[Music] hello and welcome to the service ducts podcast I hum co-host James Downes and I'm Rush here and we're here to chat about all things servicenow everyday life as a servicenow consultant new features implementation successes and perhaps more entertaining when it doesn't go quite so well [Music] [Applause] hello and welcome back to another episode in fact episode 11 of the service Ducks podcast James it feels like it feels like an eternity since we've spoke um holidays well yeah you've been on all day with a bank card there I've been on all day we've been gallivanting doing running um do I find out what you've been up to in a minute but just for anyone that has just joined um this episode we're going to talk about deltas right so there's been some news on the socials I'm officially from service now in terms of Deltas is there a Delta for Utah the fact is no there isn't when's the next Delta why did they make that decision but more importantly what do we think about it right are we happy about it we should your eye gets less exams celebrate what does it mean for us as developers um and what do we think it means going forward so we're going to talk about that so stick around listen to that before we get into that though we've got loads to talk about like so I go first or do you wanna you have to talk well you take a breath I'll uh I'll go first um I will talk about what I've been up to the last few weeks since our last um episode um being quite busy um as you've already kind of alluded to I have been on Holly Bobs um to a place hang on Holly Bobs is okay yeah we we accept that um how does that translate for a while listening in the US oh they also use that term right holiday vacation do we have to cater for everybody I guess right we went on holiday vacation Holly Bobs a little break yeah some time off yeah okay to recharge the batteries and to get away from the screen for a week um so yes uh me and my family went down to Cornwall so for those who do not know that's in the south west of England and very nice beaches great scenery um you know good for like I'd say surfing but I don't surf but I knew you're gonna say it's kind of like yeah I wish I could serve I can't even swim by the way so that wouldn't be so good um but no very picturesque and um you know nice little quaint towns Market towns that hold the phone you can swim God yeah surely I cannot swim I cannot swim where I grew up in Scotland I was about an hour and a half away from my local swimming pool and my parents never took me so when it came to school I took a swimming I was one of those weirdos at the end who couldn't swim I'll put some music over the top left my parents never took me I didn't know that about you yeah yeah don't come can't contact my six-year-old daughter couldn't swim better than me can swim but they're just lazy to be honest so they can't they just choose not to let's just choose not to but there we go yeah my issues a nice refreshing trip to uh to Cornwall I say refreshing um those who listen to us on a regular basis I.E our families we'll know that uh I've had car problems in the past where I've got an electric car we've discussed this as well yeah um and it took over 10 hours for a six hour trip it took over 10 hours to get there because of charging and the issue with the UK infrastructure around charges is ridiculous so it took a very long time with two young kids it was disasters that's brilliant you know I write down stuff um you know this about me I write down stuff on my phone I put notes down to discuss on the podcast right one of them is James's car right because the last time we spoke or a few weeks we spoke about you you were in a car accident you're okay by the way people don't write in don't send roses and love letters everything he's okay you've moved electric so I just wanna so go on so the trip down to Cornwall so cornwall's um really pretty part um England if you're not sure great basically holidays but it's from where you are you're kind of over there cornwall's kind of here so you're allowed to go exactly so I'm on like the east coast of England Cornwall is very south west coast of England and we normally would take in a petrol car with a couple of stops probably about six and a half hours to seven hours yeah um but because of the UK infrastructure around charges and the fact that you have to queue for them and the fact that half of them are broken by the time you get to them as well and there's not many of them either you end up spending a lot more time at these kind of like service stops uh waiting for charges so did you before you could even charge in our lunch did you have to plan in your route saying you know at 12 45 we're stopping at this service station yep 100 so you have to plan for that you also have to have backups in mind so that if those are broke down happen to be broke down on the day you need to have at least you know 10 to 20 energy left in the car to get to an emergency stop somewhere that you've already pre-planned it's an absolute you know nightmare so so what's the longest you stayed uh service station or petrol station um probably an hour and a half but that's not not too bad there's been other people it's been worse but that's not too bad but I suppose yeah compared to petrol where you just fill up and go yeah I was gonna say I suppose it is bad if you're doing an hour and a half three times on the way down yes you know I've been considering going a lot but you're expected to take some breaks especially with kids as well um but just