hey fellow servicenow devotees get ready to embark on a journey through the fascinating realm of servicenow with none other than the service docks themselves I'm James Downes and I'm Rush here whether you're new to servicenow pre-aspin veteran or just a curious Soul we're here to bring you servicenow Curiosities exhilarating interviews and don't forget the infamous A to Z game but mostly it's about the random ramblings of two middle-aged guys with a funny story or to tell right yeah true the Ducks are ready the mics are on I can't wait to have you join us let's Dive In welcome back this is the second series episode one and we're delighted to welcome none over the Nationals finest Jeremy Duncan welcome hey thanks for having me sorry Jeremy you'll get interested I am I am just going to call you out on that that's the second take you've done on that well thanks for that mate we're not staying in I'm I'm editing this [Laughter] so yeah one thing you'll probably notice about as Jeremy is that we're incredibly you know informal and uh we're just gonna go with the flow shoot from the hip and we'll see informal speak for yourself true someone's very Dapper here James I don't know what happened we didn't get the message do you know what it was like shall I be honest maybe you didn't get the memo I thought I thought to myself and this was I gotta admit it was a last minute thought but I thought I'm going to be in the presence of two CMAs I'm not you just thought we would dress up so I thought I'd make an impression fair enough I hope it worked and and it was good comedy value so anyway it'll come off in a minute yeah sorry but you know thank you for for joining us uh Jeremy I think we met uh virtually back in 2021 I think it was uh I was on the emea 2021 cohort for the uh the CMA program I think you were presenting in the design thinking uh session I think it was um and obviously enjoyed the the session that you've delivered to us then and I think I've seen you know your passion for service now and I think that's why I suggested you as one of the really good candidates for us to to get on board onto the on to interviewing and the podcast because um yeah always like your insights and things like that that you've come up with so uh yeah thanks for thanks for joining us absolutely thanks thanks for having me James and Russ thank you um so I guess where we kind of want to start is basically just getting to know you so you know those who haven't been on the CMA course or you know those who haven't connected with you on LinkedIn or seen your face um uh before are you able to kind of give a little little intro your current role what you do I think I'm gonna I'm gonna steal that sorry Jeremy because I've got something more important that I want to ask this is something right so I watched I saw an interview um that you did oh when was it going back last year might have been in October um and I can see them now I have to ask for anyone that's not listening you have what look like one two three is the four lightsabers on the back there absolutely they are very cool Disney knows how to take people's money are those right this is brilliant so I went to to Disney for the first time ever in February February this year it's my first ever trip to America and we went to Disney Disneyland from the world there is the one in Florida yeah okay Disney World okay yeah so we went there are those um are those from the Star Wars make your own lightsaber I think it is it's from savi's Workshop so here we go into the heart of I think Tatooine is the city that's represented there maybe um and you go to savvy's workshop and they walk you through you're really paying for the The Experience right it's like you're walking into that World um there are all kinds of different lightsaber vendors out there yes uh but yeah those those so I took my little boy and a little girl and then I of course I had to do one um oh you have to yeah so that's just a collection of all the families hanging on the wall there it's very cool I mean I I went into the workshop and and then I think it's Disney Springs outside that they sell them at the shop there as well um not advertising Disney here at all but they do um and it was just full of full of grown men of a certain age just standing in a queue waiting to hold one super excited yeah they're heavy they're I mean they're they they feel real so of course then what do I what did I do like most adult men do they go home and Google can I make a real lightsaber and I would encourage everyone to Google can I make a real lightsaber because you really can it's interesting though the methods that you can use to create now it's dangerous so try at your own risk I'm not suggesting anyone hurt themselves or anyone else but um it's very cool uh the things that people have done yeah I think I think I saw that on um hacksmith YouTube channel hacksmith they made a um a very a lightsaber with a pack quite cool but it was cool yeah um but yeah I'm glad I'm glad we got that out of the way otherwise I would be looking at your birthday as soon as we started right okay back on track yeah sorry um Jeremy you're not gonna need to ask the question again I've already forgotten it was before but before we kind of um leap into that I just just want to say that that we're going to take you I don't know whether James has told you but towards the end we're going to go through um the alphabet games where I kind of make up the rules as we go along so there's no structure to that either um and I think James has got a uh uh we're gonna try and uh swing in a silly question at the end um I'm not even sure what you're going with but I left you to decide that James so we'll see what happens it is work related oh Jeremy don't worry it won't be okay I was gonna say I probably need to go look at my notes here and be ready for that we do marvelous edits as well don't worry James sorry I digress over to you again oh thank you um because obviously we've met before Jeremy um this is a chance for you to kind of introduce yourself to to the service tax audience um who are you what's your journey been like so far in uh the service now world I believe you've been a customer a partner and you work for service now um yeah so the kind of Holy Grail um so yeah we'll just want to understand a bit more about your about your background and uh your current role today uh if possible sure James thank you and Ross thank you for the comedic intro it's great like this is the there's a type of uh interview you really want to have right it's just kind of uh folks just sharing life and and comedy and and having some laughs together um so I'm Jeremy Duncan uh my title here at servicenow is I'm a platform architect on our workflow Design Studio team I am wearing a digital technology billboard because um just a shout out to all of our DT folks this is a an homage to our Engineers that work here at servicenow that that that are behind the scenes making our product what what you see today they're enhancing it um so kudos to them but um I was never smart enough to make the digital technology team but uh so I landed here