[Music] and now the host of the phoenix dev show mark scott right hello everybody i am your host mark scott also known as phoenixdev and this is the phoenix stuff show um it's just me today it's a little weird it's it's kind of intimidating i'm not gonna lie to just kind of have it all to yourself right it's um it's different but uh today we're going to talk about deep versus wide in the servicenow platform which i think is very cool but i've got a little bit of a exposition to get us there first so first i wrote a plugin for and stream deck which i'm testing out today for the very first time so this is c sharp code that's running that should change the slides up above let's see if it works here's the moment of truth look at that all right it did it moved to the next slide my code actually works i'm so excited okay um my camera all right so the last stream that i did that we had skipped last week but the week before that the stream that i did um everything just kind of shorted out in the middle of my stream which was incredibly uh scary first of all but secondly it was uh i thought i thought it was a power outage and that's actually i came back on stream and said oh i think it's a power outage um it wasn't um so what i i was just gonna tell you guys a little bit about my setup so what i used to have um is i have a canon it's a n50 it is a mirrorless uh dslr and that's what i used to use as my webcam worked for a long time really good i don't know why it wouldn't continue to work but it seemed like when the cmos got really really hot um this camera would actually shut down all the devices that were connected to any of my usb hubs which is not good so especially if it does that mid-stream and cuts out my audio video everything and looks like a power outage so um no more m50 no more m50 unfortunately so i am now using a standard webcam this is a logitech brio it's a very expensive webcam um it was actually a gift from servicenow uh a year ago when i did a talk at knowledge it is 4k which is really cool uh but it does add a little bit of pixelation like you can see as i move you can see the green screen behind me it's just a depth of field isn't there so it kind of irks me but you know it's good not perfect so we'll move on from there right i don't need a new 600 camera to keep doing these weekly live streams but um we tried john that leads me to the next thing so my hat um because of so i need a haircut really badly and i'll just the hat's not out of vanity though it's actually out of function um with my curly crazy hair needing a haircut and the webcam not working properly it makes a lot of green pixelation around my curls and i just can't stand it so i've been wearing this hat and it's been an interesting kind of experiment because uh i told my kids after like the first meeting that i took in the hat with my headphones on right that i i finally understood why they always wear hoodies and have headphones in because it's like i was zeroed in i was like locked into this meeting like all of the distractions were i actually felt like cozy it was it was pretty cool so um i learned very quickly that i kind of actually enjoy the hat i don't know if it's gonna stay but we'll see um if you'd like to send me hats i guess i could start wearing hats on the stream maybe that'll that'll be a thing that i can do i'd also i thought maybe i could make a hat you know with my own branding here but um yeah i haven't put any of those thoughts all the way through to attraction yet we'll see hey phil go deep yeah we will and phil is also another person that suffers from the curly hair um i i wonder if if phil if you've had this problem with the creed screen before but i don't think you use a green screen so yeah interesting interesting problems when you're when you're trying to make content you know the things that you do all right let's move on schedule okay so i wanted to start promoting the the streams before i actually have them i am putting in the time to make sure that there is content and ready to go um so next week what i'd like to talk about is commenting code the week after that is a bit of a surprise and then on the 24th i'm really really excited for the 24th because i'm actually going to have somebody on the stream that doesn't know servicenow um never is not in the ecosystem um and was actually uh closely tied to my career that's a that's all i'm gonna go into right now because it's gonna be a lot of fun uh when we reveal that but um he's gonna talk about exiting development and his career after he became a software engineer which i think is going to be pretty cool um interesting topic at least i haven't seen anybody talk about that and then because i'm completely out of ideas for things to talk about not really but i'm just getting lazy i thought that on the first what we could do is we'll do an all q a session so i'm going to start sharing this on social media and make sure that people show up because in all can a session with just me talking is going to be very lonely um so uh if if you're out there if if you're interested in this session i'm going to schedule this one way out in advance please sign up in linkedin please you know retweet share it um youtube obviously share you know hit the subscribe button so you get the notifications when i'm going live because i'm i'm i'm like super super excited about that one that one will be a fun one all right moving on let's talk about what it means to go deep and what it means to go wide in the servicenow platform now first of all i'm going to open up the room just in case people want to come in by all means you're more than welcome to while i get started here but what that means is you can come on stream you can talk about this subject if you want to derail us you're more than welcome to do that as well but you know we'd like to talk about going to even going wide please use headphones if you can do not use your outloud speakers because it does have some feedback which is unfortunate and we'll