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Authentic, Authoritative, Unapologetic ServiceNow commentary by Cory "CJ" Wesley and Robert "The Duke" Fedoruk
CJ: All right, we're recording.
Duke: Pretty smooth.
I think that went pretty smooth, right?
CJ: I think so.
I think so.
I mean, we
Duke: A hundred ish episodes.
I'm glad we finally got that right.
Damien: We have a saying in
the UK smooth as a baby's bum.
I'm not sure how appropriate that
resonates with you fellows in the US.
CJ: I've, I've heard it before
and I would agree on this.
Duke: Yeah.
All right.
Well, I think we blew the surprise,
but Corey, why don't you tell
everybody, , what we're doing today?
CJ: Oh man, duke.
So today we have a very special guest.
, we have Damien Davis
with us from ServiceNow.
Damien, welcome
Damien: thanks guys.
Thanks Corey.
Thanks, Rob.
Duke: So good to have you here, man.
, so you're a pretty big name in the
ServiceNow community, but for those
who don't know who you are, why don't
you give just a really short intro?
, Damien: yeah, well, I am actually short.
I'm five six, a hundred sixty
eight centimeters, so yeah.
I'm Damien Davis and I,
and I'm the short guy.
CJ: And that's the way
we start, CJ in the Duke.
Damien: Yeah,
, Duke: so I've been dying to have you
on, , the show, , you always seem
to be in the epicenter of the new and
groundbreaking stuff at ServiceNow yet.
I'm still not exactly
sure what you do there.
Damien: Neither is my boss.
, um,
CJ: Yeah.
, Damien: so I work in ServiceNow, as
you know, I've been at the company for.
Quite some time.
, in my role today, , I am
in product management for
ServiceNow's ITSM business unit.
So being in the product organization,
gives me a fortunate position to be at the
forefront and center of all the latest and
greatest innovations, all the shiny toys.
Duke: Nice.
I'm glad to hear that there is
still , innovations and shiny toys
when we're dealing with , right,
which was the of processes and,
uh, it's a decades old, it's almost
half a century old, the discipline.
in the last couple of years, what's
been your favorite innovations?
, Damien: obviously I'm a
huge tech geek, right?
I love innovation.
I love technology at home.
I embrace it my whole
house here in the UK.
I'm using smart lighting, smart heating,
you know, using voice assistance.
So in the workplace, like you say,
when you're looking at a robust.
An old school set of processes like ITSM,
you know, running off the core of ITIL
processes for help desk organizations,
incident, problem and change.
It can become very effective for
a business, but it doesn't become
very exciting from time to time.
So my job in the last few years has
been incorporating some of the latest
and greatest AI technologies like
virtual agent chatbots, like machine
learning, predictive intelligence.
And more recently, Gen
AI, how can we adopt those
technologies into ITSM use cases?
And it's been pretty exciting.
CJ: you said you're a bit of a techie
and so you came on the right show.
I love to hear all about the
smart automation, the smart
home that you built, right?
Like, cause I got the same
thing, smart lighting.
I've I'm using service now
to control a few things here,
including my echo be, to keep the.
House at the right temperature, depending
on what time it is and that sort of thing.
Yeah.
And, and I won't brag about having my
Tesla connected to service now either, but
Damien: Nice.
CJ: so tell me, how do you, you know,
as a techie, and as Duke just mentioned
about ITSM, and how, it's a long running
practice that's been, evolving over time.
Tell me how you mesh the two.
Damien: How I mesh the two.
it kind of happens organically, , in
my role, , the way that we're
structured in service now in
my business unit is we have.
what you might think of as
traditional product managers, they
are managing products and within
ServiceNow's portfolio of ITSM,
think about incident as a product.
For example, we have a product
manager whose day to day job from
the moment they wake up to the
moment they go to bed is thinking
about how can we make that incident
module better similarly for change.
And you may or may not know
that there's nearly 40, 4 0
products within the ITSM suite.
Now, my role.
Is almost like an extended
layer of those product managers.
I'm in what we call the outbound arm of
product management and in the outbound
layer, my job is effectively twofold.
One it's to represent those product
managers with any engagements I have with.
Customers, partners,
ServiceNow sales resources.