now uh so I do work on our workflow Design Studio team and and James you mentioned um you know going through some design thinking um learnings and I'll touch on that a little later if we get to that um in my day to day but if I rewind back to where I started 12 years ago is really just a blessing of an of a conversation that I got to have with my boss at the time I was your typical CIS admin computer geek fresh out of high school I graduated in 2002 so that'll tell you how old I am um haven't hit 40 yet but I'm getting closer I graduated in 2002 you know personal Computing was you know afford starting to get affordable everybody had one and so everybody needed help so I had I got to be the computer geek well that turned into a passion for Server technology getting more into Enterprise things so I was afforded an opportunity to go work at Dell and then I landed at a place called LifeWay in Nashville LifeWay Christian resources and I sat down with my boss and I said man I've done this I've done that I've done all these other things and you know I I'm tired of being a utilitarian I kind of want to be an Ace in the Hole and he's any and Jim Garrett was his name my boss we still chat today we'll still have coffee um and I just thank him for recognizing and encouraging me back then to continue to be a utilitarian because it enabled me to have the visibility in the organization to where I could then go do the next task that he had for me to do which was he said hey we went to a Gartner conference and we bought this thing called servicenow this again mind you 12 years ago right so um pre-asking pre-aspin isn't it yeah yeah yeah and so we went live on Aspen but we we started in the in a pre Aspen uh in our build cycle and so he said Jeremy you know you he kind of he kind of reversed the cards on me goes okay you want to be an Ace in the Hole I think you'd be great at this would you be willing to take this on and I said absolutely sure so lesson number one just I learned from looking back fondly on that is always say yes and I was always the yes guy like not a yes man but I was always a rise to any challenge if you put in front of me sure I would love to do that so absolutely yeah that's a yes I'll never forget so fast forward right so I spent time in uh in the customer space uh I did implementations at several customers that I worked for um just purely out of the passion for the product I would bring it up and we would RFP and servicenow would win and it was like Yay I have experience let's keep going and and so we kept it going and then I was asked to join a partner spent a few years there spent a lot of time in the federal landscape so did a lot of work for our federal customers which gave me insight and knowledge and many challenges technical challenges and then that led into joining servicenow so now I'm focused mostly on pre-sales architecture so I get to go sit with our customers listen to their unique challenges and um come up with unique solutions for their challenges just to keep it simple so one thing I kind of missed in that kind of Journey is that um I know Russ has certainly been there being a customer as well as well as working for a partner um and now doing consulting um do you feel that because you've had the experiences of being a customer you've been able to see the different Landscapes from different perspectives so you can see it from you know from their eyes um so that makes it easier for you when you're working with customers today that you can appreciate their point of view and that sort of thing because I think my Journey's been pure partner and that's it so absolutely but they'll discount your journey in the partner ecosystem because you take on the Persona of being The Advocate and and um um trusted partner for that customer so you are essentially the customer that's one thing I'll never forget about being in the partner landscape is I I was you know a part of dozens of customer implementations therefore I felt their pains however I will say that when you are at a customer site you get to not only own the vision and or be a part of the vision and the planning that's happening at that customer in that customer ecosystem but you have to live it so everything that you suggest and Implement and and is on your shoulders in that organization it's your baby and you're not leaving you don't go bounce to the next problem and learn on the next one it's like you're here and so I feel like there's a really good circular motion that can happen in one's career especially in servicenow where you do take time maybe even going back to a customer right yeah you've done the Consulting thing for a while you've learned a lot now it's time to maybe slow back down and focus on one implementation and focus on getting that perfect and getting that right I say perfect I mean that very Loosely focus on getting that right learning along the way and then move back in I feel like to keep your pencils sharpened you have to get on a level and and start learning what some of those challenges are and you can't do that when you're moving swiftly through you know one implementation after another I think there are great phases of one's career and they're they're most effective in that time um so back to your question I think spending time as a customer is vital to being successful as a as a master architect or technical architect yeah so does it frustrate you in a way now because you're almost kind of Dipping into these different customers and you know helping them where possible but then because of that you're not seeing the journey afterwards you're not seeing the operational benefits it may well be that you follow back up with them and say hey look what we've been able to achieve do you still do that kind of retrospective sort of stuff now um or do you tend to kind of you know dip in and dip out as Architects tend to do I do so fortunately I work on a team who is very laser focused on the customer success and I don't mean that to sound cheesy here's what I mean by that yeah once we go in and ideate on a solution to a challenge or challenge IT solutions to challenges we come out the other side it's not always textbook where it's like hey we showed them they bought it they implemented it and they're happy that Journey could be three to five years for some customers yeah how big that is so I've learned to just kind of let that you know go if you do it long enough you start to see the trickle effects so you'll get I'll get pings from our solution consultants and our account Executives and say hey so and so customer I this just happened two days ago we worked on um a foster agency foster care for children idea for a particular customer and their account team reached out to me and said hey just want to let you know this is happening and this was two years ago and so if you do enough if you stack enough work then you start to kind of get you stick around long enough you get to see the successes you get the pings you get the emails and say hey I saw this in the news was that you guys I mean I remember working on that so longevity will will create those moments for