Reﬂection On - Mind Mapping 

 Challenge :   I work for a large , privately held software company in the Business Intelligence and   Analytics ﬁeld that was started by a small group of engineers in the 70s .   The culture is stagnate   in that they are so heavily focused on features and functions that they tend to overlook how   customers can feel lost when faced with the challenge of implementing . 

 Teaching a design thinking process to our customers , one that would help them better identify   who they needed to build for and what would best ﬁt the requirements , was to me the next best   step we could take in our own process of innovation .   Countless times I ’ve been called onto   projects where the user acceptance rate was abysmal , only to ﬁnd out that no one was doing   this kind of work before spending months building applications . 

 Tool Selection :   Mind Mapping from Week 3 :   Idea Generation - I chose this method of idea   generation because of it ’s physical nature , and for how it gets a team to think independently at   ﬁrst , and then together to talk through the ideas .   I ’ve participated in this type of exercise at a   few UX conferences I ’ve attended , such as O’Reilly , and found that as part of a larger training   series , doing this using sticky notes , markers , notepads , and other visual aids , a team can move   from the UX research phase of interviews , to presentable wireframes for customer review in   very little time . 

 Application :   We have user groups across the world , and the New York City group provided us   an opportunity for our “ Learning Launch ” .   I lecture on the subject of UX & Design Thinking at   our annual Summits and via WebEx , and the response is always positive and encouraging - our   customers want to learn this .   After the last Summit earlier this year , the Customer Support   division approached me about doing my presentation to our User Groups across the US .   I   countered with a suggestion to do an actual workshop in NYC , rather than just another lecture . 

 Because of long standing tradition ( stagnation ) in our company , the managers feel that   customers only want to come in and learn new things about the product , and were reluctant to   try my idea of teaching skills that are software independent , focusing more on the who , what ,   why .   But they gave in with a few course tweaks that made them feel more comfortable , and I   insisted that our invitation wording clearly signify that we would not be using computers .   I   trained workshop facilitators prior to the event by running them through a warm - up exercise and   giving them instructions on what to look for and how to keep a team moving through the timed   sessions .   One was assigned to each team . 

 For a full day , with four teams of ﬁve participants , we worked through challenges that ranged   from interviews to wireframe design , with the mind mapping exercises being the most involved .   Because this is a team approach to design thinking , the challenges were printed and taped on   the wall where each individual in a team would then write his or her ideas / suggestions / thoughts   on sticky notes and put those on the wall in the appropriate space in the diverge phase , then   they would all work through the converge phase together , focusing the notes into blocks of ideas    that formed the nodes of the mind map . 

 All participants were fully engaged and enjoyed this new way of thinking through their   application design and development challenges .   All left saying they would take this back to their   companies , and would be interested to learn more in the future . 

 Insight :   You can teach an old dog new tricks .   As much as I know the value that this training   provides our customers , the value we are now gaining internally is just as important to me . 

 For our customers , they now have a new way of handling the requirements that come to them in   a more powerful and meaningful way .   They can now identify the priorities from the Business   stakeholder , conduct a UX research phase with users , and use mind mapping sessions in a   cross - functional team to provide solid solutions to their users . 

 And for us , companies of our age and size are very slow to make changes , especially ones that   are somewhat outside their comfort zone .   By having VPs and other upper level managers   involved , or just stopping by to watch for a few minutes , I ’m seeing momentum begin to build ,   and increased interest being generated .   The fear that customers would n’t understand this is   fading and in it ’s place is an optimism that we can do “ different ” things to partner with our   customers more effectively .   As a caveat , I ’m now being asked to do this with our product teams . 

 Approach :   One of the concessions I had to make to my program and schedule , was to allow   two others from our company to do presentations - one during the morning session and one in   the afternoon .   If Customer Services insists that these be a part of every training , I want to move   them both to the end of the day .   I did n’t see any value in these sessions and to me , they just   watered down the effect of the training .   They slowed down the pace and most people were not   paying attention . 