And secondly, it's more importantly,
it's to act as voice of the customer.
As you guys have both seen, you know, I
spent a lot of time on LinkedIn, going
to ServiceNow events, traveling around
the world, loving the sound of my own
voice, talking to customers, but most
important in replacement to talking is
listening and gathering feedback that I
can turn into actionable insights that
helps us drive the product roadmap.
CJ: I love that, the emphasis on
listening, because from where I've
sitting right, like one of the primary
jobs of a folks like us, is to build
those relationships and you can't
build those relationships unless
you're listening to folks like you're
trying to understand them, and, and
it sounds like there's a lot of focus
on that and what you do day to day.
Damien: Absolutely.
You know, one of my favorite elements
of the role that gives me a lot of job
satisfaction is meeting with ServiceNow
customers, hearing about the use cases
that they're driving within their own
organizations, you know, whether I'm
talking, yeah, whether it's someone
in a, bank or a financial services
industry, or maybe, more recently,
I've had the privilege of going and
visiting the Aston Martin Formula One
team and looking at how I know, right.
And looking at how they plan
to use ServiceNow to literally
make the car go faster.
CJ: that's awesome.
I'm just going to repeat that back
just to make sure I heard it right.
Are you saying that Ashton Martin is using
service now to make the cargo faster?
Damien: So Aston Martin's Formula One team
at late last year, they announced a strong
strategic partnership with ServiceNow
as our innovation technology partner.
Now there's a long road ahead of us.
You know, we're in the early
days of implementation here.
Right.
And, I can't really talk about the
detailed specifics because, there's
commercial confidentiality, but net net.
Aston Martin Formula One team is going to
be using ServiceNow to drive innovation,
to drive operational efficiencies.
And ultimately those efficiencies
are , what can make the difference
between that car, fractions of second,
whether you're a Formula One fan or not,
if you watch those cars on the track.
You watch them overqualifying,
the fastest car may do a lap
in one minute, 30 seconds.
The slowest car may do it in one minute,
30 and a half seconds, and you got 20
cars on the grid, so those marginal gains
are what really drives the difference
between winners and losers in Formula One.
And think about all the data
that can be captured in service.
Now, think about things like
tire temperatures, you know,
heartbeat ratios for the drivers.
There's just so much data.
That could be channeled into ServiceNow
through all of the analytics capabilities.
And, I'm just really excited
about what the future can hold.
CJ: Wow.
Duke: I feel like it's my
first day on surface now again,
CJ: Right.
Duke: and it's just like, wait a minute.
This can do way more than, I till, , it
Damien: Yeah.
So it's not just a ticketing tool.
Let's, let's just get, let's
just break that stigma.
It's not just a ticketing tool.
CJ: Yes.
Duke: right?
I mean, we've been saying it for almost
two decades now, but, I don't know.
But
Damien: It's funny you say that Rob.
ServiceNow, ServiceNow is two decades
old this June, 20 years old in June.
Duke: Yeah, which is crazy.
it's been such a journey now.
I never like marked the date.
And so I'm always guessing like how
many, how many years do I have now?
A
Damien: Well, I'm a newbie.
I I've only been with the
company for 13 of those 20 years
CJ: Just almost 75 percent
of the, of the lifetime.
Duke: what employee number are you?
Damien: badge number or of
the remaining employees.
Duke: No, I'm just like, in what order?
Which, which number were you?
Damien: well, my badge number is,
is yeah, my badge number is 6 8 8.
So that means since service
now was born in 2004.
I would have likely been the 688th
person to walk through a door out
of full time employees, contractors,
technical people, part time interns, etc.
But at the time I joined the company,
I remember that our workforce
globally was around 350 people.
And of those 350, I'm the
138th longest serving in terms
of who's still there today.
CJ: Wow.
Duke: and how big, how big are we now?
Damien: an OG.
I think , there are some OGs that I have
a huge, tremendous amount of respect for.
People like Eric Schroeder,
Wally Marks, who were literally
there with Fred building those.
Initial concepts, you know, I joined the
gravy trainer a couple of years later,
but, I, you know, I've certainly like
to feel I've contributed along the way.
Duke: could you tell us any stories
where you saw something and you're
like, that's not going to work?
but it really caught fire.
