Reﬂection : Storytelling 

 Challenge & Selection 

 I use storytelling all the time in my work to establish emotional connections with my audience ; helping stakeholders relate and getting them inspired with a narrative . 

 In this challenge , I work with our SaSS customers who have been very much loyal in subscribing to the company ’s oﬀerings . Many of these customers are “ old - timers ” who have been with the company since the days of perpetual maintenance licensing and are resistant to the slightest change . I spend a lot of time understanding these customers who are mostly in middle age or even in their senior years , getting deep into the trenches of what their context is like ; what is their motivation and what are attributing factors to their resistance to change . 

 With the understanding gained from my customers , I shared stories about these customers to my stakeholders , helping them understand the peril of the current state and place them into a frame of investment to solve the problem at hand - visualizing a state where these senior customers can grow and evolve in a manner that is personalized and assistive to their context . Augmenting data , facts and recommendations to the story helps to drive the thinking forward , paving possibilities of solutions that will lift the current barriers imposed by these customers . 

 Application 

 Collating the data from interviews and slices from service audits , I built a narrative of how our senior customers are experiencing our service , building a shared understanding and empathy for this group of archetypes . My audiences are mainly directors and senior managers , so I had to explain my story in relation to business importance by augmenting sales data involved and painting the pitfalls of customer detraction , along with the beneﬁts of nurturing the customer through their lifecycle even at a senior stage . 

 I started with a story about our primary persona , Javier who had invested in learning our products since his youth days and over time became a proponent of our brand . However with the fast changing technological landscape and software changes , he has diﬃculty catching up and is feeling left behind . Although he is still engaged with our company , he is feeling very much disconnected and is hanging on the cliﬀ when it comes to promoting the product he has been using for the past 15 years . 

 Then I contrasted the earlier story with a “ hero ﬂow ” , depicting what an ideal situation Javier will be placed in , how he could “ evolve ” comfortably with our company , and eventually being a strong promoter for the company and inﬂuencing further growth . 

 Insight & Approach 

 Narrating the story of Javier worked really well . I was able to get my stakeholders on the same page . Adding the hard facts from research and data elements of monetization helped the executives concur on the need for investing to solve the problem . This also established a baseline on how similar challenges ( relating to customer lifecycle ) should be addressed and also became a conversation starter on strategies for the next step . 

 For similar context , I would still apply storytelling as the tool of choice given that it helps best in building empathy amongst my audience ; relate who the customer is , how their journey looks like along with their pains and motivations . It ’ll be interesting to apply “ learning launch ” ( something I have yet to experiment )   to determine “ what wows ” & “ what works ” but at this moment , my biggest barrier is changing mindset to adopt innovation and growth and that has to start oﬀ with customer empathy . 

 If there is anything that I would do diﬀerently for storytelling , I would highlight the struggles of the hero ( Javier ) to make it more compelling , along with more practice using this tool . 


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 : Storytelling 

 Challenge & Selection 

 I use storytelling all the time in my work to establish emotional connections with my audience ; helping stakeholders relate and getting them inspired with a narrative . 

 In this challenge , I work with our SaSS customers who have been very much loyal in subscribing to the company ’s oﬀerings . Many of these customers are “ old - timers ” who have been with the company since the days of perpetual maintenance licensing and are resistant to the slightest change . I spend a lot of time understanding these customers who are mostly in middle age or even in their senior years , getting deep into the trenches of what their context is like ; what is their motivation and what are attributing factors to their resistance to change . 

 With the understanding gained from my customers , I shared stories about these customers to my stakeholders , helping them understand the peril of the current state and place them into a frame of investment to solve the problem at hand - visualizing a state where these senior customers can grow and evolve in a manner that is personalized and assistive to their context . Augmenting data , facts and recommendations to the story helps to drive the thinking forward , paving possibilities of solutions that will lift the current barriers imposed by these customers . 

 Application 

 Collating the data from interviews and slices from service audits , I built a narrative of how our senior customers are experiencing our service , building a shared understanding and empathy for this group of archetypes . My audiences are mainly directors and senior managers , so I had to explain my story in relation to business importance by augmenting sales data involved and painting the pitfalls of customer detraction , along with the beneﬁts of nurturing the customer through their lifecycle even at a senior stage . 

 I started with a story about our primary persona , Javier who had invested in learning our products since his youth days and over time became a proponent of our brand . However with the fast changing technological landscape and software changes , he has diﬃculty catching up and is feeling left behind . Although he is still engaged with our company , he is feeling very much disconnected and is hanging on the cliﬀ when it comes to promoting the product he has been using for the past 15 years . 

 Then I contrasted the earlier story with a “ hero ﬂow ” , depicting what an ideal situation Javier will be placed in , how he could “ evolve ” comfortably with our company , and eventually being a strong promoter for the company and inﬂuencing further growth . 

 Insight & Approach 

 Narrating the story of Javier worked really well . I was able to get my stakeholders on the same page . Adding the hard facts from research and data elements of monetization helped the executives concur on the need for investing to solve the problem . This also established a baseline on how similar challenges ( relating to customer lifecycle ) should be addressed and also became a conversation starter on strategies for the next step . 

 For similar context , I would still apply storytelling as the tool of choice given that it helps best in building empathy amongst my audience ; relate who the customer is , how their journey looks like along with their pains and motivations . It ’ll be interesting to apply “ learning launch ” ( something I have yet to experiment )   to determine “ what wows ” & “ what works ” but at this moment , my biggest barrier is changing mindset to adopt innovation and growth and that has to start oﬀ with customer empathy . 

 If there is anything that I would do diﬀerently for storytelling , I would highlight the struggles of the hero ( Javier ) to make it more compelling , along with more practice using this tool .
### Output: 