have to keep you muted for most of the time um and i say we it's just me again so uh yeah absolutely jump on in uh come on stream let me know what you what you're thinking about and um if you've got questions so first of all let's let's define let's define going deep versus going wide in the servicenow platform so um if if you've been in the ecosystem of servicenow for more than about a day you've noticed there's a trend we we tend to have a lot of different plugins and a lot of different pieces of the platform it's it's it's expansive it's very expansive we talked about you know at knowledge there was tracks on on hr there's tracks on customer service management there's project management there's um you know devops processes there's automation there's there's all sorts of stuff that goes into servicenow there's no way i could name it all because there's no way i could memorize all of it in in any amount of time because it's always growing so you as an engineer be it you know an administrator a developer even a bsa or a project manager right you you tend to probably feel a little outgunned because there's so much to do do you do you pick one do you pick one one module and and learn that one and know it inside and out you know become an expert a subject matter expert in that module and help your team in that way or you know do you do you touch on that module learn as much as you can in a small amount of time and and move on to another module and in that way you you kind of gain more experience with different types of modules so that's deep versus wide right do i do i go deep into a module and and learn everything i possibly can about it or do i try to learn a little bit about every single module all the way across and then have this wide expanse of knowledge so that's i mean that's really the the delineation when we're talking about this and you'll hear a lot of people talk about this like rob fedoric actually talks about this quite a bit um and and and does a great job on on on his youtube videos and and his his series that he does uh of of explaining this now i'm i'm a subscriber of one of these methods and but mine i i would say is a little bit less traditional than most people so i i chose instead of going deeper wide i really kind of went deep into the platform which meant that i kind of had a wide wide knowledge of all the little bits of them of the module so kind of a master of none i i i argue that if you learn the the real the really go deep into the platform um you can start to understand some of these modules now i won't say that i didn't go deep into some of the modules right so i came from a place that did itsm implementations and and you know itom itsm itbm like the entire anytime it touched you know it service management at all that that was something that we were looking at implementing and and pushing out to our customers so um itsm definitely you know change management is is one of those things that i've been pretty passionate about and i can get really you know gung-ho on so you know i do have parts of the platform that i would say i have a deep knowledge on where where i would say i kind of fall down or where it's okay to fall down on is if someone told me tomorrow that i needed to go implement you know hr or service delivery or whatever it is would i be able to tell you out of the gate yeah i'm a total expert in hr absolutely not like that that is absolutely not what i would do would i would i go and explore the module and understand how it works and try to understand like the little intricacies of it absolutely that's exactly where i tend to to gravitate towards i'm not i'm not um intimidated by the modules themselves because i have a decent understanding of how the platform works so if you find yourself in a situation where you are trying to figure out if you should go deep or if you should stay or if you you should go wide um there's a great question in chat you know just now learning help absolutely one hundred percent a roon absolutely go take the servicenow fundamentals course if you haven't done it already it's a fantastic course first of all it's free it's free all summer it's the summer of certification i'm going to make a stupid commercial and and tell everybody it's the summer of certifications right csa is free this this summer until august 31st if you haven't gone and taken that certification it gives you a good feeling of what the platform's doing at today for this release for san diego which is the most up-to-date release and you know what you might actually be interested in doing so if you could go take that and learn a little bit about everything again you're kind of i know it sounds like we're going wide on this right but sometimes you have to go wide to to touch all these pieces of the platform to know what you might like go take that fundamentals course and and work through it right if you work through it and you find that there's a module that really piques your interest i would highly highly encourage you to go and take the micro certifications for that module right so if there's any additional certifications on learning that you can go and take specifically the microsuites right go do that go take that training like actually split off and go do that if you if you have the time right um it's it's a great way to kind of learn a little bit more about the platform it's a great way to get exposed to modules that you may not necessarily look at and and to be honest with you sometimes like you'll find something it's like a pre-sale certification right it it it it helps you know a little bit more about you know even the sales side of the how does that you know how do we sell this module how do we actually learn you know how does the sales team go out there and learn how to you know push this or or or um show clients that this is very very very valuable um so it's a it's a great way to get exposure to things that you may not normally get exposure to so i would say that's the kind of going