welcome to Glide chat where we give you the rundown of all things service now let's talk about the now right [Music] now welcome to another episode of Glide chat my name is Michael Lombardo CEO and founder at Glide fast Consulting and with me is the legendary Chuck tomazi the senior developer Advocate at service now Chuck how are you I am glad to be here you're the mayor of service now man I can't believe I just yesterday I posted on LinkedIn I think you saw it um we haven't done a Glide chat in two years I cannot believe it's been two years the last thing I saw posted on LinkedIn from you is another award so congratulations thank you thank you yeah we're just uh man I'll tell you Glide fast just rocking and rolling like we are just so locked in to implementing great solutions for our customers and you know we were talking about it on a team call um before the end of the year and we we just have a passion for excellence you know we we are passionate um you know a lot of us aren't good at a lot of things but service now is like one of those uh things we all share and are just really good at what we do so we're just passionate about it that's awesome so tell me uh Chuck what's how's how's your year going so far so far so good yeah getting ready for KO you going Toko unfortunately not I'm going to be on PTO and man I just with with reorgs and whatnot over the last few years uh I don't really fall under that sales category anymore so you know you gota you got to send the people who are making the money not spending the money and I'm on the spending side well anything if you have you know anytime you ever want to do anything that maybe you can't get service now to help you with you know Glide fast is always here for you I appreciate that I was talking to you just before we kicked off I threw just threw it out there on on the Glide fast slack that I was uh we were doing another Glide chat and I had an avalanche of people wanted me to ask you things and um so I don't want this all one way but I definitely have some questions that if I don't ask you I'm gonna have to face the angry mob of Glide fast so why don't I kick it off um you know one of the main questions a couple people asked were like what were the early days like at service now because you were you were what what number employ uh 199 wow and you were a customer before that I was a customer I think we were customer 205 if my math is correct in fact today as we record this the 15th anniversary of our go live when I was did you get a cake this is pre cake days this was pre days I was on PTO during I go live we we did a soft launch on the Friday before and it launched on a Monday so we had we had a whole whopping day of experience under our belt and went that feels pretty sturdy I'm out of here yeah yeah yeah you guys will be fine that's that's unbelievable so 199 so you were actually an earlier number employee than customer that's that's a that's a crazy stat too you gota remember I came in at six years the company was already six years by the time I got on board in 2010 so it had it had been growing and there's still you know some 40 45 people that have seniority on me and I respect them we just had breida Coke said yeah 14 years I went wow you got one on me lady good for you yeah I've worked with her she's great yeah yeah we we go way back as well back to like an old implementation when I was a technical consultant in 2011 W so yeah it's a it's a good group there's still that kernel so back then it's a small company yeah still a startup pre IO Y and you know if if anybody had asked me to join in those early days when I was a customer like I don't know about this man you know the CEO still writing code what what's up with that this doesn't give me the greatest confidence but after using the platform using the product for a couple of years um I had the mixed blessing of you know my company saying thanks for your 22 years of service and also having in hand my innovation of the Year award signed by Fred ly about a week earlier going hey uh remember me yeah you know I was I was hired fairly quickly so that was that was stuff when I started we were still in the wooden spaceship in salana Beach yes yes building and and there was plenty of room when I started in June I came September for some follow-up training and it was much more packed you go isn't Gonna Last this isn't gonna last long and I think it was the following January they were moving to delmare yep and and then about a year there and then they went to where they are now in uh Santa Clara Santa no not Santa Clara Santa Clara was after they went IPO oh yeah that's right the uh the Eastgate Mall campus they've got in San Diego yes oh yeah populating that one building then two building is I think they're up like four or five of the buildings in that campus so you in the early days you could walk in and you know Fred would be roaming the halls and go hey hey Fred I remember the first day I started I said hey Fred and uh when I was at knowledge a few weeks earlier I sent a thank you note to him and I said thanks Fred it's nice meeting you uh actually I started out the note that said thanks a million and I put in a phony million dollar bill you and your wife he remembered that that one token because when I started he said uh my wife tried spending that money that's hilarious that's hilarious you know what's funny when you bring up Fred you know I got my selfie with him I don't know if you ever saw it but I got my selfie with him I think it was 2018 um at knowledge when Forbes did that huge article on him oh yeah um and you so I've never really like you know worked with him or anything really super close but I've only had a few personal interactions you going out to lunch with him and throwing some ideas out and whatnot uh you know then then our paths diverged a bit yeah um but he's he came across to me is he's always thinking he's always got his mind on what's next uh how to do something I mean in the earlier days it was obviously how do we how do how do we