CJ: All right, well, we're out.
We're rolling now.
Duke: How many episodes?
Almost a hundred episodes and we still can't get this right.
CJ: Oh, man.
Duke: All right, Corey, what are we talking about today?
CJ: Special episode today, Duke.
Today we have some awesome people here from one of our
favorite companies, Vivid Charts.
Duke: Vividcharts is one of my favorite companies.
I had an awesome two years there helping them set up, , one of my favorite
apps in the ServiceNow ecosystem.
I just can't wait to dig into this.
, with this on this episode, we have Rob Walsh, co founder and Ashley McGill.
Chief Marketing Officer.
What a treat.
Welcome guys.
Ashley M: Hey, so pumped to be here.
Rob W: Yeah, thanks for having us.
We're really pumped.
Duke: All right.
For those in the audience that haven't necessarily heard of VividCharts,
Rob, why don't you, why don't you tell us what VividCharts is all about?
Rob W: Yeah.
So vivid charts is an in platform application on the ServiceNow store,
and we specialize in automated operational reporting directly
out of the ServiceNow platform.
So it's a very horizontal app.
We've got use cases across the board, but at the end of the day, what
we try and focus on is looking at reporting as an end and workflow.
Right.
Service now provides reporting out of the platform.
They provide great analytics capabilities.
But since we launched in 2018, we really found there are certain constraints
that prevent customers from really getting an end to end automated report.
porting workflow, and that's what we focus our application around.
CJ: End to end reporting workflow.
Good.
Go ahead.
Elaborate a little bit more on that one, Rob.
I think having spoken to you about it before, I think it'd be really,
good information for an audience.
Rob W: Yeah.
If you think about when a customer buys into the ServiceNow platform, the
single platform approach, single data model, they're going to have such a
wide variety of apps and data types and workflows running through the
platform at any given point in time.
A part of that vision when they're buying into that platform approach is the
promise of visibility and transparency to executives, stakeholders, external
customers, many, many different personas throughout the organization, right?
And across all these different personas, You're going to run into many different
preferences, expectations, data needs, and expectations around the types
of reports they're interested in, what they should look and feel like,
and how they're delivered to them.
And so when you start to unpack that and talk with customers, you start to hit
some pretty real constraints in achieving, satisfying that wide range of stakeholder
expectations out of the platform.
So again, while ServiceNow provides great reporting and analytics capabilities
in the platform, there are so many situations where customers are having
operational reviews, talking about data and analytics in meetings, and
They don't have the data types and the report types that they need to actually
facilitate these different interactions.
So what VividCharts focuses on is identifying these constraints.
mapping them to operational scenarios where you're presenting data, you're
discussing data, you're distributing data and providing new visuals and
report types that close that end to end reporting workflow, not just self
service dashboards that you can click around and interact with on your own.
Duke: Hey, Rob, I'm wondering if you could like getting to brass tacks, who
hurts the most for not having vivid charts and how would they express that pain?
And
Rob W: Yeah.
I think there's two lenses to look at that question.
There is who is actually creating the reports, right?
And what hurts for them.
And who's receiving the reports and what hurts for that.
So if you think about who's receiving the reports, they're probably delivering
a set of expectations, questions they want answers to, key strategic
outcomes they're driving towards, and they want reports and data.
To back them up in that process, right?
How do we drive towards these outcomes?
We want these questions answered, right?
So give me data and reporting that helps us with that, right?
So that takes us to the report builders who have to figure out
a way to make that happen, right?
And when you start to hit the constraints and trying to figure out what are the
best ways we can deliver on that set of requirements for the end audience,
that's where it starts to get pretty painful where If you have a set of
requirements that you can't achieve in the ServiceNow platform, where do we go?
We go to places like Excel, PowerPoint that are easy to wield,
their tools we're familiar with.
So we have a lot of flexibility there and we can maybe deliver on the
requirements, but it takes an immense amount of work and exploration to
actually put it all together, right?