Damien: Um, well, um, there, there is
a few, I guess I have to be cautious.
This is going out in the public domain,
Duke: I didn't yeah, I didn't want
to, like, say it the opposite way.
Like, what did everybody
think was going to happen?
And it turned out not
Damien: when I joined, yeah.
When I joined, you may remember
you guys obviously from the, being
in the ecosystem for so long, our
release names were not always named
after cities in alphabetical order.
You know, when I tuned, we were on a
release that was literally called June
2011 and they were named after seasons.
You know, we have fall, winter, June, and,
Early in 2012, we were about to launch
a whole series of releases that were
named after cities in alphabetical order.
And you guys both, you know,
pop quiz, what was the first
release named after letter A,
Duke: Did
Damien: a bonus point.
Now you remember it was
Aspen, but did you know it was
actually gonna be called Athens
CJ: No, didn't know
Damien: our releases, you know,
based on stability and quality.
And we're going to name
them off the major cities.
And he said, hang on a minute,
we've got Athens as the target city.
Now at that time, the Greek
economy was going through a little
bit of turmoil, shall we say?
You can Google your history for that time.
And Fred was not happy
about the idea of naming.
Our first major release after a city that
was about to tank the European economy.
So about four weeks before go live, it was
renamed to Aspen and the rest is history.
CJ: Well, you know, I think I, I
agree with, , Fred on this one.
I can very much remember, that time in
history and I think, switching to Aspen,
, from Athens was probably a good call.
Duke: But you still haven't
answered the question.
CJ: I love it.
, so Damien, tell me a little
bit about how you got to where
you are now in ServiceNow.
having been there for 13 years, you,
you've got a story to tell there, right?
Damien: Yeah, look, a
lot of it's been luck.
Right place at the right time.
You know, I like to think I've worked
hard, but I've been given a lot of
good fortune and a lot of opportunity.
That I seized by the horns, you know, I
grabbed that opportunity and I made the
most of it, but I want to recognize that
there are many people out there that
work equally hard and perhaps haven't had
the same luck or opportunities I've had.
So keeping my feet on the
ground, hungry, but humble.
You know, I joined ServiceNow as
a junior individual contributor
in the support organization.
today we have a huge global customer and
technical support organization that's
complemented by our impact offering.
back in the day, when I joined,
I think our support organization
was 25 people globally.
We had a few in our London office
in Richmond, which I joined and
a few in the San Diego office.
And, you know, over the years we
added more support centers and now
have a 24 by seven global model.
And back in the day, when I joined
the support organization, I remember
three months into my role, brand new
to the company, still cutting my teeth.
And my then manager said, Damien,
I would like you to go and build
us a major incident process.
So I looked behind me over my shoulder
just to make sure that he was actually
speaking to me and he said, yeah, look,
we're getting hit really hard in support.
We're getting a lot of P
ones, a lot of outages.
Our data centers then weren't
as stable as they are now.
Today's service now is very proud of our.
Availability and uptime back then, let's
just say that there was a few ups and
downs with the network reliability.
So our support organizations getting
totally bombarded with these P ones
and major incidents, but we didn't have
any major incident process or tooling.
so I partnered with our development
teams, and, between us, we built what's
called the mass outage tool, the MOT.
And that later went on to evolve
and become what is today known as
the major incident workbench, and
it, became part of the core product.
It was a customization that we use then.
, so I did a couple of years in support,
and then I hired some major incident
managers and subsequently found myself
in a management role, , managing people.
That was new and interesting.
, and.
After a few years in support, the
opportunity came up to move out of
support into the product organization.
And I took that opportunity and I
guess the rest has been, the best
five, six years of my entire career.
CJ: Nice.
So I'm like, I'm in, I'm an
it, guy, by trade, I guess.
I don't know what I call myself now,
but I definitely started in the I.
T.
org, doing support and that sort of thing.
And, now I, guess I don't know
if I, maybe I am product or maybe
I'm, you know, cause I don't know
what you call a consultant, right?
I feel like I wear like every hat.
That is where like in every project.
Right.
But also having started from that,
support side, Of, looking at things
like, okay, something's broken.
