hello and welcome to the service Ducks podcast I hum co-host James downs and I'm Rush here and we're here to chat about all things servicenow everyday life as a service now consultant new features implementation successes and perhaps more entertaining when it doesn't go quite so well hello [Music] you know whenever I say that I'm conscious that I have a lisp my lisp sounds more pronounced when I edit this I can see a service Ducks podcast try saying it yeah it's like one of those tongue twisters um so if you're new here welcome um you know the format is James and I just you have a bit of a chat and then we'll talk about servicenow relevant stuff um but today's episode is going to be about meetups right there's been some some noise on social media um insert your platform there in terms of meetups happening all around the globe right and they're predominantly techy meetups so yeah so this is really about does everyone know what they are there's a lot of new people are coming into the industry may not know what they are too scared to ask right so it's a bit about what they are but also if you go along to one what can you expect and better still how can you make it the best experience possible I think that's key right so we're going to talk all about that but before we then that's what's coming up later but before we get into that let's stick to our normal format let's face it this is the bit that everyone actually wants to know yeah come on what's new what's it what's going on how is your um last time we spoke actually you just had a car crash I know it sounds really dramatic no limbs were lost um yeah no I I was I was in a head-on-head collision yeah um what's the update still don't have the car back so yeah for those who wants updates on on my Corsa e it's still uh with the with the mechanics waiting parts and it doesn't look like the parts are coming anytime soon so um yeah a lot more time to wait I think to to get my car back but at the very least I have a courtesy car now so I did have to wait for a few weeks just to get a courtesy card to get out and about so is your court is your car better than your other car no I hate it it's absolutely awful I'll say it's awful but it's based on the same sort of model as a cool City so it's got the same sort of chassis it's a Peugeot right sorry to like alienate Peugeot fans out there uh Peugeot 208 I think it is and yeah it's just a Peugeot 2-0 don't bother yes exactly yeah yeah I missed my electric car you know the convenience of being able to charge you you've gone you've gone electrical not even half electric I've gone full-on electric Corsa um range of about 200 miles which is perfect for like your everyday kind of like Journeys and things so yeah yeah you know what that that's that's that's bought a rye smile to my face yeah I've just got visions of you right in your electric Corsa going down the road and it slowly runs out of battery you remember do you remember like the tapes although music taped back in the 80s when they when they got time they just went yeah yeah and you know what the range anxiety is the biggest thing with these electric cars every single Journey no matter how much range is showing in your car you've still got that little nagging feeling at the back of your mind that that's going to happen and you're going to get completely stuck somewhere so um I'm guessing actually when the battery does run out it has to run out gradually you can't just stop you can't be doing 90 now that but we don't do 90. you can't be doing who's listening yeah um no no it goes into some form of like limp home mode sort of thing that kind of gets you somewhere but yeah clearly the infrastructure has not caught up with all this yet but um I'm not enjoying queuing up the other Perpetual pumps to top up my Courtesy car to be quite honest yeah no I don't blame you and um work wise much on this week oh yeah super busy super busy some really interest I'll say interesting those people who are really interested in cmdb and you know cleaning up cmdb and doing things right csdm I know we had a podcast uh episode about csdm go back and watch that um listen to that even yep um but yeah a lot about just defining something called blueprints so this is about configuring the topology of your technology to say right an application service should be connected to a web server which should be connected to a VM instance do you know what I mean well the classes together comparing that to your cmdb coming up with some remediation tasks against it so um yeah yeah some really interesting stuff around that um yeah but Lena this week I've been doing a bit of um csdm modeling service modeling you know just do exactly what you said like in terms of application service I've been doing a bit of that this week can I one thing I do want to point out a slightly distracted right um when you were talking what is that over your shoulder I have never seen that before what is it you're in the way now I don't know what you what your exe award thing come on bring that down hold on pound in the jar as well a pound in the uh in the partner John um so that is a I can't reach it because I've got my headphones on but that is a a five out of five award for a csat uh survey got back from a customer so um yeah so I was I was rewarded with um a nice you know A4 certificate for um for my achievements on a customer project yeah so not only does