And if you achieve that in Excel, in PowerPoint, you might have
just signed up for that chore to take place on a monthly basis.
If that audience wants it every single month.
So there's pain on the receiving side where they have to wait until that report
builder or data analyst can actually put.
what they're asking for together, right?
And they want to make decisions on demand.
And then there's pain in who is actually going out and figuring out how do we
deliver on this set of requirements?
And that's the time suck, right?
So if you, you know, look at an automated end and reporting workflow, if we can
make that process easier for the builder, allow them to deliver on the requirements
in a quicker, more efficient way.
But also have it in platform so that once they built it, it's there
on demand in an automated fashion.
Whenever that audience wants it, that's what I talk, or that's what I mean.
When I say end to end reporting workflow, we automate that manual work for the
builder and then make it available on demand for that, the end customer.
Duke: Do you mind if I just give an example from my time at
Rob W: I'd love that.
Duke: VividCharts?
Okay, so it's like getting right to specifics.
, I remember I worked in ITBM consulting, or SPM now, I guess, project and
portfolio management for a couple of years before I started VividCharts.
And I just remember how much crazy work it was to do project status reports.
And we know that there's a project status report tool in service now.
And it's...
You know, it's okay, but that's the hard limit.
Um, it's okay.
It's all right.
Right.
Sorry, but I'm not waking up early to play with it.
And so what happens is the project managers typically like run a bunch
of separate reports in service now, and then copy and paste those into
PowerPoint so that they can put their own branding and stuff around it.
And , you can't understate the branding because some of these PMOs are talking
to people outside the organization.
And what is it going to look like to see this?
You know, I mean that the whole like, okay, service now interface for the
project status report, which is a definitive bias for internal stakeholders.
So the problem was the right kind of data wasn't on the immutable
service now project status,
CJ: talking
Duke: it.
So you couldn't show it outside the organization.
What a waste of time for the people who actually reported
outside of the organization.
So with vivid charts, they built a solution using all the VividCharts
components, nothing super special, to basically make a fully brandable,
configurable project status report.
And it was awesome!
I don't know if I could ask how much of the sales pipeline is that thing alone,
Rob, but it was really successful.
But it goes to just underscore how good the app is.
Rob W: Yeah.
I mean, if you look at the pipeline project status is a big component
within that, but what's interesting about what's happened since we've.
You know, we took that use case, right?
Exactly how you described.
You get a precision control over the data points that you
want on your status report.
You get precision control over the aesthetics and branding.
So it matches your corporate standard.
And then you can automate and distribute in a way that makes sense for whoever
you're serving it up for, right?
If it's C suite, or if they're outside of the organization, like you mentioned.
And what's interesting after we, you know, started rolling that
use case out with different PMOs.
We started to get a pretty natural set of questions around applying
that same concept, but across many other record types, right?
So within SPM, you've got program status reporting.
You've got demands that you might want to summarize in a very concise business case
format that's easy to review and discuss.
You might have portfolio steering committees that
are meeting and looking at.
Both single project status reports, but also need aggregate level portfolio
information in the presentation.
So it's really organically grown where we've taken that concept, applied it to
different record types, and then also combined it with some of the other report
types we do for automated slide decks and dashboarding to really give PMOs and ITSM
teams and other teams in the platform.
A wide range of reporting tools to meet these many different expectations
that they have from stakeholders.
Ashley M: Yeah.
And if I could add a little bit to what Rob just said, I love the
portfolio steering committee deck.
, use case specifically, because at some of these large companies, leveraging
service now, you know, enterprise companies, leveraging service.
Now, they can have 5, 6, 7 upwards of that steering committees that meet
every month and each of those decks needs to look slightly different.
Each of this.
Those who
are reporting out portfolio.
Sometimes it's the same portfolio, but they have a different set
of, stakeholders who need to see different types of information.
And the expectation is that it's all going to be in a slide deck, right?
Some of those stakeholders who need that information may not
be in service now regularly.
They may be unfamiliar with how to build reports with how to navigate it.