deep right if you're going deep find subjects that really interest you and and jump off from there there's there's a whole lot of of you know potential learning that you can do not just on now learning right there's documentation in the doc site i highly encourage going looking at the doc site it's it's mind-blowing what's out there for for everyone to go and look at um it's it's really just understanding the ins and outs of that that particular operation of the business right so if it is hr if it is you know i t if it is whatever it is so rob's talking about so i i went to the side here just a little bit you know knowing the module is barely even half of what the expertise is for for a given process you know if you if you don't look at these processes like if you're a rookie you know you've got to bring it up like you've you've got to go in deep go deep into that process right if that's if that's what you're doing if if you're if you're pro like so if we're the the the biggest thing that you can do is if you're if you're at a company right now that's implementing one of these modules go and do go and do the research go jump on it get certified you know even before that um if you can if you are finding that you know it's it's difficult to get interested in a certain module or if you are finding that it is difficult to be um i would say uh to rob's point right you know you're learning the process you're learning the business process it's not just the code it's the business process it's the ins and outs it's everything right if you if that's boring to you if you if you don't want to do that which is something that i feel i i actually feel pretty strongly about it gets when i get weighed down into the actual process like i click this ui action and then you know this task goes gets fired off and then from there you know it's approved and once the approval is you know all of that that's what i'm talking about when i say process and i'm pretty sure that's what rob's talking about when he says process too right it's it's knowing all of those little things it's not the code it's not like learning the code inside and out it's understanding that i have to do this task this fire this thing off create this record which it's it's very very very very detailed when you get into a module like project management it's it's almost impossible to know the whole thing because then you you start to look at like you know are you doing agile are you doing you know waterfall what how is it configured um there's there's thousands of just little rabbit holes that you can go down and it's it's it's intimidating but let's say that you don't you don't like that it's not your thing you don't want to learn a module inside and out you don't want to learn a business process inside and out there is another option going wide okay what i would say is if you're going wide it's kind of the idea of it's less it's it's more developer driven it's going to be more understanding the code what makes the platform do that how do i integrate let's say a third-party service right like that's that's not a module that could that could potentially impact you know multiple modules that is more kind of the going wide right the the the understanding how the the platform reacts to certain situations how can i write this code what makes it more reusable how do i you know is it updates that like all of that kind of stuff the the the tech lead i would say kind of things where you're making decisions based on what actually needs to happen um you know the business has figured out the process you're ready to implement right it's it's that kind of a mindset of i i know a bit what a business rule does i know what flow designer you know i'm not saying that everyone knows what flow designer does i don't even know what everything flow designer does um you know it's it's being confident in your ability to build out a flow or build out a business rule regardless of whatever the business process it is so with that in mind you get into i would say more the the theoretical of things right it's not it's not necessarily again if someone said and told me to go learn the hr module tomorrow because we're implementing it tomorrow yeah i would probably go seek out the processes because that's the things i'm not going to understand i know how a bit an on after business rule fires i do not know why the on after business rule is firing for this hr you know whatever it is i unfortunately i don't know hr very well either um so it's it's it's a give and take right of do you do you want to learn do you want to understand these processes inside and out or do you want to just have a cursory kind of understanding of this implement it and move on to the next thing i'm going gonna read a question from the chat here real fast um about a year i'm dependent on the community to sell for is that bad for my growth no not at all um sorry i'll keep that one up here so is it bad for your growth to be dependent on the community to solve problems i don't think so here's why if you're if you're out there asking these questions you're still learning right you're learning from someone else you may be in a remote position where you don't necessarily like again you may not have gone wide on some of these things you may have gone very deep on a module or you may just be at the very beginning of your career asking someone in the community for help is never an issue because we do it all the time and and i swear if any one of the you know the people of phil or or rob or anybody else like put it in the chat because i don't think people believe us we ask questions on community all the time we ask each other questions all the time in discord channels in you know the the servicenow discord in the sn slacks like it's it's okay to go outside of your wheelhouse to find help i i don't think that's a problem whatsoever now you will find people that say that you know well you shouldn't rely on outside help too much right in your career i agree with