service now recognize that your company is obviously recognize you for your involvement in it absolutely yeah nice how much did you pay the customer [Laughter] so yeah so I've yeah I've not other than you know just just trying to um make do with the what the slush that we have rather than snow so we did we didn't get too much of a flurry um where we are in Suffolk that's very true actually it's been um snowing here in the UK which if you know anything about the UK a snow that falls on the train track just renders the whole country yes absolutely it doesn't take much does it no no no no but yeah we've had a bit of snow actually um I was gonna tell you something about this uh not did I tell you this in the week I don't think it happened and I'm gonna I'm gonna sound like a really bad person actually I don't know whether to say it anyway because it's funny they're intriguing yes it's snowed I so we've got snow sounds obvious part of my morning routine is um very lucky actually I get four cups of tea oh no coffee in bed all that in the week my job at the weekend but in the week anyway I love my cup of coffee I'll do all the normal stuff you shower and who's he wanted I don't know what that means I don't know why I said that teeth yes I'll do do that then we live in um a house which has got like a this annoys me actually because they they they tell you to put Loft insulation right there was a whole thing about it years ago when you got Gramps to put in laughter insulation in of course you do that your home gets warmer you get more condensation because the air can't escape third world problems I understand but we have a condensation issue when it's really cold outside our house is nice and warm on the windows we have condensation this story is leading somewhere stick with me yep yep so every morning we use a window vac which arguably is one of the best purchases I've ever made it's fantastic it's one of these hoovery times squeegee Hoover yeah yeah hoovery squeegee you do this down the window and it gets rid of the conversation you have to do it otherwise you get older blah yeah if anyone's listening understands what I'm talking about has the same issues I'm with you we're in it together that's it link on Amazon affiliate link there's the name of the episode window anyway I was doing that in the morning now my daughter's bedroom overlooks the estate so my neighbors are looking our houses are kind of opposite each other you can see each other's front driveway um oh God I sound evil um anyway I was doing the window like I do every single morning and the people opposite came out to get in the cars why a wife and wife and husband came out to come and start their cars to warm up yep literally while I'm stood there in full view she Stacks it on the floor oh yes and that sounds really evil well if that doesn't get a laugh then you're not human no but anyway you know what was right I'm not completely heartless because I saw it I saw it all there was no Corner in my eyes there was injury as part of this Falls I don't know but it looks like it hurt right you it did look like it hurt but I was in the position where we're talking a bit she's got a big window it's not like a small window so in a split second I have to think to myself do I hide quickly to pretend I didn't see it do why do I put the woman through the embarrassment of knowing I've seen it stand there yeah what do I do so I'm literature so I I kind of stood there continued but pretended I didn't see brilliant so you acted it was either oh let's have a look it was either hot or I could have gone with the other option we'd look shocked and run out yeah are you okay yeah I will point out her husband was wither and picked her up so you know and everything the end of the story was fine but the point was it's like what do you do in that situation the thing is she's always going to wonder now whether you did see or didn't see no this is going to like lock eyes with you in the morning now then you're like hmm it's amazing what goes through your head so fast because all of that went through my my head in a second yes it's like if I if I have choices she's gonna see the flash of me going if I hold it out then there's gonna be that awkwardness oh I saw you fall and I thought it was funny kind of thing so yes you just went with instinct which was yeah just play dumb let me just stress right let me just stress I do get on with my neighbors um it was mildly amusing and she was okay it was just one of my funny funny things for the week with the snow um I'm not sure if I told you that and if I didn't why not you didn't no it's quite funny yeah I like that so there was that um the other thing that's really exciting actually that we should talk and then we best get on with what the podcast is about is we have decided to do in fact actually it was mainly me and I kind of pushed you into it um two things actually that I've pushed you into this week one is um you and I are doing a run together on Sunday well or indeed we're meeting halfway um and we're gonna do a 10 kilometer run uh we both share a passion for running we've said this before We're Not Gonna hide it um we're middle age we need to keep moving yep um so we're gonna do that so that's quite exciting I feel like I've pushed you into that is we have got some new artwork for the podcast we do so we have um a thumbnail start again we have a thumbnail