not that much yeah yeah they'd argue you should next time we'll look at others anyway right yeah but yeah I've been considerate and I have got some exciting news that was exciting would you make me have got some exciting news that was exciting no I got additional exciting news that wasn't exciting for me Journey's not excited but yeah go on but you shared something recently on on the old socials around uh on your Holly Bobs um yes you captured a photo of a duck machine I've been able to uh use the the I'm gonna say grabby uh the grabby machine they're the grabbing machine you have to do the hand of movement as well did to do the grabby um and I must have spent about between 15 to 20 pounds to try and get a duck but you may well see I can yeah I do have one edition bring it over I'm gonna go again I did spot that before when we spoke I spotted It joined Dave I think I called you one Dave yeah you did but here is the new Duck it happens to be a unicorn duck my other Dragon Beggars can't be choosers when you're winning these things he's my new my new guy did you win that or did your kids win that no it was it was 100 me um the only two things I went on in the arcade was like the 2p machines and the duck grabby you are missing a trick if you wanted to get some kind of down time you literally give your kid a tennis worth of money send them off and on a challenge a drink in peace so I got two I don't really trust them to to be successful no no no but kids are more sneaky kids have no shame do you know what I mean they have no shame no you know taking money that's true you know the the the machines that that push the money out they drop down you sometimes find a 2B whatever yeah yeah yeah yeah it's no shame getting in there margin in another name Russian piece as well yeah I'm drinking a bit um so that's good did you go that's essentially been my week though um yeah nice and I would say relaxed half relaxed here you go two so you're down in Cornwall whereabouts and cool uh we went a few different places so we went to padstow we went to Truro we went to Newquay so knives uh I like the knives oh godmen don't go there sorry for anyone's from bodmin we'll alienate though did you go to Bob in jail no right did you go to the Jamaica Inn I was outside it I've seen it and I took a picture of it did you go to the Jamaica Inn which is on the way to bobbin do you know I charged there there was a charging Point outside Jamaica do you know the thing about the knives and knives I've always said when I'm older I'm already quite old anyway but when I'm older I'm gonna have a coffee shop I want only some Ives and I can sit on the deck chair by the beach and I'm just going to chat to people all day that's my life that's what I want to do yeah and I can go yeah walking for a coffee to go you know what James usual is it you'll go yeah I'm just sitting there for a chat you know right then that's that's what muscle's gonna happen that's my [ __ ] I do have one grape with some knives and actually another story which is I find absolutely hilarious but my other half doesn't but I'm gonna share it because she doesn't watch so we'll listen to these podcasts one gripe right is that I know is this like angle is this just is that the lack of Pavements is this like a ranting there's this in our rant yeah nervous now yep service yeah that's it so my first gripe is that well my only gripe is that the the roads into knives are are such that yes they're hilly but they also don't have pavement so they don't believe in Pavements in Cornwall okay so you're having to push buggies and whatever else on the road and you know and it's all cobbled um so that's yeah so a minor minor annoyance an inconvenience I don't think they're that bothered they're probably not whatsoever they're concerned but did you go to um the Eden Project did you do the minac theater nope and nope well I can't tell you how great it is and how much you missed out on but um well worth a visit if you ever go back we went to a tin mine right that was interesting very educational yes this is what happens you know I have a question for you but are you partial to a Cornish Pasty I love a Cornish pasty to the fact that when I went to knives I bought I don't know when you saw them but there's a Cornish pasty shop there but there is a cuddly toy of a of a pasty I bought a cuddly toy as a pasty yes that's the oh you bought one of those I said it's like some knives on it husky the Pasty love it so basically but we got some pasties we went on the beach to have a pasties my other half had her pasty as of yet uneaten seagull nicked it before she could eat it she didn't eat breakfast that morning either yeah so she was absolutely famished but what's even better is you know the point in Saint Ives where you got that little climb up you can climb up to the points you can see either side of the beaches yeah yeah she bought a second passing and that also got nicked by a seagull can I ask the question though the killer question did you offer any of your past state absolutely not [Laughter] but there is also a reason to that she's vegetarian and I'm not so she had a cheese and onion one and I had a meat one so you know you're wrong if you if you always go you always go meat option you're not sharing yes that's enough about me what are you what have you been doing the last few weeks um okay well what we do it right the big news I'm gonna do I don't think I've you can do music on this as we're live actually can I do media oh I've got media are we using like