 times more effective than written text alone. The book can help someone get started very quickly in creating visuals with SmartDraw, or it can also help someone who is already familiar with the product learn about all of the 70 different visuals that they can create, and when and how to apply them to solve real business communication issues.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.