like most podcasts do which ever dark and a microphone but we've decided to go a bit more professional a bit more up markets we've got some some artwork um I think we've got three different options haven't we and we're just deciding what to go with yep and I think maybe it might have happened before this comes out but we might do a poll on LinkedIn yes in terms of what people prefer podcast because this is a podcast for the people this is indeed yeah yeah power to the people everyone's involved so that is exciting that's exciting we'll um we're starting to to find out for you a bit more and we've paid real world money for that as well so yeah be nice when you're reviewing yeah we have paid money yeah real Earth credits have gone and that's it really well work wise yeah work-wise is the boring stuff um right I've been doing revert you know what I've been doing quite a lot of reverts to out-of-the-box process type projects um I think they're more and more common aren't they oh yeah 100 everyone everyone's got excited or got excited at all um decided it was flexible then all the funky stuff perhaps it was a tactical fix but now they're gone oh God I didn't realize that was the licensing and then come here then coming back it's a podcast episode in itself isn't it yeah um yes okay so anyway back on topic back on topic that's enough of um of us and if you switched off because you think I'm a mean person about the snow falling incident I do apologize and hopefully we'll win you back this nice conversation no alienated Peugeot owners who did we alienate last time it was admins and yeah just just your simple admin yeah yeah I've got a question actually because you in the hook you mentioned uh about meetups and um you know potential Dev meetups so what I need to know is do you mean just purely for developers is this is just for developers are we talking about other types of servicenow event for example like knowledge or now at work or you know now Forum that sort of okay that is a fantastic question right so the tagline is going to be meetups what's it all about so I guess we can look at it from all angles right because you've got traditional techie meetups but I think you're right I think and this this kind of dawned on me as well where you saw the the stuff on the socials this week in terms of all those meetups or Tech Dev meetups coming up I have to feel a little bit sorry for you know things like bpcs and Bas and product owners and the likes I know they have and you're right they have things like knowledge we all have things like knowledge we all have sales kickoffs maybe that's enough actually maybe we will yeah sales people they can do their own thing but you've got to let them to the list no but you know what I mean we've got knowledge we've got um sales kickoffs we've got um Summits we've got various snugs and whatever yep but I think they're all the same I I think yeah I think why not call them meetups why not call them meetups yeah I agree um as much as we like to think us techies are special and we are special let's let's be honest it should be inclusive for everyone right there should be a different yeah angle to look at it we can't just you know eliminate a whole bunch of roles just because they're not techies no exactly you're getting together to discuss service now and everyone's passion for servicenow I guess in getting tights yeah I guess that's the point right so what yeah if you say well what's the point in the make Meetup what is it come on then what what what's your your thoughts well my thoughts with meetups and I'll have to I have to confess that I haven't gone to many myself especially in this new kind of like remote mode of working I think going back five ten years ago I would have gone to loads of these things but I think with more remote working um I've not felt the need to go to these as much and there's a lot more virtual which I'm sure we can go into as well but the benefits of going to these things I could imagine is around the networking and things that you can't necessarily get okay through a virtual webinar so so let me pause right that's the benefits right but in your eyes what is a method so if anyone's joined this what the hell's the Meetup yeah I mean it's it's a agreed location that you can get together and discuss all things service now yeah yeah essentially the only thing I would add I think are I'm not sure I like this term but we'll go with it like-minded people yeah I think it's a collection of like-minded people meeting up to learn stuff right and discuss things that they're all interested in yeah so arguably you and I we're doing a run on Sunday right we're meeting up halfway I know there's only two of us it's been pretty rubbishop oh thanks but but yeah but if you think about all those Runners we're all doing the race right we're all like-minded we're all there to achieve yeah kind of thing yep so technically that that is a meter that's a meet-up yeah to do something that you both enjoy yeah so I I think well let's go [Laughter] oh again the Peugeot Owners Club meet up back of Sainsbury's car park um well actually actually that is a good point because you have car meetups right yeah yeah clubs yeah yeah so I think that that is our simplistic view of a meter yeah um I've been to a few I've been to um service now orientated ones I've been to a few um I went to the there was a couple actually