you if you're kind of hopping around and you're jumping you may never get to see it and so for me personally though James and that's a great question like our team again the design studio we focus on that follow-up we actually have activities that we do as a part of an engagement to follow up with our customers which would be the account team that has the relationship the customer um and sometimes directly to the customer but we'll follow up six months a year down the road and say hey we miss y'all we were really glad to be a part how are things going is there anything we can do to answer your questions so um so there's always the opportunity and yes I I think if if I were to go for I'm fortunate in that area that we focus on that but if I were to um be quickly moving through things and never get to see the the outcome I think it would be it would be a downer you know and there was a stage in my career where I did do that so so obviously we see that you you do a lot of like on the humanitarian front as well I've seen a few of your posts on LinkedIn um around welcome.us um I think you've got the the human impact award as well which you're um glad to receive um obviously this is something that we heard a lot about in the the recent knowledge um as well seems to be picking up quite a bit servicenow.org I believe correct um I have to kind of speak to that kind of space and what you're kind of involved in there that'll be cool sure yeah so Vanessa Smith has taken over our servicenow.org initiative she has a huge heart um for things like welcome.us or humanitarian folks that are not focused on profit as much as they are helping others and and to see servicenow dedicate an entire Branch or arm of the business to go after um helping organizations like welcome it's it's huge and the thing thing is I got to be a part of Welcome before the Inception if you look at the Timeline welcome came before servicenow.org and I say that I call that out because there's some importance there in anything in life I always like to say show me the proof like when I'm uh not to bring politics in but if I'm voting for someone I don't want to vote based on what you tell me you're going to do I want to vote based on what I've seen you do and so this is a prime example of servicenow stepped up and said welcome and and to our customer that was uh helping uh welcome through this journey we said what do you need we've got Professional Services hours we can donate we've got this workflow Design Studio team that can help you speed this process up and and imagine what a future State can look like well how can we help and so servicenow stepped up and did that well then you fast forward a year and now dot org is and is out there uh it's it's available for folks to take part of so to me that's servicenow has has put their money where their mouth is and said hey we're going to step up and have an organization that's focused on things like what welcome's doing so welcome is another example James it's not because of how great I am or or you know there's nothing that's me it's all about the willingness for people to say yes and to step up in a time of need so when I got the phone call to uh solve I didn't know the customer I didn't know the challenge I didn't know anything the the SC the a good friend of mine Mike Buckner who called me and said well he's an architect now but at the time he was the SC on the account but he said Jeremy we got an opportunity to to work on something very fast-paced so he had me there I'm like okay cool I'm flying by the seats I don't want to plan I want to figure it out as we go very into it yeah and then he said very very high impact on the human the humanitarian side and I said okay like again you had me at Fast Pace but let's go so that's another yes that I can put down in the history books that says like just being there and being willing a willing body in a time of need that look at look at the impact that it's made and I'm grateful like I'm one piece of a bigger group of of folks and that I couldn't name them all right now because it wouldn't be fair to the others that were involved but my team in particular on the design studio we had some amazing talent step up and say we're here let's all do this together and so we banded together and and you would think that it was an Army that built this so so we were able to go live with welcome connect in roughly six weeks the the target was for um we just we wanted to make sure it was super secure some you know some things some checks and balances in place and we said okay so it so it took six it wasn't an army of people we're talking maybe a dozen at most and that included designers and and uh we had a couple of uh keyed uh Architects and then a few developers that were just really heads down focused I mean it doesn't take an army to build things on our platform so uh there's that too so it's not just it's not just people saying yes it's not just a skilled resources that are available to to to rise up to a challenge but it's also having a platform and I'll say guys this is the only reason I'm here where I'm at today 12 years later I'm wearing the brand I'm sporting it I mean it's everywhere people joke about how much I mean I literally I got swag everywhere anytime no I've got a question about Swag in a bit and I and I expect something service Ducks I'm just saying I gotta you know what yeah do you know what I got I I got a couple of questions off off the back of what you're talking about there um yeah however yeah I saw was it last week or the week before on LinkedIn someone posted um a picture of a servicenary Stein a beer glass uh-huh and that was the best swag I've ever seen I was like I want one of those it was I've never seen there yeah it was brilliant absolutely brilliant we have toyed with the ideas of having branded ducks and sending the Ducks out so you may get one I'll tell you I tell you when I saw the service Ducks I don't want to get away too far away from my thought but when I saw the service that I thought Jeep fans everywhere since we're naming all kinds of Brands let's just go ahead and get in all the trouble um just do it you know Jeep fans that's their thing like if you've ever seen a Jeep Wrangler or drive down the road they had little ducks little rubber duckies in their windshield and so they made them they're like coins they're like challenge coins and people will if your doors are off of your Jeep they'll come and place a duck on your dash so like you have a whole audience out there of nerdy Jeep alienate our audiences but that's yeah but anyways around that to round out that thought real quick um it it's it's because of our platform it's because of how much easier it's gotten to build on where we're enabling citizen developers who have fantastic ideas to go build they're enabled now they're empowered and so we're gonna see you know I heard Bill McDermott say we want I want to see a billion apps created and I don't think that's too lofty of a goal because if you look at the number of customers we have the number of passionate folks that we have in the ecosystem that can actually