We got to fix it to now, there
are problems that we can see that
are, longer term and like, how
do we build solutions for those?
it's just great to hear someone
else come from that world.
and get to the level where
you are now and know that like
you're helping guide the ship.
because, you know, I think,
support folks are some of the
least listened to an organization,
but some of the most important.
Damien: Absolutely.
And when I talk to customers
now, today I'm very fortunate.
I've been elevated to a senior leadership
role within the product organization.
And I get paraded in by our sales
organization to go and talk to
customers as, Hey, this is Damien.
He's the head guy in product.
but when they hear about my
background in support, I think it
makes that engagement more authentic.
You know, if I'm talking to a
platform owner or an IT director
and I explain my background working
in support, I've walked the walk.
I've worked with help desk systems.
I've worked with ticketing
tools that just don't work.
And Cobbled together on shoestrings,
and I can feel their pain.
And then when I explain how we can
solve those problems with our single
platform, single data model, their
eyes just light up and they believe me.
And sometimes I've been accused or
I don't know if accusation is the
right word, but people say, Hey,
Damien, you're really good in sales.
And I'm like, but I'm not in sales.
I'm just evangelizing the
capabilities in the product.
CJ: Yes.
Oh my God.
Right.
Like same, definitely some synergy there.
I love that because I feel the same
way I get dropped in a situation.
Right.
And it's I'm just talking the
book, this thing is great.
I'm just telling people how it was
great and how I've seen it evolve and
how it can help and you're selling,
I'm not, I'm not really, I mean,
you can really do all of this stuff.
Um,
Duke: funny, like, I've always been
captivated by that social dynamic, right?
If you, if you cross passion
with expertise and a good tool,
then it's just like, Oh, you.
Must be in sales by the way you
talk, but then if you look at
like any of those really big, long
sales processes, it's like, none
of that is in there half the time.
Damien: you're right.
And passion, passion and enthusiasm are
probably two of my middle names, right?
And clearly, yeah.
And clearly I work with the best tool,
the best product, the best platform.
Expertise?
I'm not too sure about expertise.
Like I say, I think I got lucky.
Duke: well, I mean, when I talk
about expertise, I'm talking
about , you have been the person
who would be a user of ServiceNow.
Damien: Yeah.
Duke: You have been the person whose
life would have been easier with
whatever you're rolling out that
Damien: Yeah.
And to be fair, I have.
Being a user, you know, service now
has a program called now on now.
our CIO, our chief digital information
officer, Chris Betty is the champion
and owner of our now on now program that
we showcase to service now customers
at our events, our executive briefings,
how we're using the platform internally.
to solve business problems.
Now I was doing that while in the
support organization long before now on
now became, you know, a named program.
Our support leadership team would say
to customers, you should speak to Damien
and I would go and demonstrate to them
how we were using things like that mass
outage tool to run major incidents.
And, part of that probably
contributed to it becoming part of
CJ: so I will push back a
bit when you say, expertise.
Maybe not.
it sounds you demonstrated
that a lot, even if you don't
want to take credit for it.
But, I think 1 of the things too, that
I want to talk or an additional angle
I want to talk about, you know, from
the support angle going to, where you
are now in product management, right?
Service now has a, program
rise up, And next gen.
Damien: Oh, yeah,
CJ: encouraging a lot of folks who
started out like you and me, right?
Like in the support org, or maybe it's
something that's not even support for
like it, but in coming into the ecosystem
and trying to end up in places like where
you are or where I am over to Duke is.
Talk about a little bit about
how you see like your career,
being an example for those folks.
Damien: I will.
But it's interesting you mentioned
Rise Up, Corey, because if I go to
the ServiceNow website and click on
the Rise Up link, there's a tall,
handsome dude right in the middle.
So, you know, when we talk about
hungry but humble, like, Hey,
look, who's the face of Rise Up?
It's Corey.
And
CJ: very much.
Damien: that's why you're.
An ambassador for rise up.
That's why I'm an ambassador for rise up.
And I'll gladly talk about my own career
journey, but what a program and what an
opportunity for anyone listening to this
show, if they're not already involved in
the ecosystem, there's just a whole wealth
of opportunities for them to get involved.
Duke: This is a great opportunity to
ask you, A question for our audience.
what advice would you give for the
people who have maybe got their
CSA or they're on the journey and
they're still in the grind phase?