implement this technology into the platform and make it succeed it was always clicking which intrigues me if I ever get an opportunity now that he's retired completely you know not just a CEO but from the board and everything else what what are you working on these days Fred because you know he's got to have some's got have something project going on I would be the same way it's in my DNA since I was a teenager to be doing this yes yeah and and um yeah I didn't realize he retired from the board because he was the chairman of the board right was that recently I I must have missed that I think it's I think it's been a year or two because I don't okay all right all right I guess chairman and CEO is this title yeah wow okay so that's that's that's crazy yeah um hey the guy just turned 70 you know he's got a de but you know what I love about mcder is he's always embraced ly like he's he's always given you know props to him and and said you know we are fulfilling ly's Vision I think he abely you know and I love that about Bill and yeah I remember Fred was you know a big part of leading the team on the service portal implementations and or that that product and people were like he's still coding he's still that was like his big uh his big project one of his last ones right I think I think so yeah yeah all right so um let's jump around a little bit so so we talked about the early days now the future where do you see service now moving because I mean there isn't there almost isn't a business process that service now is not dominating and there's just so much Innovation that I see obviously that we see service now doing right is two two new releases every year we see them almost dip their toes into something and then once a c some customers grab hold of it in in the in the almost like the market validates that this is something customers want then they lean in um but where do you see like service now is there is there any white space left for for problems that service now can solve um that that come to mind that's a great question and and I had to think long and hard about this one I I see where we're going to continue to make it easier and faster to make these changes to the platform you know we've seen an evolution over the last five years maybe even a little bit more on investment in low code Technologies and these aren't just to get you know new people into the ecosystem it's to make things for us senior members even faster you know I I can make tables and ACS and a form layout in about five minutes now whereas it used to be a two or three hour process now you just don't have to spend as much time doing these things you want a record producer boom you know way quicker than it used to be so I I see that not just the building but the maintaining and you know as as companies start making more and more stuff making more changes making more bespoke applications whatever there's got to be an easier way to maintain that and govern it and obsolete it you know just that whole governance process going forward because that's going to be future technical debt say it but the more you change the more you add the more the more you build the more somebody's gonna have to come back to this and Y oh hey they need a know the the widget application in manufacturing needs a change oh that hasn't been touched in five years who knows that you know so there's got to be a way to do that easier and faster I'm also really really excited to see where generative AI takes us we are on the Starting Gate of this whole you know it's been in the public eye for about a year we've implemented in Vancouver and well case summarization and sentiment analysis things of that nature give us just a taste of what's coming I I really look forward to seeing what our customers demand out of this because I I lik in this my analogy for generative AI right now is like once upon a time we cut down trees with axes and then someone invented the saw and then someone invented the chainsaw and then you took your log to The Sawmill well we used to hand Hune these things into Timbers with that Axe and then to the Sawmill you know or you know take your favorite you know I used to put screws in the wall with a screwdriver now I use my drill it's that level of advancement so I'm spending less time I'm getting more done but it's not taking my job away as a carpenter who who puts the logs together and builds a house or whatever it's making more value add time with less what what do I do best let me focus on that exactly and that's what service now has been since day one right yeah absolutely how many customers are afraid oh here come we're going to lose our job no it's so you can focus on more meaningful activities instead of swiveling your chair back and forth and just passing paperwork right it's yeah I've gone out into the the developer relations ecosystem a little bit more the last year to explore what my peers are doing and how they're doing it and bringing it home and sharing what we do with them and you know like any good Community member would do the and what I'm discovering is I feel sorry for some of these people have to do things the hard way I know I know and they and it's like they don't even know it's possible like and you're trying to just there's an easier way you know and oh but I like being close to the metal like that's value at time no no and and I I think in a way some people try to hold on to that like you know we're in the business of change as a partner right like we are constantly you know pushing these large or you know big large slow organizations into changing and a lot of a lot of the employees that struggle with that they want to hold on to those old things and so I know it's um it's it's yeah you see people kind of to struggle with that okay if you could change one thing about service now what what would it be uh I had to think about this one I want more I want more people on our team so we can do more yeah obviously we're beholden to the economy for that yeah I want more people more developers to show