when lockdown was on that were virtual I went to and I think if I'm being honest the virtual ones for me they didn't work really they they were good I don't want to say show willing but they were good to to keep the momentum going to keep to keep us knowing that we haven't been forgotten about right um and allow us that Forum to get together but it was very much and I don't know how you can do it any other way but it was very much a webinar that you sat and listened to yeah yeah it's hard to engage get people's perceptions of what's going on yeah you can't just go out into different conversations or you know you're you're there to just listen along um yeah yeah and and you know what actually you've just said that I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna challenge you what you said before that you you've been to a couple right you and I used to work at the same partner going back years ago yep that's servicenow partner [Laughter] um but we used to have a meet up every month yes we did we did yeah we used uh as a as a company all get together every month all the technical people and if I think back to those days and again I've been to service now specific ones the key for me is one being a part of something and that is again for me is the same as running right that's why I love racing I'm no good at it I'm classic case of all the gear and no idea but it's being part of the same thing right that's what I like so those meetups being part of the same thing you're all there for the same reason yep and it's the conversations you have whilst making a coffee or better still having a beer yeah yeah those are what makes it for me yeah you know yeah I agree it's it's the it's the kind of informal conversations that you just happen to come across the water cooler chat yes that you actually end up getting most value from it'll be someone who said oh I heard you say this earlier I just happen to have done that with a different client over here and this is how we did it um whereas you don't come across those conversations if it's so standardized and formatted and this is what we're going to follow and this is what we're going to talk about yeah um yeah it lets it flow a bit more of it is about learning or learning new skills or enhancing the skills you've already got but perhaps um someone like chuckleberry open they'll do a presentation we'll we'll learn some new stuff and that's always good right because you you learn new skills yeah I think you're right so you sit and have that formal I'm going to get talked out and learn some stuff but I think there's a threshold and then you have to yeah go and have the informal conversations yep yep which which actually brings me to my experience at uh I think was it called now at work or now Forum I can't remember it must have been it was one that we both went to yeah one of those two um must have been something like 2019 you know 2018 it was pre-covered anyway um and that was my first servicenow event that I had attended so I was invited by the partner that we both used to work for yeah and um say the name come on you've done it already so it's all good um at dxc or fruition Partners yeah and um my role was interesting so for those of you who you know do work for partners and you know you may have a specific role that you're fulfilling there which is an interesting angle as well so either you're you know kind of floor walking which means you know you're there you're mingling you're talking to different people talking to your customers and um you know talking to different people come up to your stand perhaps or you're also attending these different presentations to get more insight to take that back to what you've learned um or you could be more specific to just you know being closer to the sales a pre-sales team and you're talking to new prospective customers so there's different roles you can play one of these things yeah you've mentioned a couple of couple of things there you've mentioned mingling so networking yeah we haven't really we haven't really mentioned much about that but I think you're right networking absolutely I think that's what it boils down to understanding that yeah um and also you you mentioned and the only way I can phrase this is by saying what's in it for me right you you I think you've got to go into these situations got to be a bit selfish yeah why does that why does that make me feel awful saying that and it shouldn't do right should it should something out with it don't you you can't just yeah yeah I suppose you you yeah I don't know why I feel awful saying that but you you can't go to meetups going oh I'm gonna get nothing out so I might as well just go along and yeah exactly listen you may as well be on the webinar just listening and yeah you've got to be a bit selfish and you've got to go with the mind of getting stuff out of it for you that's going to help you not necessarily in a career but just as a person as well right so is this one of our first kind of key takeaways from these things can you come prepared for one of these meetups to say it may well be just a very short list of high topics that you want to kind of touch on I think does it really depend how the conversation is going I think you've got your tangibles right arguably the you've just mentioned you you know is there a specific topic you want to talk about do you want to specifically learn something