build I mean the sky's the limit what are we going to solve right and then you add artificial intelligence in there and yes I said it AI generative AI all that stuff it's gonna get crazy what does that mean just just on the humanitarian projects there so I know in the UK they're um I'm a freelancer contractor so I've worked for a couple of Partners um in the recent years and there are Partners out there that do those projects with servicenow however as an independent I don't tend to um get as included in that because obviously I'm not working direct for that partner does that make sense so how has um you know I know quite a few contractors out there and I certainly know a number of them would like to get involved so how how would we get involved as Independence is that something we can do or is it just a closed door we can't or that's a that is a fantastic question and that's not one that I know the answer to um it's no secret that Vanessa Smith runs the dot org program okay I would say making yourself known um and saying hey I'm here to help um and really um if you're supporting Partners already maybe even go in that angle um I don't know of an official Channel but I could just make suggestions that are logical suggestions about attaching yourself to to those that are hearing about those things and and then again um maybe connecting at that level and and having a relationship there the name's enough yeah that's good enough for me oh I'll follow that up absolutely yeah cool fantastic what we just wanted to do is just kind of finish off this kind of little segment around um just understanding yourself just by understanding so what do you do outside of servicenow um you know Hobbies um I've seen he plays with lightsabers yeah that's it the camera cut off some things but there's a oh yeah there we go yeah play guitar um yeah so so hobbies and stuff like what I do in my free time it's kind of changed um you know when I was when we had our first we have three children uh the oldest is 11 now and when she was born I was just finishing up um my field training uh for being a police officer I saw I was at still a computer guy but I always when I was little I I said hey I either want to do be a police officer or I want to go up you know mess with computers I didn't do that and the older I got I had more people telling me not to do law enforcement just because of the challenge it's just it's a I could get into many stories but there it's hard on your family you spend a lot of time away from home it's it's like it's almost like signing up to be a traveling salesman you're gone a lot it's stressful you know there's a lot a lot a lot of risk involved and so so I made the decision to go with computers because I was just so passionate about it anyways it was like it makes sense but as I got older I had an opportunity to volunteer for our city the city that I lived in Hendersonville for their municipality and and they had a reserve program and so I went through it did over 400 hours of on-road on the road training 80 hours of classroom training uh and then graduated actually the night that my daughter the next day that my daughter was born that previous night I had been riding along and in uniform and got my last check off to be released from field training and I'll never forget I got the email about being released from training that day that that she was born and that was really cool because that sealed the next chapter for me so on the nights and weekends um after you know our baby was old enough and it and I wasn't going to get you know shot daggers out with my wife's eyes every time I walked in okay uh I then went and spent you know some nights and weekends out on the road so I got to serve my community and and uh and be a fully certified police officers so in our city you couldn't tell a Reserve officer from a full-time officer we all kind of did the same thing we drove cars and took people to jail and the work crashes and you know did all that so it was fun like it was a good way for me to give back to my community as well as like check a box for me like things that I that that make me tick and it also did a lot for my personality it helped me be more decisive it helped me make decisions uh differently it just changed me it just changed who I am so I did that for 10 years as a hobby um yeah and that's what it was it was a hobby and a and really a a community impact effort for me but um then then camping like camping has always been our thing we camped before we had kids and we said hey if if we have if and when we have kids we're going to keep camping and we did so we were taking little babies out camping in The Great Outdoors and and have consistently done that so so that's what we do now it's shifted so I no longer do law enforcement work I did that for a decade um and now I focus on making sure my kids are doing their Recreational Sports my son plays travel baseball now that's brand new so we're gonna see what this so check back with me in about six months and I'll tell you did you say travel baseball uh-huh what's what's travel based am I is it just me so there's the concept of recreational baseball where it's the city right the city parks department has a season and then they have all these teams and they get all the dads to coach the teams and it's a you know it's like herding cats they're like okay this dad said he'll be a head coach and and then we got all these kids that are on the teams and and then he finally so and it's a free-for-all like who knows what the teams are going to be made up of it's great for getting kids introduced to baseball and even to get some of that fundamental stuff down well this will be my son's fourth season he's nine we started him when he was six this will be his fourth season in baseball fall spring combo and he's he's excelled to the point where we really want him to get that next level of Challenge and and here in the states at least in the South the best way to do that is play on a travel team so what we do is we build a team that will travel locally and play tournaments against other travels okay yep yeah and so we'll play the same number of games roughly um but we will travel like we'll we'll you know regionally just here within it within 45 minutes we'll we'll all play so same rules and everything same amount of players and oh god oh that's sound awful to anyone that's in the US [Laughter] they definitely have more stringent rules as far as like protecting a pitcher's arm and stuff like that but in general the game doesn't change it's still nine players on the field and all that so right what I'm going to do I'm just going to move this uh Auto touch to our main topic of the uh we're not there yet no we're not there yet and we're not even close to me for the podcast um yeah so but single day we're both CMAs yeah um I think uh obviously it's been quite a big part of my life going through that CMA it was such a um it was such a good experience for me to go on it and as part of a partner being back to go on it as well um and I think what we kind of want to get out of this kind of discussion about CMA is you