And ultimately, those people want to consume that
information in a presentation.
And so the ability to automate that slide editor, that slide UI directly
in the platform and eliminate the need of exporting information external
to the platform only to manipulate.
For additional chart types in Excel or actually spend time formatting
those PowerPoints, those portfolio managers, those program managers can
spend more time actually managing what matters, which is their projects.
Right.
And build better business outcomes, but still ensure that the organization
is getting the information they need in a timely and sort of
aesthetically pleasing manner.
Yeah.
CJ: Silence.
Ashley M: You spend a lot of time formatting slides, you know, and
it's been accepted for a long time.
And I think that the, the turning point for companies that are
paying the amount of money they pay to have these giant service.
Now, instances, if you are spending all of that time, making sure that your data is.
Up to date and correct and service.
Now, shouldn't the reward be automatic slide deck creation with that data?
Once you've taken the time to set up the template, obviously,
I mean, I certainly think so.
We shouldn't be asking them to swivel chair into multiple different programs
to get that presentation that they need.
CJ: Amen.
The first thing that catches my, ear when I've listened to both now, , you and
Ashley is the end platform aspect of this.
And, like Rob, paint on slides, I peened when you said reduced time in Excel.
Because the Excel is not my favorite, place to spend my time.
And like you mentioned, , if you're able to recapture that time and spend more of
it in service now, not only does it, help you and your reporting aspects and your
dashboard and things of that nature, but, , having clean data and service now helps
drive all your processes in the right way.
Rob W: Yeah, absolutely.
And the clean data is a really important point to call out on that, Corey.
And when we think about automating presentation or reporting outputs, it
creates a much better and more aligned incentive to keep the data up to date
and current in the platform, right?
If you're a project manager out there, and you're having to produce your query.
Report that you're needing for stakeholders off of the platform.
It's a, it's an incentive problem.
You might not go in and actually update the data in service.
Now you might forget to do it or just neglect it altogether.
So when you automate that output from the system, you actually incentivize
adoption of the platform, the processes and good data quality as a result.
, CJ: absolutely.
If you make, , getting the value contingent on, the data being
clean and service now, right?
Like, all of a sudden, you notice that more people are using service now, and
that's the, that's 1 of the ultimate, , outcomes that you want out of any
service now, , implementation anyway.
So vivid charts is.
Really kind of that the situation where you can sometimes look at it as the end
of the pipeline, the presentation to to management part of the pipeline, but it's
really driving the very beginning of the pipeline to write like the use of service.
Now, the clean data, the more time spent there and less time
spent than other applications.
You guys have
Rob W: Yeah, absolutely.
And I'll.
I'll, I'll tee the Duke up on this one, I know he preaches outcomes
and we talks about reporting.
He's really upfront about when you're building a reporting program, right?
Put outcomes at the front of it.
What questions do you want it to answer?
And when you get very prescriptive on that piece.
That's where we tie in our automated operational reporting.
If we know the questions we want answered, we know the precise
data points format of the report.
We want generated.
That's where you get a lot of power out of the automation and it's aligned to the,
you know, the key outcomes and decisions you want to drive in the process.
So, Robert, I think.
In our conversations in the past, that's been a consistent theme, and
I think it's only proven more true the more, we've put VividCharts
out there in different use cases.
Duke: Most definitely, like, in my mind, there's, there's really 3 things
that Personas that do reporting right?
And when you think about when somebody buys any feature in service
now, it's usually some top end stakeholder who is the buyer, right?
And they make the decisions.
But that person is rarely like in service now, right?
They pass it down to somebody more operational to a get the deployment
done and then be do the work.
And so most of the reports that we see are for what I call operators
and operators are the people who you.
do the work and they just need to know what's the next best thing for me to
work on for this process to succeed.
They aren't looking at the big picture, you know, the big, you know, the big
line graph that should move up or down depending on our preferences.
They're just looking at what's the next best task.
And then sometimes you have an analyst layer in there that says,
are we or aren't we getting closer?