Riverside oh yeah you got some interesting ceremony are you ready you ready I'm gonna try this all right you're like this last time we spoke Live While We're recording I was looking at my PDI right and it's been a thing an ongoing joke of I haven't got my PDI yet the big news yep I finally got the email from servicenow last week that I now have a PDI oh hang on hang on hang on yes I'm playing tiering he's not doing anything yet okay we'll presume it's cheering [Laughter] it is did that work I don't know oh the limit is yeah yeah I've kind of heard it in the background it was kind of quiet myself I have to do it like this yeah oh there we go foreign did that work there we go did that work sounded like it it did work yeah well um so anyway so yes you can decide I now have a PDI so normal-ish service is resuming in terms of the pumping up my um YouTube content um other news to talk to you about um yes while you were off I didn't tell you about this but I did that anyway um I've put a plea out there on my YouTube channel service nerd um YouTube channel go and check it out um and also on my LinkedIn profile now I did a video play for if anyone is going to knowledge23 because James and I are sadly not able to go don't think there's a sad noise I can play no right we're sadly not able to go however I put a plea on to say if you are going it'd be fantastic if we could do a live stream hopefully live stream or at least a recording of um this podcast to talk to you um as you're at the event and kind of you know hopefully it gets by now we're not formal guys or I would just like to chew the fat um so but we want to know kind of what's going on as it's happening we want um a kind of an audience take of uh of what they're taking from it I can't just bring everyone else that can't go along with the journey waffle waffle the main point we're releasing this this is going out tomorrow Wednesday we're recording this on a Tuesday um yeah Wednesday yep yep if you do want to get involved in that we've already had a few uh Fair few more people that I've actually respond if you do want to get involved send this email to talk to the duck at serviceipingducks.com and we'll be drawing um at the end of the week and then we'll send out the notification and so you either made it or not we've got a matter of breath right so that was that um I have PDI please see what else I've been doing people may have accidentally noticed that I've been mucking around with life casts or live streams so I had the idea um we've always talked about this in terms of how more important socials getting with the likes of servicenow so I'm thinking well how can I embrace that a bit more than I already am because I'm always looking to to improve myself and you know what I mean to how bad as much as possible so I was trying to use yeah this product that we're using now and another one it's a live stream see if I can live stream it to YouTube and delete it so I think I've got that sorted now but whilst I would do that I accidentally went live on um on YouTube the other morning um yeah and luckily an ex colleague was there to say you realize that you're on my battles oh Christ yeah and then and then I did um so I've been playing around with live streaming so expect more from the service nerd channel on live streaming but also it's something that James and I are going to do um for season two of the podcast this is season one we're probably gonna wrap it up this episode or the next episode season two we'll be doing um I think we've said every other episode as a live stream right where we'll try and hit LinkedIn the link to at the same time um so hopefully that'll be fun that'll be exciting the one thing to say on that so I did yesterday and my first live stream on YouTube which was orchestrated so I knew about it it was an accident um it was about Glide aggregate interesting topic and um something that that perhaps you take for granted and certainly already but I gotta tell you he's quite nerve-wracking doing live stream because this yeah I've got you alongside me so it's like I guess if we're in a band if we were in some kind of really crap servicenow boy band I'd have you as a support next to me right but when you're a solo artist exactly yeah yeah all eyes on you yeah and that then it's just down to your prep and as we know live demos go wrong as well so it's like what you do to recover from that and keep it these things rolling yeah this is a thing right because I'm I'm okay at doing demos for customers okay I'm I'm good at doing demos for customers um I'm gonna blow my own temperament there um yeah so where's the trumpet sound hang on we can go on uh clapping yeah right um but I enjoy doing demos I enjoy that interaction and I think that's the point like the the demos or show and tells or playbacks whatever are interactive and I enjoy that interaction like with you at the minute doing the live stream yesterday there's there's only interaction from my mom that's something good job Russ but there's no interaction so you're kind of talking thinking am I saying the right thing oh it's like I'm here they're going hey yep yeah so don't underestimate people it's it's really nerve-wracking actually well at least for me anyway um please feel free to yeah yeah and I think the more you kind of churn out and do them it's it's a building of confidence I think with that as well I think um I think you're right care less yeah you're right it's not something I'm gonna stop just because I'm like oh that's a bit nerve-wracking I'm