December 24 , 2016 

 Desiree Mazza Newtown , CT USA 

 Coursera : Design Thinking for Innovation Jan. 2 , 2017 

 Challenge and Selection 

 Coming from a family who were Joseph Campbell gurus , members of AA and   writers , Storytelling is a revealing tool of connection , information , and shared   insight . 

 After 40 years in management in Finance and Accounting for Vessel owning   and operating companies , I joined a small Maritime Asset investment company .   This was the first time I was on the other side of the deal . Instead of asking for   investments for operating Vessels , I was now on the financer investor side . The   president had called for an off site conference to work on our deal closing   process and ask all of us to contribute new ideas that could improve closing   portfolio deals . He asked for each employee to contribute 3 ideas no matter   how crazy the ideas were . 

 Application 

 As a new employee , I decided that for me to contribute anything of value , I   needed to have more information about the company ’s deal procedures . Like   any small busy office , free time to explore is rare , except lunchtime . Most days   we have a choice to eat at our desk , go out or eat in the conference room . The   off- site conference was 3 weeks away , and I needed to get as much   background information as possible , so I started asking anyone to come have   lunch with me in the conference room , that I did n’t want to mess up the   paperwork on my desk . Slowly within the first week , most of the 15 employees   were having lunch together from 30 minutes to an hour in the conference   room .   I put together several prompt questions in my head to encourage   employees to tell their experiences on past deals . Whenever there was a lull in   the conversation , I would use one of my prompts , i.e. “ What was the best or   worst deal you ever had , and followed up with what made it so great or   horrible ? ” .   Eventually the funny , euphoric , and disaster stories came pouring   out . My favorite one was an 11th hour hold on wire transfers because an Owner   purchasing a vessel did not want to pay for 50 pounds of ghee butter in the   stores onboard the ship . One lunch lasted 2 hours as we heard the stories of 3   past costly deals . The natural sharing of experiences became a midday stress   relief . After lunch I would quickly write on post - it notes the highlights of each 

 story . Days before the conference , I put together common themes of the story   telling including my perspective from my past history of being on the other side   of the deal table . I combined the paraphrased story quotes to present to the   conference , highlighting the common areas where the specific procedures were   key to the success or common roadblocks that kept repeating themselves . 

 As a new employee I was essentially an outsider , and I was n’t able to provide   answers , but I was able to contribute a non threatening spot light on common   key components from both sides of the deal process . 

 Insight and Approach 

 The story sharing was a wealth of information , that revealed several times   international funds were delayed during investment closings , late information   that rendered a deal dead with much expense to tales of Ship owner ’s   disagreements on last minute inventories while partaking in several shots of   vodka . Even though I was a new employee I was able to fully participate by   building a library of my colleague ’s own stories that exposed both great   strategies and bottlenecks . Another team member commented ,   “ we have been   doing these deals for so long , the same way , we never noticed we could simply   modify a step to avoid self imposed struggles or that it was possible to find   problem information earlier ” . 

 As a result of the conference discussion on the focused areas the team came up   with ideas to supplement deals with emergency financing if foreign funding got   delayed : pre - closing check lists to prevent last minute missing term   information , avoid disagreements before asset transfers and change accounting   reporting to provide timely information and documentation to identify dead   deals earlier . 

 I do not come from a design thinking background , but have realized that   design thinking tools can be used even for the smallest projects . Anyone   regardless of position or experience can apply design thinking tools to find   improvement .   I found people love to share their own history , with humor and   to this day most of us still have lunch together in the conference room . I plan   to continue to incorporate and explore the tools I have learned as I pursue my   midlife career , and volunteer work . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: Desiree Mazza
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: December 24 , 2016 

 Desiree Mazza Newtown , CT USA 

 Coursera : Design Thinking for Innovation Jan. 2 , 2017 

 Challenge and Selection 

 Coming from a family who were Joseph Campbell gurus , members of AA and   writers , Storytelling is a revealing tool of connection , information , and shared   insight . 

 After 40 years in management in Finance and Accounting for Vessel owning   and operating companies , I joined a small Maritime Asset investment company .   This was the first time I was on the other side of the deal . Instead of asking for   investments for operating Vessels , I was now on the financer investor side . The   president had called for an off site conference to work on our deal closing   process and ask all of us to contribute new ideas that could improve closing   portfolio deals . He asked for each employee to contribute 3 ideas no matter   how crazy the ideas were . 

 Application 

 As a new employee , I decided that for me to contribute anything of value , I   needed to have more information about the company ’s deal procedures . Like   any small busy office , free time to explore is rare , except lunchtime . Most days   we have a choice to eat at our desk , go out or eat in the conference room . The   off- site conference was 3 weeks away , and I needed to get as much   background information as possible , so I started asking anyone to come have   lunch with me in the conference room , that I did n’t want to mess up the   paperwork on my desk . Slowly within the first week , most of the 15 employees   were having lunch together from 30 minutes to an hour in the conference   room .   I put together several prompt questions in my head to encourage   employees to tell their experiences on past deals . Whenever there was a lull in   the conversation , I would use one of my prompts , i.e. “ What was the best or   worst deal you ever had , and followed up with what made it so great or   horrible ? ” .   Eventually the funny , euphoric , and disaster stories came pouring   out . My favorite one was an 11th hour hold on wire transfers because an Owner   purchasing a vessel did not want to pay for 50 pounds of ghee butter in the   stores onboard the ship . One lunch lasted 2 hours as we heard the stories of 3   past costly deals . The natural sharing of experiences became a midday stress   relief . After lunch I would quickly write on post - it notes the highlights of each 

 story . Days before the conference , I put together common themes of the story   telling including my perspective from my past history of being on the other side   of the deal table . I combined the paraphrased story quotes to present to the   conference , highlighting the common areas where the specific procedures were   key to the success or common roadblocks that kept repeating themselves . 

 As a new employee I was essentially an outsider , and I was n’t able to provide   answers , but I was able to contribute a non threatening spot light on common   key components from both sides of the deal process . 

 Insight and Approach 

 The story sharing was a wealth of information , that revealed several times   international funds were delayed during investment closings , late information   that rendered a deal dead with much expense to tales of Ship owner ’s   disagreements on last minute inventories while partaking in several shots of   vodka . Even though I was a new employee I was able to fully participate by   building a library of my colleague ’s own stories that exposed both great   strategies and bottlenecks . Another team member commented ,   “ we have been   doing these deals for so long , the same way , we never noticed we could simply   modify a step to avoid self imposed struggles or that it was possible to find   problem information earlier ” . 

 As a result of the conference discussion on the focused areas the team came up   with ideas to supplement deals with emergency financing if foreign funding got   delayed : pre - closing check lists to prevent last minute missing term   information , avoid disagreements before asset transfers and change accounting   reporting to provide timely information and documentation to identify dead   deals earlier . 

 I do not come from a design thinking background , but have realized that   design thinking tools can be used even for the smallest projects . Anyone   regardless of position or experience can apply design thinking tools to find   improvement .   I found people love to share their own history , with humor and   to this day most of us still have lunch together in the conference room . I plan   to continue to incorporate and explore the tools I have learned as I pursue my   midlife career , and volunteer work .
### Output: 