that eventually you have to kind of come to a place where you are in charge right and you're making some of these decisions and you've got to kind of figure it out on your own but if you're just starting out um it's okay to ask questions so it's okay to ask questions in the community if you're a senior and you're stuck on a problem and nobody like your you turn to the person next to you or you email someone on your team and they don't know either like of course we put things on the community and ask for help it's absolutely 100 yes don't don't don't hold back on that um okay back to the the deep versus the uh the deep versus wide debate here um i think i so uh in my personal experience what i ended up doing i made a uh i made a conscious decision when um i i i wanted to do more app development right i wanted to do what i considered being going wide okay i wanted to write code that didn't have anything to do with the plugins i um i was very very lucky and now this is very hard like i want i want some of the the junior people that may or may not be listening to this even on demand later um to understand that is a very unique situation right not a lot of people get into service now because they can make a custom application from scratch um i i'm very lucky you know now learning um and and a couple of other places inside of now inside of servicenow we've got homegrown applications that it's just the the nature of the beast so we're kind of leading the charge on that um because of that really i i the only process that i depend on is the business process you know the business that is telling us hey this is what should happen within now learning or we do you know we believe the now learning system should work this way so we get to just kind of implement things which is i think really really cool sometimes with a module that you already have you have to understand what what you're fighting in that module right so it takes a lot of that deep um the deep business process to be able to customize or to make a customization to a module that is scalable that that's huge that's a that's a huge huge huge problem right if i make customizations to a module and i can't upgrade later on it's an issue it's a big issue and you need to know what's coming down the pipe you need to know what you know the the new features that are coming for example i remember implementing a bunch of new features into the agile plug-in and then agile 2 came along and we didn't need any of those features anymore right which was great because we could just shut them off and take the agile two features it's things like that understanding a very deep um you know understanding of a module that potentially you know you can foresee things that are coming down down the way now i balance that out again with the deep what what what is the opposite of that with going you know going wide um we ten when we're going wide um we when you go wide and and you're you're blazing a new path and and there's not a lot of people that have done this before you you're you're out on your own right so there's to to to the question and chat about you know uh relying on the community yeah you're sometimes you have to right like sometimes you've you're implementing something completely brand new right um and i think about people that are maintaining store apps so uh like like like like tai and um checklist pro right like you you have to understand the platform at a fundamental level so that your application can work on top of it right it's it's understanding the platform all the way across how to each so so with uh something like checklist pro write um it's implemented in multiple different modules there's no one module that any one of those people that that ty's working with you know it it's not made for anyone it's made to go across the platform so that's that's the wide right the wide is you're you're wide open bleeding edge edge of your seat like the upgrade next you know next quarter it it may wipe away some of those changes that's okay right it's just part of you know sticking and moving when when you're when you're kind of making this a little bit bigger than um uh uh uh implementing a module okay i you know honestly i like this this is good like i mean 30 minutes of just me by myself i guess if i've got to moderate a few people it takes takes a little longer but i really do feel like i got through some of the content that i wanted to it just i just wanted it to be a conversation about you know what i thought deep versus wide was um the the chat's been great um i know we did take a break last week um i'm hoping that uh i'm gonna you know that'll be the only one you know for a little while we'll we'll continue on with these these live streams be it you know for an hour or or half an hour whatever it ends up being um yeah i do enjoy these i look forward to this every every week so i i do thank you guys for for watching um i do thank you for uh you know commenting in the chat which really helps me out you know sometimes you feel alone up here um yeah but tonight this was a great this was a great uh test this is my first test okay this is the first test of just me doing it alone so i think if i'm gonna do it alone it's gonna be 30 minutes if i bring somebody with me we can we can stretch it to an hour but um i'm pretty happy with this i hope hope you guys enjoyed it um thank you so much i'll i'll talk to you guys next week um i'll see you on social um make sure if you're watching on youtube on demand you know like and subscribe um it really really helps fight the youtube algorithm i'm i'm um trying to get my my content uh you know up to the point where other people have and and youtube's a big part of that so um please please do like and subscribe if you can um if if you're on socials uh you know reach out hit me up if you've got questions anytime day or night doesn't matter um i'm always here for for everybody in the community so thanks everybody for watching and uh we'll see you next week bye