gonna carry on so if you are going to listen to the service dust podcast live or you're going to catch me live on the service nerd News YouTube channel bear in mind that it's quite nerve-wracking and the first few are going to be a bit sketchy um yeah so we'll just go with it anyway we kind of get involved to get involved to make it more comfortable questions as we go and make it conversational absolutely I feel like I'm in a therapy session um and how do you feel yeah um so that was that anyway we've been talking with mate we're 20 minutes in and we haven't really talked about our service now yet so um we have talked about stuff that's semi-interesting however all right we're here to talk about deltas so the point is the other week um service now come out and said there's no Deltas for Utah the Utah yeah yeah what was your gut reaction do you know what my my first initial reaction was ah fantastic I find it a pain in the bum to you know keep churning out these Deltas yeah um my feeling towards Deltas are that it's a kind of a tick box exercise just to keep you your certifications active and I guess we know the very quick to just kind of speed through them yep um depending on how many certifications you've got of course but then you kind of think about it a bit more and you think well actually what are deltas there for so I guess I wanted to kind of turn the question around to you I guess in terms I have your cards marked you've done this on every episode the last three episodes is turn it round back on me I've got them locked I know what's coming therefore I have done research and I've got a script no no um yeah so what was the question what was the question so the question was so yeah your question to me was what was my first initial reaction to hearing that there's no Deltas my initial reaction to my answer to that question exactly was to begin with it was like yes I don't have to do them yep and then it would say then it was a case of well actually what do I think about deltas and why they're actually important for me um and then that's why I was asking you why how are deltas important for you or would still just mean okay so for me so I'm a freelance contractor all right so I don't are not permanent with any partner right so the Deltas for me may have a slightly different meaning to you they may have right so to me it's my way of keeping current I think it's a freelancer I need to be current and I probably need and we've said this before yeah I think I need to make more effort or at least I I don't know effort's relative but perhaps I need to make more effort because I haven't got the permanent structure around me internally like you have your dxc yeah and then apparently the partner um where you guys collectively have that conversation and you know learn about the Deltas so I've probably got to do more on my own right and and I feel like I've got a um I guess uh drive it myself right and we we focus yes well yeah so but my first reaction if I'm being honest because I have to pay for the Deltas myself it comes out of my pocket um and again that's yeah thank you to me that's not an issue because it's it's something I want to keep my um certifications I got seven right so why would I want to drop those no point um so for me it's not an issue however my gut reaction was oh I've paid that money for two weeks before I've only taken one so am I getting my return on investment for the money I've outlaid right oh my God reaction my second was oh one of release because I have to do seven but then like you I stopped and actually thought to myself well I'm I'm all over um or I tried to be as as current as what's going on with servicenow and I get that from um uh you know the different social um platforms such as LinkedIn I'll get it from YouTube I'll get everything from the service now blog site and different people like Jace or Justin right um and Chuck so I know kind of what's going on but if I didn't would I be forced into a position where I knew what was going on with Utah probably not right if I'm a freelancer um and and I guess from a partner perspective the new version I guess I guess my question really is with the the drop of the Deltas for Utah is it now seen as a great no one's got to do and let's not bother because everyone's busy right projects are always always busy Project 8 priority so yep does it now get dropped or our partners now go well hang on we don't need to to tick that box however for service now but we do we need to tick that box for ourselves you see what I mean so how a Partners yeah I know what you mean yeah 100 all customers gonna respond to keep that certification current um if there is now aren't kind of mandate yeah that makes sense yeah and it's almost like this kind of Unwritten rule or um expectation that's probably the word expectation as a servicenow professional that you should take it upon perhaps yourself even if you're working for a you know a partner yeah you should take it upon yourself to be able to keep your your Knowledge and Skills up to date and and current because customers are going to expect that and you're going to want to understand if there's better ways of doing things or new ways of doing things because you're going to get caught out but as exactly as you say yeah as you say exactly as you say it's very very easy to get bogged down in projects because also you'll be very concentrated some of the time on just specific products as well like you'll have a project to do with just cmdb or CSM or something like that