But it rarely goes all the way up to what I call the stakeholder.
And like the person who's going to make decisions based off of the outcomes
that we should be reporting on, right?
We have these indicators moving up, these indicators moving down.
How shall we spend our very limited managerial energies?
We can't just say move everything up.
We can't do that.
We have to be judicious with our energy.
And the one thing I always loved about VividCharts was that finally
that stakeholder layer has a reason to be in service now.
The PA dashboards are way too difficult.
They're way too mechanically in depth.
VividCharts can give them a simplified, branded, interface that's way easier
to build using the same kind of PA components, the same ServiceNow data,
and they can have it on their desk whenever you want, even in slideshow form.
Sorry, I totally ranted on you.
Rob W: It was a great rant.
I'm glad you did.
And I think everything you're outlining is so true.
And what we hear with customers on a weekly basis as we're
talking with them, right?
We've talked a lot about different personas, different
stakeholders, and that comes with different expectations and needs.
So while ServiceNow again provides really great Thank you.
Operational reporting analytics solutions where you can go in depth layer into
layer of the data when you got to surface that up and really tell a story with it.
That's the gap and that's where vivid charts being in the service now
platform become so powerful because we can get to all of that data, whether
it's standard table data, whether it's performance analytics data.
Right.
We can get to all of that data, but put the nice polished front end to it
that suits these different audiences.
Ashley M: And another point this brings up for me, as we talk about this is we
push this idea of freeing your service.
Now, data democratizing your service.
Now, data.
You shouldn't have to go through a bottleneck or a funnel of operators
who have to build reports on demand for you, or, you know, you're only
seeing that information monthly.
Because that's when something's being exported from the platform and
being served up to decision makers, you actually now have the ability
to make decisions in real time because you always have access to it.
And to your point, Rob, in a platform in a digestible format, such as a slide deck,
, while still driving people to service now.
CJ: I'll tell you , what I just loved about what you just said.
, so make decisions in real time, right?
Due to , having constant access to that data.
When I'm working with my clients, 1 of the things that is always.
, the struggle, is helping management make those real time decisions
often because the data that they're working with is old, right?
Like we've mentioned, right, , somebody's exported it to excel and now they're doing
some kind of manipulation or someone's exported it and they've taken the data
and doing something in PowerPoint.
And by the time it works its way through all the different layers of
management and gets to whatever meeting that is going to be presented in.
It's weeks old typically, right?
And so you don't even know now if you're making the decision based on
what is now, you only know that you're making a decision about a snapshot
in time that might no longer be relevant, you know, and that's extremely
important when you're doing resource management and you're thinking about,
okay, how do I knock this Q down?
Right?
Like, do I have You know, a little bit more budget.
Do I bring in more people so that we can , knock down this backlog or, something
else, but the backlog might already be gone by the time you're reviewing
, that data with, , vivid charts, right?
Like that , gets rid of that process.
You always know where you are.
Ashley M: Yeah, absolutely.
And that we talk a lot about enabling agile, what I call
agile strategic planning.
It's been a buzzword in the digital transformation world
for a couple of years now.
And so this idea that an annual planning model, an annual strategy
planning model is outdated.
And if you can't be more nimble than that, you're not going to
win in the marketplace anymore.
So why are we always reporting on and consuming stale data?
If the idea is to get to the root of the problem as quickly as possible, you
brought up resource management, which I think is super important as well.
It's hard enough to manage resources, especially at a large company, when
you're looking at stale data all the time.
So all these things lead back to the ability to promote agile
planning within your organization and be as nimble as possible.
CJ: Absolutely.
Duke: So a little earlier, we talked about, that the personas of reporting
and my model for doing reporting, but I think that is interesting
segue to some really, cool event.
, that vivid charts has coming up, , actually, , you want to talk to us
about the upcoming digital conference?
Ashley M: Yeah, definitely.
I can take the beginning of that so we have a digital conference
coming up on October 12th next Thursday, , called real time.
