welcome to another episode of Glide chat my name is Mike Lombardo sit with me is Vinnie taggio Service delivery director senior servicenow architect what's up Vinnie how we doing not too bad how's life treating you uh it's good same old stuff different day adjusting to the new role you know yeah you just got promoted right yeah yes it's interesting you know I like it yeah it kind of feels you know similar to everything it was before but yeah you know so you've been at Lifehouse almost five years yeah we got five in October crazy five in October wow we're probably like a month out from when I talked to Andreina for the first time I was I think it was one of her first hires too you know what I was thinking was that DC trip that wasn't the same trip when I that wasn't the first trip oh that was the first time I met you no oh yeah that was like my third week at Glide Fest and then when were you with us we went to that party like right near the capitol oh yeah we crashed the party right it wasn't it we really could we weren't invited I was so new I didn't even have a slack picture I like walked up and I was like hi Andrew and she's like who are you hi yeah yeah crazy five years man we've come such a long way I know thank you for all you've done I'm employee 54 if that gives you a that's my like little number you've seen it all yes I mean we were over a hundred by by that what was it March April May whatever that that knowledge was after that that's like our one of those photos out there so that was 2018. yeah and so were you there for the Vegas not not the not the basketball court one were you there no no the basketball court was my first one that was that was awesome yeah I heard they were both good and I heard they both did the same problem as the party ends up being bigger than the oh you're playing space well the first and the planet space was bigger each time it got bigger but the 2018 one was hilarious because the cops came I just remember from the next year was the basketball one and some of the people are getting there early right everybody's in their suits yeah there's a couple guys tried to play basketball that maybe you shouldn't play in basketball didn't go so well what a party though do you remember at the end we're all like oh yeah that was cool that was good I met Ethan at our at that knowledge action yeah me him and Brian McGonagall uh were like our little like uh little Trio that whole week because you know I hadn't been around that long and that they they were like a month in at that point right they just got hired those Vegas and we know we had the covet blip we missed them but those were just like such I mean that's what made us like that really strengthened our bond you know I think it still does I had a long talk with Anthony about it it's the same thing you're not gonna get everybody to really buy into that kind of stuff but the people who do that's that's always what you want right if people yeah you know you're never gonna if you're not you know it's not for you it's not for you that's fine right you know but even I mean obviously like some people like to go to bar are you know we have a group that plays board games whatever it is yeah I think it's more the opportunity to meet your co-workers exactly you don't realize to get to know their co-workers are typically the ones that are going to stay a long time and yeah they put forth good effort right because they care yeah right caring is everything yeah it's proven I mean that that's why I get and you heard me on this team call I was a little not serious but like I was trying to communicate like guys we had our best month ever in June like of in every category every single category and oh I think I caught part of this yeah it was like and I said I even I said the video too like right after I found out because I couldn't wait till the team called but as this tradition yes I'm Not Gonna Keep It Secrets or waiting or anything but like it's so important because it proves that the largest investment we make is worth it and that's in ourselves and that's what I think it's just just been so different about Glide fast and it's the mentality that I've had since day one because listen before starting life fast I I was a customer I worked for other partners I know you work for other partners and I saw just the gross like lack of respect or investment into their team members and I couldn't understand it this is what makes you valuable you don't exist without your team how could you not invest in them and I know you and I have talked about this a few times like over the years and I think the only thing I come up with is that was never really a thing and so some companies just do it because that's the way I know and so you didn't have to but it's like once you see like hey I can I cannot hate everything about like my my work environment and stuff it's not really any extra effort no right you almost have to go out of your way to make be like hey nobody's allowed to have fun here like you can only be referred to as number 672 yeah no names you know I know I don't know it's it's not it's hard I'm just a caring person like I'm Just For Better or Worse I wear my heart on my sleeve I'm too honest my wife will tell you just ask her I'm too honest I'm too open book it probably opens me up for some negativity but that's who I am well and I think the the environment helps right so you know there's always the like people might want to leave for more money or whatever yeah but I think when you create an environment people don't hate being in it would cost somewhere a lot more money to pull me away from this than if I didn't enjoy being here right I I don't want to throw any Bankers under the bus but like they have a mental Persona of a banker right rigid and stiff right that's not how I am as a person like a move I talk I talk too