or just certain data models whereas you start to then forget the other stuff like your bread and butter itsm and the core platform stuff yeah and so it's all about this organization skills I think about how you manage your time and um yeah how you fit in time to do your Deltas or even if there's no exams fit in time to just read the release notes and play with you know the videos um it's going to drive a bit a bit of a different Behavior I think because previously and we spoke about this before I know we have is previously it's been it's been put on You by servicenow it's been put on you by your line manager you know if you're part of a partner Community it's been we need to get this box ticked we need to I don't want to say box tape yeah you know what I mean we need to yeah we're done but now it's it's really forcing people to take control of their own career path right it's it forcing people into the position where they they need to they need to put in oh well they need to assign the differentiator to themselves taking the initiative yeah yeah yeah good yeah that's a good phrase um is to create that differentiator by being current being knowledgeable um there's a lot of people coming into the ecosystem I think this is one of the ways that you're gonna kind of um differentiate yourself you also like quite I quite and always have done enjoyed is the camaraderie the the banter um in the off world not in the off the Virtual Office no that goes along with it right is the conversations what did you get for this act question do you know what I mean all that one's wrong no it's not wrong yeah look those kind of conversations one normally is about how badly worded the questions actually are yeah so it's it's one of those things that you can always have a laugh at but yeah and I think that may well have driven the the lack of Deltas in this release because they realize with the feedback received about previous deltas um that they just weren't up to scratch well that that that's the reason why we we've kind of gone through how we felt about it but do we know I mean reasons why come on you've done any research you always do no come on no I don't I'm pretty sure that's probably a closely guarded secret because obviously it's tied to money it's tied to um like you say probably the the longer term thing around the rise up campaign and getting people in in and knowledgeable um but no I haven't seen a direct reason um obviously those out there who were listening to this if you have come across uh something that service now has put out there to say why though why they've gone down this route please do you know get in touch I haven't seen any particular reason there was something on the developer blog um that was added I'm just trying to find it now actually that's 2022 come on have a Google see if you can find it develop the first time I heard about this is through Goran Goran lundgrist yes one of the usual social guys yeah he put it on uh um the witch doctor yeah let's see if we can find it the witch doctor because you know if um there is a Delta coming up for the next version so I think it's just skipping there is yeah oh brass I mean yeah it seems to be skipping one um the exact verbiage if you found it is well the verbiage is obviously this is this is different per type of accreditation as well we should probably point that out so it's not this is not about just um Main Line we're also talking about the delivery there's different thing of delivery is so accurate I'll say that again delivery accreditation Delta exams you've got then got your sales and pre-sales yeah um deltas and they seem to be going down different kind of paths because there is Utah Deltas for the likes of the sales and pre-sale stuff but not for your main line um exams sales so Alters per version makes sense to me because have by and lies the licensing changes every version I was joking yes I said that if anyone's listening to that if you want to know about licensing ghost feed your account blah blah blah so that's sales and pre do not speak to us so that's sales and pre-sales um yeah so so that is a Delta exam per version okay next what else you got well the other one and I don't know whether they're kind of splitting out what they're calling Mainline Delta exams and delivery accreditation Delta exams it may well be because I've not done much training in the last year or two okay that I can understand the difference but I've got for example I think five or six um you know CIS the implementation specialist yeah um accreditations yeah do they come under delivery or do they come under the main line okay keep going I think what what are the Deltas per yeah so what what character's Mainline Delta exam and what character's delivery accreditation Delta exam because there's two different things here yeah but is there are the Delta um Cadence different based on a main line or delivery yes because the delivery one says that there is one in Utah whereas Mainline no okay so so I'm presuming delivery accreditations is something different to what probably we've got yes yeah exactly I mean we could do one another Google come on your Mr research get on Google let's find out if you do know um email talk to the doc hat service.com but the fact that I've got no emails no notification I've got seven implementation exams um yeah like oh you've got um a CMA haven't you or let's hope let's hope you've got to do a Delta on one of those every version there isn't no there's just you have to keep up points for that and that's