know just understanding its value um well understanding what it is to begin with for those who are completely new or is living under a rock um you know what value would it be to somebody who is starting out a fresh in service now is that something they should aspire to um it may what's the difference between CMA and CTA um what would suit different kind of personas um so I guess we'll just start generally with for those who are not aware um CMA what is it um where does it come from why is it there yeah so lots of different answers but I I'll start with a shout out to our taco or our training team Lucy Lachlan um who who handles things here in the Americas and then I think at the time maybe in 2021 um you work with Julian yeah um quite a bit we have some I call them ogs some some folks that have been around the ecosystem for a long time that are passionate about training individuals on being um trusted partners for our customers we're a software sales company um we do all kinds of things we offer services and things like that too but at our core you know this team here digital technology our engineers and they're all building things that our customers want well in order to for our customers to first of all understand what we have as offerings and then ultimately understand how to put those into play into their ecosystem they need educated individuals right this isn't like um saying one plus one equals two you know hey let's let's apply common math and we can get this thing done it's hey there's this platform called servicenow what do you do oh I heard you're an I.T ticketing system so the certified Master architect and the certified technical architect paths are curated to make sure that we have individuals that are that are proven to be technical trusted advisors for our customers and so you take the Julians the lucies of the world who are passionate about that who have experience in this ecosystem and say we want to put we want to have this program that that builds on that right by the way there are many other names involved but those are the two that I I personally deal with on a weekly basis um they want to make sure that there's a framework put around okay so how do we Define that so I oftentimes I teach a course in the CMA um for for every cohort that goes through whether it's Americas emea apj all of our regions I'll do one every every time we have a a new cohort and what I teach on our architectural considerations for success and I start this off this this whole session two-hour session off what is a servicenow architect and it's someone who's experienced they've got they've you got you have to have experience okay um you and I and James we talk about you know we've come from either customer plus partner you know ecosystem or one or the other but the reality is you have experience in my opinion you're not a certified Master architect and only have a year of experience on the platform it just doesn't fit it doesn't fit I can't say that you have the experience that I would trust to put in front of a customer that's trying to make a multi-million dollar decision and plan out their implementation for the next two years it's gonna be you're you're gonna have someone learning on their dime we all have to learn but there's a place for that there's a place for folks to learn so Master architect is someone who is truly seasoned who has multiple years in multiple disciplines right not just hey I'm the the best programmer on the planet um I know you know 20 languages um I can build a mean website or a mean full stack application that's not what it what a master architect is it's one that understands our product Suites that again has shown Mastery in multiple areas our requirement is that you pick three right it could be HR it could be itsm it could be whatever right you pick a list it could be the risk in the risk space but we want you to have three so that we show that you have some some uh with you know instead of just depths of breadth instead of just depth um so and it's also someone uh you know a master architect I feel like is is curated as someone who um has the skills has the education but also is able to listen and translate um often encourage our CMAs and say look I if you're the best developer on the planet that cool that's checks a box but if you can't communicate and build a level of trust with our customer then let's go to let's look at Toastmasters let's look at ways to get you able to articulate your thoughts right because nine times out of ten I find that your real true programming developer types um they don't communicate well because they're logic they're thinking in so many different uh I like think of it like a spider web they're jumping across so many different parts of that web that that it's hard to just focus on that one conversation right and it's it's just a it's just the the way you're made up it's not there's nothing wrong so in order to fix that you have to tune in on that skill right much like if I wanted to be the best uh programmer on the planet I would need to go take a bunch of courses and and be brushed up on that right so it's what it what is your skill set what do you lean towards so um there's often often times even I know that wasn't the question but I also get asked like the difference between CMA and CTA right yeah that is a good question yeah yeah sorry I've just shifted gears I'm asking them no it's good to do whatever you like so the difference and and just in short if I can do this um is your master architect sits at that solution level you're you're gaining the trust with the customer as their trusted advisor you're making decisions you're not just in the technical minutia you're also in the strategy level because we teach this right we teach where do you fit in you're you're not only just um technical but you're you're thinking about the portfolio with them you're thinking about the strategy what does this look like do you have a governance in place that's a master architect you're thinking about and to a develop like a hardcore developer they're like wake me up when you guys are done talking about that so that I can and so we have the Technic architect designation that fits you more up in in alignment with that that that development team that's going to be figuring out those things hey do we have to go write 700 lines of code in a script include and do all this stuff or can we do like 10 different flows and do some scripted actions and and solve for the same thing so that it's so that a business user could go use it those are the kind of things that a technical architect are thinking about not about what's the next five years look like on the platform right so in short that's the difference between the two so if you're on the fence and you're thinking about where you want to go and and who's to say you can't do both it's just what do you want to really invest your time I'm focusing on so that I'm glad you said that because that was appropriate but for me anyway because I I don't hold either um being a a dirty contractor um but I've been I've been thinking which is is the correct route for me and