Hi, I’m Susan Dials.

In this role I develop and deploy emails, events, and drip campaigns inside of a CRM of over 25,000 people. I use a content management system to create HTML emails and newsletters to regularly share information.

One of my strongest skills in my current role is the ability to take information that may be complex and communicating it on the student’s level so they can understand. In working with our AI chatbot, I manage the knowledge base to help the bot learn, but I also provide an empathetic and relatable human-centered aspect by designing conversations around wellbeing, belonging, fun on campus, and navigating challenges to foster a trusting environment that provides support.

In developing a communication strategy, I need to help applicants follow the steps necessary to become a student. I write content, design print/digital materials, and collaborate with departments and third-party vendors to increase enrollment. We’re focused on meeting the needs of the student by using data to actively listen to everything from social media and student questions in-person to surveys and enrollment data. By identifying touchpoint gaps we can support their journey from prospective student through alumni.

I am the product owner of a tool that helps with our university-wide college to career initiative. It is a widget that is put on pages throughout our website to help students identify different career goals. It has different features that we can adjust based on the students needs or the department needs. Overall, it helps give our students more confidence in their career goals and what they’re going to do with their degree.

I managed the @VisitWayneState Instagram account up until 2022 where I worked with a team to create a variety of visual content and conducted A/B tests to improve performance.

I am currently working on mapping the applicant user journey through our website to identify roadblocks.

" Trying to navigate how to keep hybrid work teams engaged is stressful. But do you know what the opposite of stress is? It’s kindness. 

Enter Kindness at Work.  

With the help of my team, I’ve conducted 72 customer interviews in the last 6 weeks.

When I came to start studio, my original hypothesis was that College students want to connect and express kindness in an AR/VR digital world.  Using the Lean Canvas, I was planning to build "Pokemon Go for Kindness" to create an interactive digital experience of spreading kindness in communities.

My customer research lead me down a different path and what I  discovered was that companies are looking for ways to impact the communities they are a part of,  but need flexible programming to engage their hybrid workforce. 

This means my customer is actually the HR professionals in need of support in this space.

Kindness at Work seeks to provide a way for employees to engage in kind acts within the community no matter where they are or how they work.

This will reduce stress, improve retention and create stronger, engaged teams.

When I’m designing and innovating, work doesn’t feel like work.

Through starting my career path as a page designer for a newspaper, I learned some creative ways to fit a lot of content in a little space with Tetris-style ads taking over. I learned to design quickly - each day was something new, starting with an editor meeting where I would hear the top stories and sketch a layout of the front page. I would relay the design priorities to the pagination team and we would get to work until the designers were finalized and sent to the printer each night. It was really fun to work in a group bouncing ideas off each other, learning tips and tricks, and pushing toward a common goal. Sometimes we were up against the deadline and it got stressful, but I found my leadership worked best when staying calm and focused. Some of my favorite memories designing the front page of the newspaper were bringing my sketches to life, making engaging centerpieces and the excitement of creating two designs while waiting on election results or big sporting events!

I led the design of our special sections as well, which allowed me to really get creative. We had editorial content around a specific topic that would get laid out more like a magazine and inserted into the newspaper. The best special section I designed was called Michigan Travel, which won 1st place from the Society of Professional Journalists.

From this experience, I initiated the idea of creating digital publication app for our special sections. I wasn’t an app designer. I had never done this before, but I was confident I could learn.  We had a e-pub, but it was clunky, didn’t engage readers, and it didn’t translate well to the iPad or e-readers, which was where most readers were reading e-book and other digital material at the time. Just trust me the iPad was a big deal. Anyway, with the success of the Michigan Travel print product, we decided that would be a great place to start designing a digital publication. My goal was to transform the print piece into a functioning app (Wired Magazine and RedBull were big into these digital publications at the time).

I was sent to a weekend training in Chicago and from there I taught myself how to use Adobe Digital Publishing Suite (RIP). I redesigned all my InDesign pages in an interactive format for the iPad and got a working prototype ready after about a year (mind you I was doing this in a few hours a week outside of my other duties). Unfortunately, leadership changes occurred and the application was never published to the App Store. I still loved every second of pushing myself to learn something new and I was proud of what I created.

At the pinnacle of my time with the company, I lead the state-wide redesign as the project manager which included collaborating with stakeholders around the country from our parent company, creating an entire asset library in adobe, implementing new page templates, training staff on a new remote CMS and design guidelines, all while not missing a single deadline!

I loved trying to find ways to intrigue the reader and make the story jump off the page. However, during the redesign, I also learned the value of structure, white space and simplicity.

Using a project management guide to create a community event that has grown into a nonprofit organization, I have surprised myself with what I am capable of. I have utilized my experience in research, design, event management, and communications to wear many hats to support the goal of spreading kindness in local communities.

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