, the opportunities aren't coming.
What would you say to them?
where would you have
them focus their efforts?
What would you have them do?
Damien: Yeah.
Well, okay.
Thanks for asking.
And my.
Guidance might be
different to anyone else's.
I'm going to speak from personal
experience, and for me, it's all about
building a network, having champions,
um, having opportunities that can
open doors, I've spent the last few
years really focused on building
my network, building relationships,
building connections, and that has.
Presented opportunities for me to be
invited to speaking events, et cetera.
If someone's building out their career,
if you've got more people in your
backyard, right, in your network,
then one of those opportunities is
hopefully going to present itself.
And by that, I mean.
Within ServiceNow as an organization
that is clearly growing rapidly with a
whole load of job opportunities, but also
within that thriving partner ecosystem,
Rob, I know you personally, people are
always asking you, sending you resumes.
How can I get this role?
How can I get this role?
So you've probably got a very, very
strong opinion on this as well, right?
It's like, yes.
I've got my accreditation.
I'm going to the resources
like product documentation.
Now create now learning, getting that
knowledge, but how can you apply that
practically, you know, download a
personal developer instance, right?
And get that PDI up and running.
You can't beat hands on
experience of playing.
With the product and becoming more
experienced with it, but then by
networking, attending ServiceNow events,
being part of the community, building
a reputation of, contributing to those
articles and answering some of those
questions, it's just going to increase
your opportunities and your chances
when you do need that next career move.
Duke: I would love to double click
on this a little bit if we can.
Cause I did a lot of
networking in my youth, right?
Let's call it my, my 20 to
Damien: Oh, no, no, so
you misunderstood me.
I'm not talking about partying.
Duke: No, I was not that exciting.
I really wasn't.
and so from 20 to 30, I did work and I
maintain connections, but I didn't pay
mindful attention to what networking is
and how do you do it, until knowledge.
11, were you at knowledge?
11, that
Damien: In Frankfurt,
Duke: before.
Oh, sorry.
No.
In, uh, in, oh, gosh,
where was Knowledge 11?
Corey?
San Diego?
CJ: Norley's.
Is that the one?
Damien: New Orleans was 2012,
Duke: So was it San Diego?
Damien: San Diego was 2010, Knowledge
11 was in Frankfurt because that year
in 11 they had that big volcano in
Iceland that stopped all air traffic.
So what Fred did, they held the
event in Knowledge in Frankfurt in
Europe, but in 2012, it was in New
Orleans, in 2013, it was at the Aria.
I'll stop, I'll stop.
Duke: sorry.
You got hella bad.
CJ: Yeah, I went back to what
it was, um, at the beginning.
Yeah,
Damien: gonna have to
make a bit of a soundbite.
I've reached black position,
I've reached black position.
Is that better?
Duke: No.
Damien: Oh,
testing, testing, testing, one,
Duke: like a Dalek, man.
Damien: Really?
Really?
Duke: Yeah, I know.
It's really, it's like
Damien: Oh no.
Oh no.
Duke: like a Dalek.
Say something very angrily.
Damien: You're not using
that as a soundbite.
I just MacBook Pro
microphone, is that better?
Duke: no distortion and it'll do.
CJ: Yeah.
Damien: Yeah, sure.
You can get closer to it if that's better.
Duke: Right.
There's good.
the short technical issue there, folks,
we may have edited that out, or we may
have kept it in for the, for the laughs.
So what we were talking about
was double clicking on what do we
mean when we say do networking?
Damien: Yeah.
Wait, you started, you said
about knowledge and then we were
arguing over which year it was
and which, which venue it was
Duke: Yeah, no, I think there must
have been a European knowledge and a
North American knowledge because this
was definitely in California, right?
Damien: It was probably
San Diego around that
Duke: it was in a tent.
Okay.
It was in a tent.
A big top tent.
It was a very big tent,
but it was still a tent
CJ: Sounds like a music fest.
Duke: Yeah, yeah.
Like, a little smaller.
Go to the lunch room, which was
like a room in the conference
center , you could see all four walls.
It was crazy.
Damien: Knowledge was a much
smaller event back then, right?
Duke: Yeah, oh yeah.
No, I mean even the
distance between 11 and 12.