loud I don't have to like fake put on this like Ultra professional like all day yeah because that's exhausting it is it's mentally draining not having to do stuff like that but like what makes Glide fast special there's a lot of Partners out there a lot of Partners and it can't just be like the fact that we have fun because Fun's not everything right well it I think it's I think maybe for you by Jake thinking maybe for you no I mean it's I think it's more the freedom which makes it fun right yeah you know for me and I assume pending ask you might get a different answer right because I've been around I guess here for a lot longer so I might take a little more Liberties yeah and maybe I should or the average person does but I always thought it was cool that like if somebody bothered me I could just try to change it yeah and well that's the case my like I'm an opinionated person and I'm not you know I'm gonna say it even if I probably should hold my tongue yeah but that's that's what makes it well but you listen right even if you blow me you're like no we're not doing that right you were I've said that a couple times but you or whoever like you know whoever I say to was at least going to hear me out even if they don't think it's good that's that's the key like if we ever stop doing that we lose well if something sucks we're not just tied to it because we that's what we have you know we don't just like I'm not a different thing because we had a thing you know I'm not afraid to just rip it out and and replace it sometimes we get the wrong leaders you know and we've there's been times we've had the wrong leader and it hurts you gotta reinvent yourself I mean ask Blockbuster when's the last time you've been there uh you know what I mean you know Netflix tried to sell to them I know they told Netflix to pound sand I know I know and it was probably like 100 million or something stupid yeah I know that's why I put innovator die oh I remember those stickers I mean on a 10 feet wide sticker you know what I mean and I start every single day because grow where you Decay those are the only two choices my dad always told me if you're not growing you're shrinking no and I think I took that a little too because I just like I just I'm still addicted to like I just want to build you know competitive and I it's fun to succeeding like doing a thing and doing it well is enjoy it's so fun yeah in and of itself and I love helping people like I love seeing like what we're doing with the year up and I love the Joe Jersey foundation and I'm like I want to get more personally involved in those organizations like it's you know writing a chat like I said it to Joe and Jen's the CEO Joe's wife and I said it's Joe and Jen like it takes nothing to write a check like the real work is going out there visiting cancer patients you know actually you know I have doing it I so obviously a much lesser extent than what you do but I have a friend who's a teacher yeah and she teaches some underprivileged kids yeah every semester I write her a little check because I found out she does this like pizza party and like thing and takes the kids out and it helps them why don't we support the let me so I just wrote her a check and I just cover it she's like you don't have to do that no it's like a couple you should go speak to the kids that's what she's saying yeah you should definitely go dude well and that's what she was like you know what you don't have to do this I'm like you don't understand like writing is Chuck you have it takes no effort I'm not doing any of the work you're you're doing the work I know but you need the money too money's my life I agree no they're they're both useful uh but I I don't know I just think it's interesting how you kind of depending which side you're on yeah you know you could always feel like you could do more yeah should we talk about service now sure all right I'm gonna just follow your lead and talk about whatever you propose what's your favorite part of the platform I was like to this day I'm still kind of an Integrations guys that's always what I enjoy the most I mean you kind of go hand in hand yeah you've dabbled they go hand in hand um I I think they're kind of the most fun to do yeah because you know a lot of times it's it's making the platform you know it makes it it's reaching further each yeah you know yeah you know and then you got some of my nerd Habits Like where you get to write a little more code you know you get some apis that kind of stuff's cool but you know developing your apis in service now to do stuff all that stuff I don't know is interesting because it involves things that aren't so rigid the process side of it's interesting too like there's a debatably correct way to have an incident process but you know communicating data back and forth it depends on what you're doing with it that's right it makes it interesting in uh how is integration Hub changed the game it makes it easier for for us like as a as like a partner right we don't always stay on with a client right yeah so I could go in and I build this stuff in integration Hub and then they have it where they can reuse it not this they could always do that but it's a little more obvious for them like you know if you're not as familiar with the platform like the blocks the building blocks kind of make it feel like yeah uh they're more more apparent you don't have to know as much yeah yeah you don't have to look at the code or anything you know so I think it's helped a lot there it's just so many spokes in integration Hub that I couldn't even tell you about all of them so I imagine there's a bunch of extra yeah stuff that that they get out of it but do you ever think it'll be truly like do you ever think they're not going to need a partner customers no the thing that that you're never going to be able to to Really