I think um James and I we we've discussed this haven't we and and I'm more technical focused that's where that's what excites me um so I think that's when I where I'm heading um the one question that that I had around that is would you see that both Avenues so CTA and CMA are more more technical focused what what would you I guess a ba or a bpc could they still go for CMA is there any anything for them to to Aspire to I think if you're a business process consultant and you've proven see that's hard because I look at someone who truly likes focusing on um taking customer requirements and articulating those into an implementation I look at them as a a part of that process much like I do a junior developer who's trying to learn more so if I were to like funnel a path maybe a business process consultant if they want to get more technical because you still have to be technical on the CMA side too right okay it's not a non-technical path it's just less technical than this yeah yeah right um and here and I'll give an example because you have to make suggestions at the Strategic level that fit into maybe a three year five year road map that are based on the fact that you know that it's going to take this amount of time to do this because you've done it before yourself you see what I'm saying like it's not it's not a wag it's not you're just not guessing even scientific it's not even a SWAT it's it's a it's more than that because when you have done implementations I'm talking logged into the because I know plenty of business process Consultants Russ that have never logged into an instance okay wow they just know how to they know how to take a customer's requirements put that into a story format and then they and then they couldn't care less about how to spell service now or how to log into an instance they just know that someone is going to I'm exaggerating that a little bit they're usually they're usually Gathering their requirements but my point they can't they better be able to spell um but but my point is is they may not even care because I know like I said I know plenty of bpcs that wouldn't care to be even be considered a CMA but if you were to say look hey you're ambitious you started Gathering requirements and now you want to elevate to this because to be quite Frank with you when I started 12 years ago I was that I was the bpc the junior developer the pretend architect because we didn't have one like I had to come up to speed really quick so I spent six months straddling all those wearing all those hats yeah so you will rise up out of that but some people just want to focus on business requirements so but so so I would lean them more left towards CMA before I would say technical but that's just it's really hard to guess at that so so I guess my question is what what has it done for you what what have you because you you did CMA course as well one of the probably one of the first ones was it that were you on the first or second or not in the first I believe maybe I was the second America's cohort maybe well obviously things have probably come on since then a little bit in terms of you know the maturity of the the program as well but no doubt some of the same principles are absolutely in there um I know I personally use a lot of what I've I've learned from that a lot of the what you've mentioned already around the communication techniques the kind of soft skills rather than the actual technical stuff and other things that you learn about the core products it's the other stuff how to deal with customers how to deal with um c-suite level um people and how to present to them that sort of thing that's what I got most from it what from your perspective did you get most of it or what did you change in your day-to-day sort of uh activities because of the CMA course honestly I didn't go into the CMA course hoping to learn how to be an architect I Was An Architect yeah but I went into the course to learn was how do I apply it the framework that we need for our customers to what I do in a day-to-day basis on a daily basis yeah if I'm seeking the certified Master architect or technical architect uh uh courses or or or designation to teach me how to be that I'm not in the right place um I'm there because I want to make sure that I'm aligning to what service now is it needs for our customer so we teach now value framework as a part of that right create is a big part of that I've been doing create since it was just here's the partner portal and and here are some guides to help you along the way here's some uh sample um templates for story writing for IT service management here's some general incident stories that you can start with like I was doing it back then now we have a defined framework but you know what I didn't know what that definition was or what to call it until I went through and I go oh is that what we're calling it these days oh it's create so now now I'm building this this story around um my knowledge and then I'm proving that hey I am a certified master of thick I've got this I know hey I now aligned to and it's like we're off the tip of my tongue our now value framework we envision we create we validate and we Champion with the customer like I get it like it's ingrained in my head now and now it's the same thing that James you're saying and so then what we do is we build credibility in the ecosystem now our customers go oh yeah that's what Jeremy was saying okay okay I feel good about this it's not like the Wild West it's like well James did it this way well okay it sometimes is the wild west let's be honest but I think our goal is let's educate enough people and let's all let's all build upon this framework and let's go into our customers together as a united front and teach them about organizational change management let's teach them about strategy and having a governing body over their implementation because they're spending millions of dollars sometimes to change their business they need advisors like us and so anyways I went into the program looking for how can I help be a part of this bigger picture rather than oh teach me how to be an architect because yeah yeah I feel severely inadequate now with you two I don't know what to do no convinced I'm convinced no it it for me personally on a personal level um it's something that I've been been thinking about for quite some time and um I know James and I like I said we've discussed it in terms of which route kind of suits me um and I don't know now after talking to you about that because you you may be excited about the CMA a bit annoyed by that really [Laughter] I you know we we want to make sure that that people I I really would hate for someone to get involved in in such a an investment of time and energy uh and a little money too um to get involved in it and you go oh man like you know so so maybe maybe maybe this conversation can help others too um and it and and I'll just put this out there for anybody in the service tech Ducks Community like if you I said service desk that takes me back wow I haven't had that we've all been there there are people but anybody in the community that's