It was like, at
Damien: Oh yeah.
Duke: in the lunch room, it was
the same size as the entire 11.
Uh,
Damien: when Frank Slootman came in
ready to, to basically IPO ServiceNow.
And, and bearing in mind ServiceNow was
only the, well, it was the first company
to IPO after Facebook just for context.
So it was pretty big.
The company was going through this
period of hyper growth and not,
yeah, knowledge doubled in size,
you know, by, by 2013, the first one
in Vegas at the ARIA, there were 4,
000 people at that knowledge event.
CJ: that was my first one.
Damien: Yeah.
And mine too.
And do you remember the now guys,
you know, the big giant M& M's?
CJ: Yes,
Damien: But more importantly,
let's pivot back.
We're talking about networking and
being able to go to those events
means you have the opportunity to
mingle with other attendees, right?
Uh
. , CJ: and not only just other attendees,
it's important to understand, the profile
of an attendee, , this is some people
who show up to knowledge care about and
have this passion for the platform, right?
This deep , And it resonates from them,
like it's, like walking into a room
with it, where everybody else thinks
the same way that you do from the
perspective of, we love this thing.
? And so you might be at home and feel
weird talking to people about service
now, because they've never heard of it.
And then you walk into knowledge and
everybody's like, man, don't you get it?
Damien: huh.
I've explained to my family, I've
tried to explain what knowledge is
like and I've said it's like Comic Con
without the fancy dress and instead of
talking about, superheroes or cosplay,
we're just talking about ServiceNow.
But every single person in that
event is passionate, almost as
Duke: They're all the superheroes, right?
Damien: right?
Yeah, absolutely.
Duke: but on top of just being in the
presence, like, you really have to
go out of your way and talk to people
like it's going to happen naturally.
But I think it's just in the trenches.
What does it mean to build a network?
Right?
It means
CJ: mean, you
Duke: getting to a point with somebody
that you can reach out and contact them
whenever or getting them to remember you.
And at knowledge 11, actually
the keynote speaker, that was,
that was the thing, right?
It was so small, the keynote speaker
had nothing to do with service.
Now it's just some
motivational speaker guy,
CJ: discussion going
Damien: yeah,
Duke: which was awesome.
But , he told the story about how
introverts are like better network.
I considered myself a shy,
introvert at the time.
Right.
But he said, introverts build
better networks because they
put the focus on somebody else.
So when they meet somebody, they're
like at, so that they don't have to be
the center of attention and talk a lot.
They will ask the questions of.
The other person and the other
person remembers that like, oh,
this person makes me feel good.
I talked a lot and you know what I mean?
And so they have, they store all
the potential energy of that.
Damien: that's right.
And I think that those events are great.
Those conferences, seminars, local
meetups, you know, like developer meets
and that they're always a good opportunity
to meet like minded professionals,
but if you were asked some advice,
I'd say like, look at what events
are taking place in your local area.
You know, you don't have to
travel the world to find an event.
, and then when you attend.
Try and find out who is going to
align with your networking goals
, bring business cards, et cetera.
And when I talk about a
networking goal, , it's crucial
to have that clear goal in mind.
, if you're attending one of these events
and you're looking to build your network,
are you looking to advance your career?
Are you looking for your
next industry opportunity?
Are you trying to find a mentor?
So I think having a definition of your
personal objectives, that actually
helps target the right connections.
and tailor your approach
to each interaction.
Duke: Okay.
CJ: Yeah, I think that's
incredibly important as well.
? Because it's great to have
a wide ranging network.
? But not every, person in your
network is going to be useful
for every stage of your career.
? And, um, And, and while a network, , and
ultimately , like it all, it always
feels like a little, like sometimes
a little, you know, yucky talking
about a network like this, but I mean,
realistically, , folks are there to
one, , hopefully you, you get to know
Damien: You're
CJ: and you, and you're right.
And you're better off for that.
But then also, right.
It's someone to call on when
you're in need, like career wise,
if you need a mentor, right.
Or if you're looking to take that
next step, are there any opportunities
or, can you help me figure
out how to go about all of that?
And.
Duke: Yeah, especially in this ecosystem,
Corey, like asking people for help in a,
in an ecosystem as passionate as ours,
CJ: yeah.