replace is the you need to have the intermediate between the the platform yeah and the customer right and the business right the business the translation from business to actual solution is always going to be the hard part right you know if I if I tell someone if I come up with a solution I could find someone who probably doesn't know service now who's just technical yeah if they spend you know it might it'll probably take them longer obviously but anyone who's smart could take enough time if you tell them exactly what they have to do yeah they can do it right but how do you know how to make that I didn't even know the question right the question is the customers don't even know the question I think the normal process is you start with a solution yeah and you work back to the actual question and then you go forward and figure out what the right answer is I remember this we had I had this one big customer early Glide fast days when I was still Consulting they were really big customer and they were like we don't care what we're doing today we're gonna throw that out we want to start the right way using service now and I'm like it took us a long time just to convince them guys we need to understand what you're doing today so we can to your point work backwards and then create the solution you can't just say okay here's how you're going to do a change moving forward like how do you do it today who are the players what are the what are the changes you're doing I'm involved right I always find the interesting situation and sometimes we'll get a lot of pushback right I think sometimes it's lost it that I'm always gonna try to get you the best solution yeah that's right I have no agenda yeah but like like if I have an agenda if I like consultant to be right you know normal Consultants dude this is what I always say like I try to cover these things when I'm like literally in introductions I try to communicate I know what I'm doing I'm certified I've been doing this for a long time you can trust me I'm not here to replace your jobs like I'm not here like I'm not here to attack you I'm on your team and then three I'm trying to provide you the best solution I'm not trying to say no I don't want to do that if I'm pushing back on you it's because it's for your betterment like servicenow there's 10 different ways maybe five five different ways to do any one thing somebody just wants a field required or read only there's five different ways to do that but there's one best way yep you know and that's that's I think another challenge with servicenow is like there's a lot of ways to do a lot of things and you know what's the funniest part of this is that doing it the right way is almost always cheaper yeah like it's like I know like I know I'm trying to take your 100 hours I know and take it 60. and then you have 40 then you can do something else you're trying to over engineer this Mr customer Mrs Custer let me save you money listen to me listen to what we're saying but you know it's it's hard because it takes a lot of creativity and I think that's what makes us special you know I was like because you can't just be a developer in this world like into the servicenow world I tell everyone we hire like we we're not developing right we're hybrid right like you can't you can't just be somebody who sits in a basement and codes like that doesn't work no it doesn't work to be able to communicate with a customer understand their challenges and like emotionally some of this is very emotional for a lot of people because their jobs on the line they're getting this new technology that they have no idea about they think it's replacing jobs they they they're worried that they don't know what they're talking about and now that the platform's so big you you have a lot of voices in that room there's a lot of cooks in that kitchen right you know this team really wants this this other team wants this other thing there's the same pool budget you know some people want to do it the way they used to do it they don't want to change you know one one the the next team doesn't want anything you know yeah and you have to make everything merge together and you know what's the what's the best thing we can come out for you guys yeah but it's fun though I mean I don't know if there'll ever be a market like this ever again you know digitally transforming oh there definitely will you think so for sure but I don't know what it'll be but something will transform the world again right technology doesn't stop it doesn't stop but you know it's just like a lot of these companies are on like technology that's like 20 years old but I guess 20 years from now they're going to replace service now with servers now I mean how many times have we gotten a client would go in there and we're like okay they want a stand-up portal and we go and they have some like homegrown HTML like you know but you can think of all the all the versions of portal that they've gone through CM yeah the CMS I don't miss jelly I'm sorry service now we were just talking about jelly I mean it's still there oh yeah it's still there was a Ted there's no reason to turn it off yeah no it's something still uses I mean UI Pages yeah UI macros yeah so being Tyler we're talking about in our car right here it's like there are still some things that I've done a thousand times that I I said I have to Google the syntax I know isn't that funny we were just talking about that like even even like finding a piece of script that does something completely different it's like oh I know it has this one little part of it that I know I need over here and I just you know that's that's the fun part of it oh for another problem solving is always going to be like solving a problem I don't know so what did you do before servicenow world I didn't I mean I was just uh I would from college day one