um that's questioning like um like even I'll tell you I'm I just had a conversation with one of our leaders in the in the next gen space I'm real passion she learned about my passion the other day and I'm sorry you know who you are if you're watching this um but I just I I just I feel for those who are going into um are you know rise up in next-gen programs with no knowledge of I.T with no knowledge of Enterprise service management with no knowledge of this and trying to put the puzzle pieces together yeah but but there's one thing I'm confident in is that and I've done this locally I've done this with my own cohort of people where I've sat them in a room and I said all right we've got service now it's this thing over here it's nebulous to you you're learning about it it's this Cloud platform okay that's what you hear but here's what it is here's what it is to you from my point of view so I have one girl uh Kudos Sarah to Sarah troop she just got her um sysadmin certification and um she's a go-getter like she's got a degree and and but but she's she's been like in a non-technical career and she really wants to make the switch and she said I want to learn this and she's been like heads down learning and I said I want you to think about the platform as a way to build an application full stack that can solve for your needs what is it that Sarah wants to do so she cleans houses as a side hustle she said I would like to be able to manage the houses that I clean and the people who clean it and do they owe me money how do I present what they need what I need to charge them how can I calculate that on the Fly some of the things I said hey you could go get a square doc squarespace.com website and do some of this stuff but but there are some of these other things that are require some back-end processing so here's how I'm going to simplify service now for you servicenow is the One-Stop shop that you could build the front end and the back end and everything in between all at one.com without having to go to this application that application without having to get experience in SQL without having to understand you know data scrub all that you could build this app right here and then I'm gonna so then I proceeded to you know said okay so here's how we're going to learn how to build that application those are the moments that you get that you gotta slow down and have with with folks that are just brand new and don't understand because they don't get it like they they see it pitched to so many different things so just an encouragement to the community like we're talking about CMA and CTA that's the Pinnacle that's where you want to get to that look off in the five-year distance and say man I really want to climb that mount that mountain and I'm gonna get there but it's going to take some endurance and some training we'll get in the weeds and start learning right and just know that it's not while there is a vast platform of capabilities it's really as simple as you can go solve some really cool things like help ukrainians talk this U.S sponsors and gain citizenship in the process hopefully that's the goal um just by making that connection right we said yes we built it and it's done it's on the platform you can do it and so I just encourage like at any level that you're at whether you're just the ultimate servicenow geek and Fanboy like us or girl um or you're brand new to it and it's a whole new world there's so many areas to get plugged in and I will make myself available on LinkedIn you can find me on LinkedIn Jeremy Duncan and connect and we'll talk I'll talk to you just like give you the same amount of time that I've given many other people so yeah that sounds brilliant that's really good I think I'm just a little bit reticent of time and keeping you too long as well um I think that's I think that's a fantastic conversation about CMA and I think we could probably talk a lot more about it as well um I think we probably have worth kind of moving on to the the last couple of pieces that we have here in the showcast which is uh one well we call it a silly question I think it's an interesting question um yeah hey she said yeah we need a better name for that section don't we um basically our silly question um basically is so former governments come to you and said look Jeremy um you know we heard you say yes to things you've been given the task to come up with the new released naming uh theme going forward you can't choose cities it's already been done what do you choose so we're gonna ask this to all of our interviewees as well so what is your new that's the first time I've heard question as well can I play you can if you want yeah this is Jeremy's you can ask me next time oh my goodness you know I should have been more prepared for this because honey the funny thing is is we've all had this conversation like yeah where did Utah come from I'll leave that you Ponder on that for a minute um it a man a naming convention so it's funny we for the welcome project um someone threw out the idea well we should name our releases we're you know we're in release one so we're gonna and guess what the alphabet came out it's like well yeah you know so instead of so we did we did cities right so the first one was the Atlanta released the second one was Boston okay yeah yeah I don't know I I think um you know with for the soccer fans out there maybe like soccer team names like dude that's a good idea homage to you know and I think it's funny that I picked soccer because I'm gonna let you in a little secret I'm not a soccer fan uh more baseball personally but maybe team names like I of course they're probably some licensing there but maybe there's a business opportunity so Bill if you're listening maybe maybe the Atlanta Braves like or or the Chicago Cubs maybe they um yeah maybe they want to be in on this you know I don't know are you still on service now Chelsea [Laughter] you don't want that what would they be it was a song um Vancouver whatever they are the volcanoes is one I think that might be hockey I'm such I'm so bad I'm pretty bad I like that idea though this is your domain James you failed football fan not soccer fan I'm a football fan now wait a minute footsball or football which one the only one that's it no not the curveball um right Ross did you want to get the the A to Z game ready and I've got the stopwatch ready and uh explain the rules okay right so we're gonna um do something a little bit different it's a we call it the Alphabet game I haven't thought of a better name for it but we'll go with that we if you're not watching this I'll explain um to you what's on screen so we've got the letters of the alphabet so at the moment we've got a I'll press a button it'll be B and I don't have to tell you how the alphabet goes however for each letter that pops up you Jeremy need to think of something that's related to servicenow that begins with that letter and the catch is you're not allowed to just list the versions that'd be too easy you can't go Aspen Berlin Calgary that's we've taken that off okay if you and again I make the rules up as I go along because I