, the idea is that exactly what we've just been talking about our goal as vivid
charts as a company, our mission statement really is to bring people as close to
their service now data as possible.
You were getting updates.
Your reports to your data to your decision making in real time as soon as
that data is live in service now, and you've refreshed your reporting outlook.
You can instantly see that data in a format.
That's been built for you by your report builders in the organization.
We have been thrilled with the willingness of people in the ServiceNow
community to participate in this and to come and speak on our behalf on
the importance of reporting , data visualizations, how people consume
information that comes out of ServiceNow.
So we've got a couple independent experts like yourself, , that
we're really excited to have.
And I would love if you talk about your session a little bit when I'm done, we've
got two ServiceNow product managers.
Who specialize in process mining and analytics to come speak about those.
, and we have four customer stories for people who have taken vivid charts
in a variety of different functional areas and really seen a huge upswing
in the amount of productivity and.
Efficiency that they see in those areas that they've automated that reporting.
You free up so many resource hours.
In fact, we have some really great resource calculators.
If anybody's interested in exactly how many resource hours and what
that translates to into cost resource costs at the end of
the year that you're reclaiming.
And these are not small numbers.
These are numbers in the hundreds of thousands up to a
million dollars a year, right?
In resource you're saving by automating that reporting so people can get back
to the business of driving results.
That's what next week's conference is all about.
It's all about building that ServiceNow community around data and analytics
and why it's so important, highlighting obviously the areas that ViviCharps helps
people accomplish those goals, but then also creating a network of people who
are willing to share and educate, right, and sort of move the process forward.
Duke: Cori said the M word.
Millions,
CJ: Yeah, yeah, oh, I'm sorry, yes, , this is a huge, huge, I like, I don't
understand why, yeah, it's crazy, right?
Like , why, um, I can't understand why, not everyone, , is actually
subscribed here to vivid charts, right?
Because , when you start to think about it, right.
And everything you just said that value, that recap, recapturing all that
time that you're spending now on doing something that you've probably normalized
because businesses have normalized this.
Data driven reporting kind of process over time, where it's just going to
take this amount of time and you're just going to have to use these five different
applications and somebody is just going to have to spend four days on a deck, right?
And we've all normalized then it's just kind of a fact of life.
And what you're saying is that's all wrong.
Ashley M: Right.
You have to meet the expectation, you know, and just to give a throw out
a couple more numbers that help you get to that million dollar figure.
If you're a company that has 500 active projects and the people you have building
reporting are expensive resources.
Think, project managers service.
Now, highly trained personnel think about what they cost an hour.
And to your point, it takes 1.
Thank you.
project manager four days to build one deck that they've got to do every month.
Think about the project managers who have to report on their projects weekly.
Think about how much time it takes them over the course of a year.
So those numbers add up really quickly.
Duke: Yeah,
CJ: Yeah, are they doing anything other than building the deck
Duke: Right.
Well, I mean, it, it takes away from their key thing, which is project
management, and that requires a lot of time attention case.
Nobody's noticed before.
CJ: and make a break on projects?
Duke: what I love about this is it just so many times I just like I've been
griping about this for almost two decades, even before my service now life is just
like you deploy a tool and like item number seven on the scope of work is do
reporting and that's all the line says before it goes into like do documentation.
It's just and what it ends up being is this gigantic afterthought.
And what that ends up being is just like every few days you're
the admin of the tool and somebody says, oh, I just I need this.
But I need this list of of tickets by priority.
And then 3 days later, it's like, no, I don't need it by priority by category.
And they just can't understand why they don't get what they want.
Because you're not looking at the big picture, but sorry, , actually,
can you tell us when this event is?
Ashley M: Oh, yeah, let me just do the quick, , rundown of
exactly what we're talking about.
So we're doing 6 hours for this digital conference, 11 am to 5
PM on Thursday, October 12th.
, it's all free to attend.
There are 14 sessions.
That compromise three different tracks for all different types of stakeholders.
We want everybody to feel welcome and feel like there's content
that they can get value out of.