yeah I think it's broader than that and this is just my opinion but if I go to a Dev Meetup or any kind of Meetup I'll go as best I can with an open mind yeah and to sounds really corny but just be myself right just try and relax and be me and you know I I'll be as open as I can with you here I'm I'm not an extroverted person I'm more introverted yep see so in public situations I yeah I get a bit nervous in public situations I you know what I mean when there's lots of people it's not really my bag but I'll do it and I'll just try and be me so I think being yourself being open-minded um and just enjoying it embracing it yeah there's no point in going to these things sitting down I don't want to be talked to by you you don't know what you're talking about you know what I mean you see yeah yeah I mean it's a fantastic point because some people may feel that um like you say you may be an introvert it may feel uncomfortable to start conversations with people you don't know and you know sometimes it's easier to just kind of be in that kind of listen only mode and that's the way you pick up the value I think it really is down to the individual and what you're comfortable with absolutely yeah absolutely but you should n't be afraid if you're if you're introverted and you know like me and you you're not comfortable you know talking to the person next to you then don't just be yourself yeah but the other thing I will say is is there are different meetup groups right so if you're going to go to one and it doesn't kind of if you just just think oh this feels a bit off it doesn't work for me then it's not going why don't you keep going yeah don't do it to yourself I guess you don't know until you do go uh yeah this is it whether you're gonna be comfortable with it yeah yeah this is yeah and you know the whole reason we talk about this topic is because I think I said it before there's been quite a lot of noise um on LinkedIn that I noticed around servicenow Dev meetups all over oh it sounds dramatic yeah you know one's in Texas and Canada and Australia and stuff and they've just announced that the one is going to be in London and I think it's this month so it's March I think it's the 30th we don't know where yet it sounds like a covert operation so it's one of these Secret Cinema things we don't know where and literally an hour before it starts they're just gonna drop it and it's going to be like it's gonna be like a rave an illegal Rave that we all deter it's not it's not I'd be more tempted to go I think of those okay please don't go but it's something that I've been plugging on LinkedIn quite a bit asking the questions when's the next one what's the next one when's the next one yeah and I think the one thing I I'm thinking to myself is I don't need to or we don't need to wait for servicenow themselves to set up these meetups for us no true or even Advocates from like MVPs in in service now I know um durav and co-pilot setting this one up and they do a fantastic job and they have done the last few months so nothing taking them away from them but if you want to meet up with with um like-minded colleagues you don't have to wait you know for for this event you can just say hey do you fancy going to catching beer yeah yeah it's actually yeah yeah I've got a question for you though when does a meet-up become a meter right because because technically I could say to you hey James you're going to have a beer tomorrow is that a meet-up or does it have to be more than two people yeah otherwise it's just me and you going on [Laughter] I might might try that with the wife tonight just sit down and go hey we're having a meet-up on the couch [Laughter] quite like the idea of the tagline of let's check RPA with a pint of IPA oh you like that how long how long have you been thinking that for you've been thinking that for the whole podcast I've got it written down to be fair no I don't know oh talking about IPA we still we do need to sort out that um Brew dog podcasting booth I have been looking we will sort of that yes yes um um but coming back on track yes that's the Meetup is um London in on the 30th of this month yeah so you've you found out about that through social media and you say that's quite a big you know that's probably the number one way of finding out about meetups um so that means you have to be following the right people on LinkedIn to know that these things are actually happening is there any other ways that you can find out about these things is it shared on blogs um developer Forum I don't know what that is a that's a really good question because when when we come into this conversation or your suggestion of bringing up of discussing this topic I didn't know about this Meetup oh I do nothing about it well yeah it's a really good question so I've got there's an app there's an app called Meetup okay only name that and you join that app and you join the the group the servicenow Meetup group but these again these are official groups that are set up either by servicenow or MVPs that are obviously advocating for the service now yeah um but I hadn't had a notification on that I'm assuming because they haven't set it up yeah maybe I've got all the details well other than consciously waking up one day and going oh I wonder if there's a meet-up let's go and have a goofy no no I I can't see see how and that's why it relies I mean everything's social