up at the meetups I hear that from every Meetup organizer like how can I get more people these things like yeah we're working on that we're working on that uh but really what what I would love to see a developer sub brand you know we we we saw this in Stark reality at the last knowledge where the t-shirts were Gilroy bold and they said Creator con 2023 compare that to like the Creator con t-shirts we had in 2018 Mission to Mars a patch on the sleeve and yeah very creative uh I would I would you know Salesforce has their Critters Linux has tux GitHub has octat and I'm not saying it's all about the Char atures there's there's an underlying theme there something that resonates we're we're kicking around some ideas right now it's been a little little slow out of the starting Gates but okay we finally have Jim ler and his team going um let's think about that so we're going to try not making any promises we're going to try and get some of this visible at knowledge oh okay I would love to see you know something that the developers latch on to and uh you know maybe even cosplay or or start making their own uh you know characters that fit into this theme whatever it is I I think there's a great opportunity to really uh you know build that ecosystem and increase the loyalty and advocacy for for service now in that respect I mean it was so successful with Salesforce their developer brand became the brand for the company I know I know and it's so like the service now Community is like would die for service now you know what I mean like I've never it feels so special to be a part of it you know like from day one I'm like when I was you know just starting out trying you know and I wasn't a developer I was I was a help desk guy and learning you know trying to learn service now and connecting with other community members and watching other leaders like yourself it just felt special in there's just a level of commitment we have like we are committed because there's no other system that like we've seen them you know and there's no other platform that that comes close and and it's it's like the real deal kind of thing you know and that goes back to the first question about what was life in the early days yeah when I was a customer my technical consultant was available on Christmas Day or the day after whatever it was it was clearly a paid day off yeah was doing an import export with Excel and I had a transform map question and he was there on instant messenger ready to answer the question I went w no I'm not saying you know go go t your staff on a holiday but you know that level of commitment to making sure the customer is successful made it a big impression on me yeah oh yeah it's rare you're happy to do it you know because yeah because you know that that's what I love about you know I'm I'm a very uh instant gratification type of personality if you couldn't tell and that satisfaction of you know solving a problem rolling out an application um making a field do something cool right that a c any any requirement a customer had and they look at you like you're a magician you know they're like how did you do that thank you like you know and you're just like I just dragged it from here to there yeah I know but but that it's so satisfying I was talking to um one of my one of my leaders and we were talking about like he he did a bake off where they built something um like from scratch versus building it in service now they do like a b off and um and you know it just takes so long to build these other products and you don't get that gratifi I don't know if I have the patience for that I guess you know there's there's times I mean when I go do an Arduino project or something it's pretty low level and you got to build the basics and you know there's some fun in that but uh that's the point of doing these you know embedded or iot devices when you're dealing with a larger scale and business applications you got to move quick you gotta move quick you do um because businesses want want the the value you know yep um all right I've been asking you a lot of questions do you have anything for me what do you want to see in the platform in the next five years you know H what do I want to see in the plat i' love to really I love the you know couple you know years ago when when um we first started rolling service now out to State and local governments yeah and helping citizens and you know I I think for state of Tennessee we did there was like a a massive tornado and and displaced a lot of uh families and we leverage service now like right away to um to to get food assistance to them like during covid same kind of thing we supporting a lot of citizens state of Delaware um used it for unemployment assistance during that and it was like we need like this was like saving lives so I love those type of use cases where we're stepping way outside of the box I do have a passion for like giving back in philanthropy too so I'd love to see more of that like service now.org like I was so excited when I saw that roll out um um I'm close to a couple nonprofit organizations that you know I love to see service now integrated more there um to help them grow as well but yeah so I I love the edge cases I love the unique things I think um Erp is obviously a huge uh Market um you know I pitched that to Fred when we went to lunch like back in 2011 or 2012 and he he we weren't ready for it yet one thing at a time one thing at a time it's not just the platform I mean you got to have the go to Market strategy Salesforce behind it you know and because I saw that right away I said wow I spent you know five or so years in our Erp space at my old company sap no it was actually an old implementation of JD Edwards that was acquired by Oracle but I said yeah Oracle this is just tables and whatnot and their table Nam stink what's the master directory it's f911 how do you know that come on that's a table name or account or something oh but you hey you know what I you know what I we always joke about every once in a while is I think