Alumni Brad Sanzenbacher ’07 was unaware of how much his experience at Stevenson would help to further establish his career.  “That feeling vanished one day when I realized that what marketers and public relations professionals really value these days is storytelling,” Sanzenbacher said.

The idea of  ‘show and tell advertising’ is rarely seen anymore, said Sanzenbacher. Instead, marketers use emotional experiences such as compelling stories in order for customers to connect with brands and products.

After Sanzenbacher realized this, he began to understand that the creative education he received at Stevenson could help him every day in his career. At Stevenson, he majored in film, video and theatre, while also studying creative writing. Sanzenbacher is currently the program manager for Wrike, an online free collaboration product aimed at making group work for students easier than ever.

According to Wrike.com, it is a work management and collaboration platform used by thousands of organizations around the world. Wrike has also been translated into 10 languages and is sold in 120 countries.  In addition, Wrike has received several awards since it was founded in 2007.

WRIKE OFFERS ADVICE FOR GROUP WORK

When Sanzenbacher started working for Wrike almost four years ago, he said that the company had already had a great collaboration software for business. Soon after he started using Wrike, Sanzenbacher thought back to some of the struggles he had working on group projects while at Stevenson. He said that he remembers that coordinating the team was usually more difficult than finishing the work itself.

All of these difficulties inspired Sanzenbacher to approach the CEO of Wrike, Andrew Filev, about making the software available for free to college students. Filev gave the idea the thumbs up, and a few months after going live, Wrike had students from over 150 universities using the program.

According to Sanzenbacher, Wrike’s two biggest benefits for students are the ability to assign tasks to group members and the application’s mobility. Users can also send reminders to others in the group regarding various tasks.

Once a task is finished, users can mark it as completed, allowing all group members to track the team’s progress. In addition to the online platform, Wrike also has a mobile application that allows users to view their tasks from their phone, and write comments, as well as reply to each other.

Sanzenbacher continues to be enthusiastic about the possibilities Wrike offers college students, once they learn how well it can work.