Duke: it's just, don't be shy about that.
Damien: and don't overlook the importance
of your existing connections, and by that
I mean family, colleagues, classmates,
acquaintances from your neighborhood.
Because if you can catch up, and, just
share general networking discussions
about your career, about mental
health, which we can talk about later,
, maintaining those relationships.
can sometimes lead to
unexpected opportunities.
You know, I live in a very small village
in, in rural England, about two hours
west of London in the countryside.
But within my village, there are at least
three people that are either ServiceNow
employees or working in the ecosystem.
So, you know, we can grab a, have a
coffee in our local village coffee shop.
You know, a million miles away
from the big smoke from the city,
and yet we can have an engaging
conversation about service now.
CJ: That's that's great.
I think I'm the only one in my
village who knows what service now is.
Duke: I'm dying to get to a village, man.
I can't stand the city.
Damien: guys are welcome.
You can come and visit anytime.
Duke: I went out to there a
couple years back to visit James
Neal and I was out in Reading.
And, , man, a mind shift,
the walkable city thing.
I thought, I get it now.
Damien: Yeah, so I live
an hour west of James.
Like I say, , my village has
a population of 4, 000 people.
CJ: Wow, that's tiny.
Damien: Yeah,
Duke: well,
Damien: I think you guys call it quaint.
CJ: Yeah, yeah.
There we go.
Quaint.
Yeah, that's quaint.
I like that.
Duke: I grew up in a small town
like that in Canada, but it was a a
modern place by European standards.
And so it was built for cars and
just kind of, you know what I mean?
There was, there's a tiny,
tiny walkable downtown, but,
Damien: Some of our buildings
are from the 16th century.
I mean, my village pub is older than
the United States of America, right?
Just for some context.
Duke: I love how like the European
conception of old versus the
American conception of old is, is
CJ: it just definitely puts
a lot of things in context.
Right.
Duke: yeah.
Um,
CJ: is, we've talked a lot
about, , the past of ServiceNow.
What are you most excited
about for ServiceNow's future?
Damien: I'm going to be honest, guys , as
a ServiceNow employee, I'm obviously
excited about the stock price, right?
Because I'm in Look, let's just
be transparent about it, right?
working at a service now has a lot
of perks and a lot of benefits.
I'm really proud to be part of a company
that is very focused on employee well
being, and there are a whole number
of perks, not just financial, right?
But, as an investor, as an employee,
As a shareholder, watching that growth
of that stock price and the success of
the company, that is genuinely one of
the things I'm excited about, right?
I have to be completely honest.
But also in relation to that is
the impact that it has on people.
last year, we launched ServiceNow.
org, our venture into
the non profit world.
And I was personally Close to tears
because back in Knowledge 22, I had the
privilege and honor of meeting the CEO
of a, a nonprofit based in South Africa.
And they were literally using the
ServiceNow platform to distribute food and
supplies to starving children in Africa.
And that story went on to become a
case study for servicenow.org that
was presented to the entire company
at this year's ServiceNow kickoff.
And, seeing how the platform can make
a difference and impact to people
like that is incredibly gratifying.
And then, of course, combined with
the usage of ChatGPT, GenAI, and
leveraging large language models
built on the ServiceNow platform.
It's just a great place to be.
So that's what I'm excited
about for now and the future.
I've
, Duke: what a great place to leave
off, , Damian, , we're at 36 minutes.
We got to think about winding down here.
, thank you again for being here.
And , any last words
of advice for audience?
CJ: Transcription
Damien: to all of you.
If you're listening, it means you are
obviously, you're into CJ and the Duke,
which means you're into service now, which
means you're invested in the company,
in the platform, in the product, this
ecosystem, it's thriving with technology.
It's thriving with energy.
But most importantly, it's about those
connections and about the people and this
network is the best network on the planet.
So thank you to all of you.
CJ: Man, like how do you even top that?
That's amazing.
Duke: like the best outro we've ever had.
Damien: Do you, do you need me to try
and make the sound of a mic dropping?
Duke: We can add that in.
We'll add it
Damien: I I've really
enjoyed chatting to you both.
Duke: pleasure was ours, Damien.
Thanks for coming.
CJ: Absolutely loved it.