 Having this day be focused on the experiential training , and doing several other types of   exercises , will be more beneﬁcial to our customers , and ultimately to us . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: 
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: Reﬂection On - Mind Mapping 

 Challenge :   I work for a large , privately held software company in the Business Intelligence and   Analytics ﬁeld that was started by a small group of engineers in the 70s .   The culture is stagnate   in that they are so heavily focused on features and functions that they tend to overlook how   customers can feel lost when faced with the challenge of implementing . 

 Teaching a design thinking process to our customers , one that would help them better identify   who they needed to build for and what would best ﬁt the requirements , was to me the next best   step we could take in our own process of innovation .   Countless times I ’ve been called onto   projects where the user acceptance rate was abysmal , only to ﬁnd out that no one was doing   this kind of work before spending months building applications . 

 Tool Selection :   Mind Mapping from Week 3 :   Idea Generation - I chose this method of idea   generation because of it ’s physical nature , and for how it gets a team to think independently at   ﬁrst , and then together to talk through the ideas .   I ’ve participated in this type of exercise at a   few UX conferences I ’ve attended , such as O’Reilly , and found that as part of a larger training   series , doing this using sticky notes , markers , notepads , and other visual aids , a team can move   from the UX research phase of interviews , to presentable wireframes for customer review in   very little time . 

 Application :   We have user groups across the world , and the New York City group provided us   an opportunity for our “ Learning Launch ” .   I lecture on the subject of UX & Design Thinking at   our annual Summits and via WebEx , and the response is always positive and encouraging - our   customers want to learn this .   After the last Summit earlier this year , the Customer Support   division approached me about doing my presentation to our User Groups across the US .   I   countered with a suggestion to do an actual workshop in NYC , rather than just another lecture . 

 Because of long standing tradition ( stagnation ) in our company , the managers feel that   customers only want to come in and learn new things about the product , and were reluctant to   try my idea of teaching skills that are software independent , focusing more on the who , what ,   why .   But they gave in with a few course tweaks that made them feel more comfortable , and I   insisted that our invitation wording clearly signify that we would not be using computers .   I   trained workshop facilitators prior to the event by running them through a warm - up exercise and   giving them instructions on what to look for and how to keep a team moving through the timed   sessions .   One was assigned to each team . 

 For a full day , with four teams of ﬁve participants , we worked through challenges that ranged   from interviews to wireframe design , with the mind mapping exercises being the most involved .   Because this is a team approach to design thinking , the challenges were printed and taped on   the wall where each individual in a team would then write his or her ideas / suggestions / thoughts   on sticky notes and put those on the wall in the appropriate space in the diverge phase , then   they would all work through the converge phase together , focusing the notes into blocks of ideas    that formed the nodes of the mind map . 

 All participants were fully engaged and enjoyed this new way of thinking through their   application design and development challenges .   All left saying they would take this back to their   companies , and would be interested to learn more in the future . 

 Insight :   You can teach an old dog new tricks .   As much as I know the value that this training   provides our customers , the value we are now gaining internally is just as important to me . 

 For our customers , they now have a new way of handling the requirements that come to them in   a more powerful and meaningful way .   They can now identify the priorities from the Business   stakeholder , conduct a UX research phase with users , and use mind mapping sessions in a   cross - functional team to provide solid solutions to their users . 

 And for us , companies of our age and size are very slow to make changes , especially ones that   are somewhat outside their comfort zone .   By having VPs and other upper level managers   involved , or just stopping by to watch for a few minutes , I ’m seeing momentum begin to build ,   and increased interest being generated .   The fear that customers would n’t understand this is   fading and in it ’s place is an optimism that we can do “ different ” things to partner with our   customers more effectively .   As a caveat , I ’m now being asked to do this with our product teams . 

 Approach :   One of the concessions I had to make to my program and schedule , was to allow   two others from our company to do presentations - one during the morning session and one in   the afternoon .   If Customer Services insists that these be a part of every training , I want to move   them both to the end of the day .   I did n’t see any value in these sessions and to me , they just   watered down the effect of the training .   They slowed down the pace and most people were not   paying attention . 

 Having this day be focused on the experiential training , and doing several other types of   exercises , will be more beneﬁcial to our customers , and ultimately to us .
### Output: 