it's on the choice list where in service now where it's inactive is true versus active yeah that would be one thing I'd go back in history and change yeah that's one thing we have to change that's one thing I I just popped in my head yeah what is what is a dream application for uh that like what's what's something that you have that maybe like man if we build this in C I mean you built some amazing things like your karaoke application uh so you may have already there may not be nothing left for you oh there is there is okay all right all right yeah um I have had this dream for what is 2024 now I'd say at least eight years uh I would love to see an application this is mostly internal but there could be a possibility of spinning this to customers is a way to coordinate and organize all of our events yeah whether it's a Dev Meetup a snug Knowledge endtoend Management I would my dream is to see Bill McDermot on that stage saying everything you've done yeah get here today from all for papers to lab instances you know a lot of it is already there yeah we could do the rest I'm sure we could do the rest but there's always these tertiary tools that pop up for oh if you want to have a customer meeting you got to go over to this tool and use that and now you're battling resource strange because is the solution consultant supposed to be on the floor from noon to two or are they in a customer meeting because that's in a different tool having that endtoend visibility that process the the way to organize all of those you know and to have Bill up there saying every you know that would be the only TR in the world be amazing wouldn't that be cool yeah the service now and it may have I haven't seen this I haven't looked into it lately but I remember when I was back consultant the calendaring wasn't always easiest to use like you know that was always a challenge um have they they probably hopefully improve that over the years right calendars and Serv I hope I haven't taken a I know I haven't I mean we we we run our entire business on it so we do resourcing and you know I know that's improved like light years because I I remember during a PPM implantation years ago we were struggling with the resource app and and now like when we took a look at it even a couple years ago we were like oh this is this is this is this is great so um but yeah calendaring is tough and then integrating everyone always wanted to integrate with Outlook and um so I think finding a way to seamlessly do that would be would be cool this question actually came from the Glide fast team but um it's funny because I actually asked you this in New York and I remember like I mean it wasn't that long ago I think it was uh a couple months ago ago yeah a couple months ago but but it I kind of got chills a little bit the way you answered it um I asked you you know what what drives you to work so hard what what makes you get up every day um and do so much for the community in other people and um I loved your answer and I know I know everyone else is gonna remember what I said but I already know your answer I know you want me to answer for you what what motivates you to keep working so hard say things that I don't remember what I said just ask my wife no what what motivates me what gets me out of bed every day is the community it's everybody out there who is building on the platform using the platform configuring writing code whatever it is and just being able to I'm a curious individual especially when it comes to Tech and Science and whatnot is I want to learn and then I want to share and that turns into content that's reason why I have this job and that is changing lives and I didn't realize it at first I thought yeah I'm put out some good blogs or occasional script on this whatever uh but when you find out that it's impacting somebody's life and not just their life but their family yes those around there it's it's amazing the impact it has in fact I I adopted this on my personal website it says I learn I share I change lives and the the the feedback that I get it's it's you know once or twice a week on LinkedIn like I love your videos uh they help me pass this test or they got me in this job or just finish the nextg program and I'm on to your JavaScript video so that I can get ready for the the certified application developer like wow you know that stuff is almost five years old now still working good still working hey use it very very appreciative for the people that are because you know you can lead a horse to water but it's it's those people out there in the community that have the desire that have the passion that have the interest to soak it up and and apply it and change their lives their organizations it's just it really is motivating when you when you realize you're you're changing people's lives 100% And I I share that that opinion I mean that that's that's what gets me up every day is is is the Glide fast team and our customers but you know I feel like I have to work extra hard to to for for everybody else and um and I know they're working hard for for me so but but what you do Chuck is incredibly selfless you've you've been doing it since day one I am one of those people you've helped change uh their lives and you've changed my life believe it or not um I used to love watching your your your videos when I was trying to now if I try to watch it I don't even know what's going on so I tried to explain it so my mother can understand it so hopefully too confusing for you Mike let me know all right all right um so first of all than on behalf of the whole Glide fast team the whole service now Community thank you so much you're welcome we need we need you Chuck we we uh this this community needs you and uh we hope we hope you never leave the service now world and um and thank you for that and thank you for joining us on Glide and I can't wait to see this thing go viral do you have a topic in mind that you'd like to discuss reach out to us at glast.com And subscribe to our podcast for new episodes thanks for listening