So we've got a technical track where we're going to do two workshops that
are being hosted by our internal VividChart ServiceNow developers.
One of them is being hosted by Rob Walsh himself.
We're going to be in the tool actually building and showing people
how to get to some end results that we think they'd really like to
see within their own organization.
Then we have a process track.
So think workflow.
Think, , mid manager level value, right?
Like, I've still got hands on keyboard trying to figure out
how to build these things.
, but maybe I'm not the person who's actually figuring out what
tables to pull from, et cetera.
I'm focused on outcomes and then we've got the strategic track.
So that's going to be for decision makers for executives.
People are typically only consuming the reporting, but they're often the people
signing the check for service now, right?
The instance.
So we want to make sure people understand, you know, you've spent
all this time and investment and resources to get your service.
Now, instance up and running, get everybody trained on it.
Now, what are you doing with that data?
Well, you're not the 1 personally.
That's going to be managing it.
You should care because it's going to help drive your service.
Now, adoption.
It's going to make the product stickier within the organization and it's going
to make your implementation look that much better because you've figured
reporting out as you're going into it as opposed to an afterthought.
So, yeah, 14 sessions.
Six hours.
We're going to have a fun, happy hour at the end with some service.
Now, trivia be able to win some prizes and again, just a whole host of dynamic
speakers, both vivid charts and external, and we're really excited about it.
Duke: Okay.
Rob W: And I think, Corey, you use the term this has been normalized in
organizations, this way of reporting.
And what's really great about this event, in my opinion, is You're
going to hear from your peers that that doesn't have to be the case.
They're going to show you, Hey, we did it and here's how we did it.
Right.
And that's, really the spirit of the ServiceNow community at large.
And part of why it's been such a successful platform is because
the community shares their success stories for others to learn from.
So.
Again, we're really excited to have some great customers presenting.
CDW, their managed service provider team is going to be presenting on
automated customer facing reporting.
We're going to have GlideFast presenting on automated customer
facing status reporting.
We're going to have leaders from the Teradata and Cignet PMOs talking
about how they've operationalized automated reporting within their PMOs.
And, , all of these people are your peers and they've, done it
with our help, they've done it with their internal resources.
So I think it is really going to be a great event to learn, but also to, to
really connect the dot to where the way you're doing it today, isn't the
way that you maybe should be doing it.
And taking the leap isn't as difficult as you might think it is.
CJ: Yeah, that's great.
And , one of the, sessions that they really caught my eye, Rob.
Um, Robin Ashley is vivid charts versus PowerPoint.
The heavyweight report bill showed out.
Duke: nice.
Who's doing that?
Ashley M: Uh, Ksenia, our director of customer success is going to
be the main speaker on that one.
And so the idea is she's going to take a desired outcome, a report that she
wants to build with ServiceNow data.
She's going to pre record herself doing it in PowerPoint versus setting it up in
a VividCharts template in the platform.
And then we're going to play them side by side and she's going to provide commentary
on how much easier it is and the things that you're missing when you think
you're being efficient in PowerPoint.
So that one's going to be really fun.
CJ: I love this.
I love this.
This is this right here, this session is going to illustrate like
all the value right there that vivid charts brings to the table, right?
Because you're going to see.
Transcribed by https: otter.
ai Immediately, like how much better it is to do things in vivid charts
than it's to do in PowerPoint.
And I'm Microsoft certified.
I've been in it for a long, long time, right?
Like, I do not like PowerPoint.
I am not a fan of Excel, right?
. So, , I'm definitely in, in the audience of.
Yes.
Move it all to service.
Now move it to vivid charts.
Let's do everything there.
Let's leave these kind of relics of the past , behind, especially
if you've already, if the data's already in service now.
I'm looking very forward, very much forward to this.
In addition to, , a very on a Duke session about building service now
reporting program that matters.
Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Duke: Um, sure.
I guess the thing that I am most passionate about is, everything
that happens before you realize the genius of vivid charts, right?
going from that stage of, air quotes do reporting to making a
solution that actually matters that actually moves the needle.
