About the artist behind Curiouser Designs
My name is Miriam, and I am a creative.
I've had a unique journey, but l have always found a way to do something challenging through a creative approach. Growing up owning my own business to help support my family, I continue to be passionate for small businesses and enjoy helping them thrive. My diverse background has earned me over 15 years experience in digital marketing, strategy, brand management, video production and graphic design. In the last decade, I have earned experience building solutions to aid processes through Microsoft 365 or other available tools.
After discovering my passion for technology and information systems, I made a shift in my role away from Marketing to information system development. I enjoy creating custom solutions to aid processes via software and available tools. As a self-described MacGyver, I have literally automated my role out of administrative duties and continue to develop automation capabilities and techniques to reduce administrative burden, providing consistency in processes and delivery.
My diverse background has allowed me to provide a wide range of services to small businesses. My undergraduate degree specialized in video production and communications, while my graduate education has focused on Digital Marketing and IT Management. Supporting business development has allowed me to support all aspects of projects and solutions. I approach everything I do with curiosity, passion, and a customer service mindset.
Click to read more about my technical background... or read on for my resume.
Growing up I was challenged with access to software and -working- technology so I often had to find ways to make-do with what was available in ways not originally intended. Like using PowerPoint as a photo editor or navigating an OS successfully without a mouse (Keyboard shortcuts for the win!)
I earned a job freshman-year of college by programming the new dining-hall cash register to charge an apple for $0.99 and total tax while eating dinner one evening. The management staff had spent weeks with the machine and programming manual with no progress. I earned free food for the remainder of the year after restructuring, designing, and programming the food court cash registers before my first semester at Adams State ended.
After college I faced every graduate’s nightmare of not finding a job in my field, so I was grateful for the opportunity to perform administrative support at a real estate organization. To no one’s surprise, I found myself bored with the repetitive tasks; like pulling, editing, formatting, and sending the same reports each month. Worse was the organization had SalesForce - one of the greatest automation tools for marketing and customer service engagements - but weren’t using the tool to automate anything! I spent weeks clicking around SalesForce before presenting the idea to automate the monthly reports.
“If you think you can, do it.” They told me. So I did.
Automatically generating pre-formatted reports took my three days of repetitious activity down to approximately three hours of work to just save, sort, and send. After learning how to automate emails through SalesForce, the reports sent themselves each month….
I have always believed that technology can be used to help improve, simplify, streamline, or ['insert chosen verb here'] if only we knew how to use it best. Today, I get to improve the performance of processes through systems regularly, and I enjoy every moment of it. I believe no business processes is an exception; if you’re not automating simple, repetitive and often administrative tasks, you’re wasting time.
In my latest role, my favorite projects have been:
Migrating a 2010 SharePoint (SP) system to SharePoint online. I coordinated with department leads for initial archival efforts; the resulting migration consisted of 50+ sites, 200+ libraries, 110+ custom lists, and more than 30,000 unique files. I designed over 100 workflows in Power Automate to replace legacy SharePoint Designer flows which automate business processes, customer portals and service tools.
Leading production efforts for more than 50 proposals, ranging from task orders to large prime pursuits and IDIQ’s for government submission and ensuring final documents meet compliance requirements and are submitted on time.
Developing an automated solution to meet or exceed Government process expectations for Service Requests (SRs). This value stream management project reduced government process steps for the SR lifecycle by 75%, resulting in a successful and compliant tool. This tool processed more than $2 million in SRs within the first three months, exceeding both Government and company expectations. I received an "Excellence" award for the development of this tool.
Developing a SharePoint based Quality tool to track information for identified deficiencies or opportunities for improvements throughout their quality lifecycle. This tool features automated assignments of tasks, collection and management of status notes, and automates document management structures and record tracking information, associated documents and supporting artifacts.
Work experience
2022 - Current
Summit Technical Solutions, LLC
Director Of Technology
As the Director of Technology, I am responsible for the management and development of IT services and processes that support the core business of the organization and VAST solution offerings. This includes the proper maintenance and oversight of operations of the corporate facilities, equipment, and information technology (IT) related equipment. Additionally, this role is responsible for developing technical solutions and/or artifacts for VAST services customers, as needed, through available systems.
2020 - 2022
Communications Manager
As the Corporate Communications Manager, I was responsible for developing and managing all aspects of communications for STS. I led concept direction, development, and implementation of creative services and solutions, and provided leadership and consultation for all forms of media and support services. This included participating in the development and implementation of the company’s corporate marketing strategy, web-based technology development, and Production Management for the STS proposal process. Additionally, I was responsible for developing technical solutions and/or artifacts that facilitate communication between STS and our customers, as needed, through available systems.
2015 - 2020
Social Media Manager
As Social Media Manager, I align our company goals and business ventures with our online messaging on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Glassdoor, Google, and the company website. I am responsible for brand management for STS, keeping messaging and digital designs consistent and within brand standards.
Serving as proposal production manager and graphics artist, I manage the coordination and development of branding, logos, and graphics for all government proposal efforts. These responsibilities include creating marketing collateral, designing compliant proposal graphics to demonstrate solutions, and final edits and white-glove reviews for print and digital submissions of proposals within compliance and strict deadlines.
Fluent in many Adobe Creative Suite programs (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Premier, and After Effects), I coordinated, designed, and produced all print and digital brochures, presentations, commercials, and other related marketing collateral for Business Development purposes, Joint Ventures, and various internal and external campaigns.
Lastly, responsible for all STS SharePoint Site Collections, I built and managed libraries, work-spaces for internal programs, and automated employee relations forms and their associated workflows. I created site/library/list templates for reuse of ISO controlled processes. As a SharePoint Designer/Administrator, I have created and maintained sites for existing contracts, including programming workflows to automate item level permissions, scheduling and auto-updating contract deliverable reminders, and developing complex lists and associated libraries to act as ticket systems to the benefit of our customers. As the STS Salesforce Administrator for the Marketing and Sales team, I trained our users and introduce best practices of the CRM, and maintained user accounts/roles/object forms including approval workflows. Finally, I leveraged existing data to automate dashboards, reports, and distributions.
2014 - 2015
Hoff and Leigh, Inc
Marketing Director
Supporting 6 satellite offices around the nation, I was responsible for the social media channels of the H&L Network, to include management of Facebook, LinkedIn, and industry specific media sites. I was responsible for the development and management of Salesforce services, which drove the online inventory on the Hoff & Leigh Network and Website and maintained the network's CRM system, to include transaction and administrative history. As an additional task, I automated many manual processes through Salesforce to the benefit of our brokers and clients.
I was the brand manager of Hoff & Leigh, developing and maintaining marketing collateral, advertisements and online databases for 300+ listings around the nation, supporting 25(+) brokers. I was responsible for all marketing language and SEO administration of the Hoff & Leigh website, and development of website design. When necessary, I created custom graphics for marketing purposes, and recreated detailed floor-plans utilizing Adobe products like Illustrator and InDesign, and design programs like SketchUp.
My support for the offices continued with administrative support of the front desk and office transaction files, creation and management of sales contracts and programming of automated signature requests, and customer service support on a daily basis.
2013 - 2014
Administrative Assistant
Education
Colorado State University Global
Master of Science Degree in Information Technology Management & emphasis in Change Management, 2024
12 Credit Hours Completed towards: Graduate Certificate in Strategic Digital Information Marketing
University of Colorado Colorado Springs
Bachelor of Arts Degree in Mass Communications, 2013 - Cum Laude