it but I don't know to be honest because they're glad of that like you I haven't done any um exams or courses for about two maybe three years now um I always believe my main line sir but perhaps the delivery ones are um when you had like um when you had a bunch put together to equal some kind of um I don't know yeah like the old sweets yeah yeah yeah and maybe that's what that is um yes no no if you do know I mean it's another it's another example of obviously where we've been probably bogged down with um you know projects and customers and things like that it's it's the same situation is it with any kind of training yeah whether it's Deltas or not Deltas is making sure that you've got the time to to keep keep up with these things because like I say there's new new terms here that's going on um and it's changed so much on now learning as well you you're right you're right and and I've just sat here and made a big bloody palava around how current I try and keep and even up I'm falling that I'm sorry I don't know why um but anyway but but yeah so the the Cadence is different so on that article you've got up is there a reason what else are they saying pick out some Snippets for us um one second so the snippet that I have got here is as a credential holder you are automatically enrolled for Delta exams in no learning and are required to complete the annual Delta exams they're there Mainline Delta exams are assigned with the second servicenow product release of the year so you know you're looking at yep autumn so it does seem to fit then for the mainline exams yep into every two releases yeah every year once a year um although it does now say here so they did have a little table on this page and we'll share the link as well yeah it did say in the little table that there is Utah Delta assessments for the delivery accreditations but further down the page it says delivery accreditation Delta exams will begin with the Vancouver release come back to this lesson for more details close about to Vancouver release so okay to summarize inconsistencies on their page I think so to summarize if you're in sales bad news you've got to do them every verse if you're not interested in your older technical yeah you've probably got to do them every year although we don't know so check back with us in about six months time we might know a bit more and then it'll all change again yeah well but I think I think the main takeaway because we're going to wrap it up now we spent 20 minutes talking about your trip to Cornwall and how um our electric cars have not changed the world but to Summit to sum it up all right key takeaway um my key takeaways won't be able to to try and uh listen to and take for what it is it's about taking some ownership of um your career path yeah well your understanding and how to differentiate yourself in this world where um personal brand I guess personal brand is becoming a massive massive thing you know you should be wanting to be current um in the you know the technical technological world that we live in anyway so don't wait for someone to come along and say oi keep up speed with what's going on with it yeah exactly there's no versions yeah that's my key takeaway uh what about yours do you understand time management yeah no I I completely agree with you and I think that's probably my assignation as well is that to do the best job that you can do you have to stay current um what I would say is something that has worked for me in the past is spending more time on your kind of SME area there's a way your skill set is at so spending more time on pdis doing the Deltas reading the docs where your strengths are whereas if you know you're going to get projects in them sort of areas you can you know spend more time in that as opposed to if you've got you know I know some people's got 18 different accreditations there's no way that you can spend the amount of time that you need to to keep current on everything you know that's something that we've discussed in the past is that well can't know everything yeah 18 accreditations is Ultimate box ticking you you can't be that well knowledgeable at 18. I'm sorry you can't exactly yeah yeah so I think I have a strategy um choose how you're going to spend your time um and obviously work if you do work for a partner and you're not a contractor then speak to your line manager and the team to make sure that you do have time outside of projects to keep up to date because it is just as important for them yeah okay some good takeaways there some good takeaways so but he's coming with uh drawing us to a close of um this episode of the service Ducks what's coming up next so in the next episode we've got knowledge 23 is going to be happening around about when we should be recording so we've already mentioned about the play for if you want to get involved in that the live stream um or record another episode with us whilst you're at knowledge you have to be going to knowledge you have to be there time um you can't pretend you're going like me from ducks.com we'll set something up um I think from then onwards what we're also doing what is is coming and we've already mentioned this is we're going to do um probably bi-weekly live streams on YouTube and possibly LinkedIn when James and I get together like we do now and have a general uh jolly good chat um so that's to look forward to as well but until then um thank you for listening I've been Russ and I'll be James and this 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] foreign [Music]