I can't even calculate the amount of money that has been spent on service
now that hasn't even at the start.
At the start, talked about what outcomes do we expect are going to improve.
CJ: Yes,
Duke: I'd take like 9 out of 10 customers that just say,
okay, we got to implement ITSM.
If you ask them, what outcomes does incident manage, incident management
provide, and how do you know it's working?
Like how many out of 10, Corey, do you think would just
stare blankly back at you?
CJ: uh, 9 10 didn't, then it's approved.
Duke: I would, I would agree.
And so it's like somebody has to care about building a solution that matters.
And that's what I love about the ServiceNow ecosystem.
everybody's baller, right?
They're just like, Oh my goodness.
Finally, a lever that I can use to up my career.
I can slay some dragons with this tool, look like a hero.
And that gets me to the next stage of my life.
So I'm banking on the people who want to slay dragons will listen to this
story, will listen to this, lecture that teaches you how to actually build
a reporting paradigm and transition from just being that poor SOB that's
got to listen to like the next different way somebody wants a list.
View grouped going from just these ad hoc reports by the dozen to building
a program, a reporting program that takes whole solutions from deployment
to the visualization of wow, this is working well, this was money well spent,
CJ: Yes.
Duke: or we're not getting the value yet.
And here's where it's going wrong.
CJ: Yes.
Duke: did that answer ranted there a bit,
CJ: No, no, absolutely.
Right.
And I'm going to take this, a little bit to a meta level.
. And talk about the outcomes of, building a reporting program around outcomes.
. And 1 of and that may come is that you get a, you end up with a service
now, , platform and instance, . That is more helpful to the business
than it's ever been before.
. And that's one of the things that we're seeing now in this industry kind of
writ large is that, , a lot of folks have been service now customers now
for quite a while, and they're starting to get to that point where, they're
looking to get more out of the platform, more out of the instance, right?
And they don't necessarily know where to go or where to look right.
And I'm looking at how vivid charts can actually provide help provide
that direction on how to take that service now program to the next level.
Duke: Yeah, like I guess part of what inspires it is like 17, 18
years ago when I was at a company where we're using, we're using
magic, a Corey, you know, magic,
CJ: Oh, yeah.
Duke: weren't using, we weren't using service now and.
Every single week, one group manager would be like, I need
you to tweak this report for me.
it's my good morning.
Here's what we have to worry about.
And God helped them all.
They were all legit trying to, at least they're reaching out to reporting
and saying, here's how I need to improve the performance of my team.
But it was like 20 of these people, over 20, like individual group managers all
like with their own separate morning.
Like hit list report,
CJ: Yep.
, Duke: each of them were getting some parts right, but nobody
was seeing big picture stuff.
And I was so like, I just, I just spent so much time on it.
So much time.
And then, you know, we had crystal reports.
in magic, right?
Crystal reports.
Oh,
CJ: that was good stuff.
Duke: I would have preferred having vivid charts, but crystal reports was nice.
And I just decided I took a whole bunch of time off hours.
I built a beautiful single crystal report that took the best ideas of everybody.
And put it on one chart and it showed them , here's the, your super
mega ultras that you got to worry about, or everybody's fired, right?
Here's other stuff you might be interested in.
Here's some lightweight trending.
And it was just game breaking.
they were so amazed by it.
but I didn't get there from nothing.
I had to really think about what makes a good report, a good report and.
you know, I moved a gigantic mountain with that.
I don't know where I'm going with this, but essentially, it's just if you want
to go from somebody who's just filing ad hoc reports to being the driver of
other teams being super satisfied with being able to build their own case.
You know, for anything, here's why we're doing awesome.
Here's where we're lacking extra managerial energy or resources.
You can't do that with a whole ton of forethought and I'm going
to teach you the forethought.
I just did a whole second pitch.
That's awesome.
But it's my podcast, so I don't feel sorry.
CJ: So, one of the questions that I wanted to ask is, , how did you all decide
to throw a digital conference, right?