baby I was a bartender in college what was your favorite drink to make uh mine my favorite one what's your favorite to drink and to make a drink of the bar worked in obviously college town yeah we didn't have draft beer yeah place was too small to have room for kegs take up a lot of space wow so our thing was like Shooters so I used to be able to make a bunch of different mixed drinks right Shooters and stuff but I if you ask me what I drink I go to the bar and I get bourbon on the Rocks so it's like I know it's in a lot of these drinks and I'm like I want the one with one ingredient yeah that's smart this is what I like I don't know so you know what my favorite drink is uh you used to say no I'm I was a bartender bro you didn't know no I didn't I was bartending two different bars while I was learning service now nice yeah I I used to love making this drink Lombardo iced coffee my friends called it is that an espresso Martini essentially basically Kahlua Bailey's makes sense chocolate occur shot at espresso or shot a coffee and RumChata you ever have RumChata yeah we were the we were the like uh we were a sushi restaurant during the day so we were like okay class because clubs in South Carolina it was enough class but it was positive but you have the relative to our peers right yes yeah yeah you know the last time I was up here is about two years ago when we walked and went into some bar and that was actually the last time I had an espresso Martini I think it was before karaoke I love that I lived like nothing I love more than going with a crew a Glide for those people into a bar like I love I love that I'm and I miss it like we don't now it's coming back so terrible it's good to be back it's good to be back we're back like it's it's almost like it never happened kinda I've gone on more trips at Seymour co-workers in the last year that I saw in the like two and a half years before that all together do you see anybody wearing a mask anymore uh here or there rarely very very rarely I like to believe that now we maybe we've adopted this culture like uh Japan where it's like if you're sick you put on a mask for everyone else I don't I doubt that that's something that's what I like to think of yeah no nobody's doing that if they're sick they're like uh I wouldn't bet on it but it makes me feel good to think that I'm like ah they're probably doing their part to help other people wow all right I got a last question all right where do you see yourself in five years I don't know here preferably but I don't think I'm old enough to plateau in my career yeah I think it's too too early to throw in the towels I still have some ambition but what it looks like I'm not sure yet right yeah you know if you had asked me five years ago would I have said director no because we didn't have app you know everything like a company was different right so I don't know hopefully somewhere here but higher up okay good what do you want Clyde fast to be I would like to be at the billion Mark I I hope we're I hope I think it's gonna be probably hard in five years I don't know what the numbers so that's the goal is it five yeah uh but I'd like to at the very least be I like to be within Striking Distance is what I would look at yeah you know what I mean that's how I feel too you know like I think if you set a goal that that you thought like you know if you didn't say it was hard I would have said then we should pick a different goal right yeah yeah yeah you know I don't want my goal for exercise to be to watch in the kitchen and get a drink right that doesn't count do you do you think it it do you think we should all be a service now only I would say that anyone who speaks in absolutes doesn't know what they're talking out wow so I don't know maybe but maybe not right if an opportunity presents itself that is a good idea like we'd be foolish not to take it I think we have enough of our servicenow Market that we could try other things I think going with a competitor might be a little like yes I wouldn't necessarily don't think I'd want to do anything that competed with service now yeah I know my my own company old company had done something where they were working on multiple things that filled the same Niche um but yeah something like uh like think of all the platforms that talk about Integrations or think about all the platforms I integrate with right having having someone who works over there that knows both we internally can do a whole thing from both sides you know there's there's I could see value in that yeah is your old comedy still around uh I think so I don't know I don't I don't everyone I communicate with uh is is not there anymore let's one last question give some advice can you give some advice to somebody maybe starting out on the servicenow journey yeah no one cares about your career as much as you so you're gonna get out whatever you put in right same thing I tell clients when I'm doing an integration right you send me garbage data you're going to get garbage garbage and garbage out yeah all you have to do is try right that's that's not easy the hard part is you know staying on it saying disciplined but hard realistically that's it right it's hard but it pays off it it does pay people that what's the saying if uh people help those who help help themselves right if you drive by and someone's sitting on the side of the road and they're stuck you know you know most people are probably gonna drive by but if you drive by and you see a guy trying to push his car out of the ditch you're a lot more inclined to go give that guy a hand yeah yeah exactly he's trying to push it yeah right I'm not going to just yeah that's a good that's a good one all right Vinnie thanks for joining me on an episode of Glide chat always a pleasure Mike let's go [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music]