media we touched on this last time don't giggle at that I know what you like um we're not going to go down that path again let's not get out of the path again but I think it relies everything social media so it relies on everyone spreading the word and as soon as I heard about the Meetup last night I was pounced on that and reposted it yeah because I've been waiting for it for a while parents I'm going and maybe that's that's the way to go well the reason one thing I wonder wanted to say that I've tried to say twice though but I keep um losing track of what I was talking about yeah it does annoy me slightly right so I I live in the south I live not far from London I'm in a fortunate position that I can be in London within an hour hateful place don't like it but I can be there in an hour yep but I am actually from the West Midlands can you not tell me actually yeah so you're going to get me by canal thank you but it does I don't know it does get to me a little bit though it's all London Center OH London London London yeah and it'd be nice if they had and I put a LinkedIn poster in a slight kind of tongue-in-cheek so the London chapter but it would be nice if we could do meetups in the Midlands so I don't know Birmingham if we could do one towards the north it may be Watford that's classified as an author right anything about the M25 no but if we could do one in Leeds maybe that might be a good place to do Stoke stoke but you know what I mean it's it's yeah spread the love Yeah Spread spread let's not go there but absolutely I know I think it'd be good if we if we could do them um in other places and it's something that I have uh not offered to do but offered to get involved with that if anyone wants to to start a meetup group I think different places there's one for you if anyone's listening to this and wants us to do a talk at the Meetup in London on the 30th give us a shout and James will be there no problem commit me to it why don't you yeah it'd be good we could Rock up with some service duck merch a little rubber ducky of getting rid of uh Dave will keep whatever his name is oh two subscribers or mothers don't cost us much back on back onto the question though are you actually are you going you decided well when he found out about it about less than six hours ago um 30th of March in London I tend to avoid London I mean I tend to avoid people um and it also takes I mean you mentioned that point around location and it takes two and a half hours for me to get ready so to make it viable it would have to be do I mean this is a whole day thing getting back in the evening uh quite late so yeah with children as well makes it hard you don't you don't fancy going along getting some service duck merch wearing a t-shirt here little ducky is it with a new logo and yeah I I I you know joking aside I'm going um I'll be working in London for the day on the Thursday um get yourselves down there go meet go go meet Russ from the service Ducks yeah yeah we'll have a few beers you'll see him in his service nerd outfit my service nerd outfit I've got a whole outfit now have I it's it's no longer a t-shirt [Laughter] I will definitely be there because last time it was great it was it was for me it was brilliant to see some some faces I've worked with many years ago I haven't seen for a long time it was good to have those chats afterwards um I'm not gonna lie they did do three feet from beers after always a winner yeah that was really good old times what people yeah it's a very small circle that's what we we know it's a small circle you could you you know it's the same names that you see on LinkedIn and um you know it's it's good to see old Pals that's what it's about for me so meetups we've described the they're more than just a date you can meet up with two or you can meet up with more we we described that meetups are groups of people who have a common interest discussing the things that they um enjoy and to get more insight from other people um to listen to How they've done things and value out of it and to be yourself be yourself be yourself and it's okay if you're a little bit shy like me yeah and it's also okay not to go that's an option not mandatory that ruins at least try it once no no that's not okay right is it not okay go to them go to the London one or nothing but hang on can I just say I know you were wrapping up and I do this all the time but if at the start of the podcast we would have just said meet meetups it's okay foreign is sometimes it's not viable for traveling plus no that's whether you're comfortable in doing it so yeah and and if you you don't go don't bow down to peer pressure from like your podcast host or anything don't don't allow them to mock you continuously for not going okay thank you teachers whatever you do don't fall over in front of them yeah anyway if you um have been following along you've made it this far then we we absolutely appreciate it um if there's anything that you want to know or any questions you want answered then then send in a mail it will come in the outro bit but until then I've been Russ I've been James and this service dogs that's all for today's podcast thank you for listening and if you want to get your question answered by the service Ducks get in touch through talk to the doc at service hyphandux.com or just use one of the links below [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you