, this doesn't seem to me like something that you do on a whim,
nor does it seem to, be something that, is a small endeavor.
So I'm just wondering, like, you know, how you woke up one day and said, you know
what, we should do a digital conference.
Thank you.
Ashley M: no, that's a great question.
well, I mean, the first thing I'll say is, , obviously our whole product.
Positioning proposition is built around efficiency, right?
And being able to do things digitally and in real time.
So I feel like it really played into kind of our core mission and what
we're after when we talk about the value that we provide our customers.
But really, I think the impetus goes back to knowledge in May.
Um, it's my first time attending ServiceNow's knowledge conference in May.
We brought a large team.
We got a ton of value out of it.
Simply because you gather all of these really amazing people on their service
and service now community in one space.
But I was really blown away with the level of speakers that they
were able to pull in and have speak on a variety of different topics.
And as much as we were there to build brand awareness and show people why
Vivi, you know, why and how Vivi charts could help them in their business.
It was also great to sit on some of those sessions and just learn a ton.
And so as a business, we are really focused on.
Providing value back to the community.
And I felt like what a low tension way to get a bunch of people together
and continue to build the service now community and position vivid charts
in the center of it, then to have this digital conference where we get
all these amazing people together who are going to speak on different
topics and provide a ton of value.
, to our current and hopefully future customers, right?
To your point, it's not a small endeavor, but it's absolutely been a labor of love.
And I just think that the gains from it will continue far beyond the event.
There's going to be so much content that we're going to be able to put out
into the world to help people learn how to better utilize their service.
Now, data, it just will continue to give back.
I believe long after the conference.
CJ: Yeah, I'll be honest,
Duke: go ahead.
Thank you.
CJ: Let me start that over.
I'll be honest.
This is the 1st digital conference that I'm actually looking forward to, right?
You know, that like most of the time.
, you go to a digital conference or you, or one, , attempts to put one of these
things on and , the level of content versus, um, it, it just doesn't seem like
they've thought it through in the way that you all have, this feels very cohesive.
It feels like you have something for everyone, no matter what part
of their career they're in or what type of career they're in.
And I feel like it's going to answer a lot of questions around.
Not only vivid charts, but reporting and outcomes related to reporting
and why all of this matters.
Ashley M: Yeah.
I mean, those are such thoughtful compliments, two
cliches that come to mind.
One is content is king, right?
It's really easy, especially as a marketer to get preoccupied with how things look
and how you're presented and positioned.
And yes, of course I care about those things, but if the content wasn't going
to be good, people weren't going to come.
And then the other cliche is that a rising tide.
Lifts all boats.
Right?
I think I got that right.
And simply that means is we all learn together and grow in our understanding
of how best to utilize service.
Now, obviously, hopefully vivid charts wins in terms of showing people the value
that comes with not letting your service.
Now reporting be an afterthought, but it also just helps to educate
people to your point at any area of their any stage of their career as
far as service now goes, to better educate themselves on these topics.
So we are really thrilled.
Duke: right, we are at 40 minutes of record.
Rob, Ashley, any last words for the audience?
Rob W: for real time.
Ashley M: Right.
Gina is going to be a party.
CJ: Yeah, so where can we find it?
Duke: we'll put the links in the, in the description below.
and also wherever you see this posted on social media.
So we'll show both the links for the real time event.
And, Ashley, if you could also send me the resource calculators you
were talking about earlier, we'll put that in the description below.
Ashley M: I will say that if you head to vividcharts.
com, it's the first thing you're going to see.
There's a banner at the top of every single one of my web pages right now with
a link to take you directly to register.
So if you don't want to go searching for other links, that's
a really easy way to find it.
CJ: Awesome.
Duke: All right.
I guess we're going to end it here.
Rob, Ashley, such a pleasure.
Thank you for making time for us.
Rob W: Corey, thank you so much for having us.
This was a blast.
CJ: That was amazing.
Really, really appreciate you all's time.