can't remember but you can skip if you skip you incur I think it's a 10 second penalty 10 second penalty 10 second penalty so you can sit there on B for as long as possible as long as you want or you can just Skip and go 10 seconds and we add it up at the end oh the winner is there's no winner because there's no competition [Laughter] is there any questions no no questions I'm just scared now it's like tough to jump the pressure right I will be honest with you I already know what a is I mean hey I'm glad you've left that up on the screen I'm good well I will be playing dramatic music on this when I edit it so it'll sound more dramatic than it actually is and James and I did this at Christmas um last year we did something really bad so yeah the bar is quite low here Jeremy definitely okay right this is the Guinness Book of World Records what number do I have to beat here I think well we did it with Jace Benson unfortunately we lost the recording for that but you did it in six minutes 30. okay I can't believe he's included have you been through the archives and got that number yes oh my God you're like I don't this is how it goes this is what happens James prepares for everything give us a countdown then all right I'll do the countdown three two one stop okay artificial intelligence app engine we I could keep going okay okay B oh B business rule yes good clients yeah the nerdier the better you get extra points for nerds uh uh uh I'm gonna put my field service management hat on Dynamic scheduling nice yeah Edge encryption yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you could have had the main separation before oh my goodness uh oh I just said it field service manual yeah there you go uh guided forms or guided set up there we go um and I will say you get you get multiple bonus points if you mention something that's coming up in Vancouver that hasn't yet been released a heads up on that uh Let's do let's do um oh my favorite oh my favorite acronym acronym I love Asset Management I love hardware and software asset management but I hate the acronym ham and Sam okay let's just go ahead and throw it out there a little bit doesn't it yeah uh oh integration Hub this is a friend of flow designer there we go yeah I can't say Jakarta here come on Jay's nope you can go old school though you can go on school J there's a good one in there um jelly come on Jelly there you go I don't know what happened I totally want to say Kingston I can't do that knowledge base come on yep uh learning so part of our employees uh uh yeah software okay m m uh metrics base uh metric base or mobile agent yeah nice you're not getting points for saying two by the way just just throw that out I want you to rethink that now servicenow now mobile now okay there we go registration orchestration okay nice oh pad like process automation designer here we go nice nice I've still got to play with that I shouldn't admit that ah query I mean that transcends all yeah you could you could have that I'll be nice ah okay oh uh rules engine does that count is that uh rules engine hey Chris cleozzo if you're watching RPA RPA Hub there we go oh uh service portal like that's gotta be yeah um it's gonna get more difficult now you wait yeah oh I know this is where all the minutes are spent uh tea but transaction okay you can't have that I'm overthinking this task let's start yes wonderful yeah yep uh you you Universal Universal uh now how about UI Builder uh yes Vancouver oh you said the Vancouver release uh okay I'll I'll this is a throwback to my past um and vulnerability response or vendor risk you pick yeah all part of the risk okay you're doing well how's he doing for time very well was that your phone again that's my phone again um you know okay so I'm this I have to think of story like there's there's some logic to where I get here so w takes me back to covid um where we focused on safe workplace apps um yes now become our workplace uh Service delivery or something like that so yeah probably you is that is that you know what we'll we'll I'll even take 10 seconds off the total time just for the story I already have one for Z so I'm already there but uh what is X oh my gosh Jace what did you do Jace if you're in my head X I can't even what we had who said something stupid like the naming convention for a customer Oh no I got it I got it every scoped application starts with X underscore your app yeah come on we'll give you that I think we I think we've had that before I think we'll get we'll go ahead oh so I've got to do ones that nobody's done okay okay could be a new rule though actually I like that hey that would make this exponentially [Laughter] why why right this is the one that I don't believe anyone has ever got I think I'm gonna give you minus 20 seconds if you get this so wrong in fact it's Friday minus 30 seconds Let's Go Crazy or you can pass no no we're not gonna pass this right you guys so you can mark that down but um why [Music] my turn to cook the dinner tonight by the way just just letting you know tell me the rules one more time it's got to be a servicenow feature capability something servicenow related right you've got to be related service now that's it and you're ready on six minutes just to pre-warn you if you want to talk you know what I've just thought actually there's something that you said throughout the whole of the conversation yeah you've reflected it multiple multiple times which I think I'll allow oh okay refresh refresh my memory i i i and it was a key message at knowledge James and I never went to much yes yes we'll go next Daniel Bryan we're done hey hey there are some bonus points can I tell you where Z boot originated do you know give me 10 seconds okay so it used to be at the top of the list so when you logged into high support and you logged in and you went to the common things that you would do in your instance it was it was called something different and so in order to make sure that people didn't accidentally start the Z boot of course you had to confirm but if how many times do you just go click yes yeah so they said the Z boot is on the list now nice yeah that's going to be a question if I ever do one yeah definitely all right so that was a six minutes 42 by the way no skips um there might be some time taken off for good stories that's okay I would take second place to Jace but you know first place is always fun so cool excellent excellent um right I think we've we're kind of out of time um I guess that leaves us to just kind of say thank you uh Jeremy so much for for coming on and joining us it's been really fun as well yeah really good stuff learning for for everybody and the people of watching this and listening to this uh back uh so yeah thank you so much for your time and uh coming on and joining us okay so it just reminds us to say let's see if Jeremy gets this before it's a complete car crash are you ready yeah go for it all right just reminds us to say I've been Russ I've been James and I'm Jeremy and this is service dogs well done you got there perfect you've done that before everyone usually talks over each other it doesn't go well