Transcript: Break Point - The Dev Advocates talk CreatorCon

Hey all, as we get closer to Knowledge 23, I wanted to provide the transcript for this episode of the Break Point podcast on CreatorCon. Different people have different preferred ways to consume content and CreatorCon is an important aspect of the ServiceNow Developer Program, so we thought a transcript wouldn’t hurt!

Transcript

Chuck

Their CreatorCon experience at Knowledge is nothing short of amazing and we realize there are a lot of people out there that have not been to CreatorCon. You have questions. We have answers. Join all four ServiceNow developer advocates as we discuss what to expect and how to get the most out of CreatorCon.

Announcer

Welcome to Break Point, the ServiceNow Developer podcast.

Chuck

Hello, ServiceNow admins, builders, developers and all of you curious individuals that I always say with the utmost love and respect. Welcome to or welcome back to Break Point, the ServiceNow Developer podcast, where we bring you the latest tools, tips and tradecraft to accelerate your career. My name is Chuck Tomasi and sitting right across the virtual Break Point desk for me is, of course, Lauren McManamon.

How are you today, Lauren?

Lauren

You know what? I’m doing great. I’m starting to feel a little bit of heat, though, because we have officially only 52 days away from Knowledge 23. So the crunch is officially begun, at least on the back end of operations.

Chuck

And the alcohol consumption has gone up. And as the intro hinted, we are going to be talking about CreatorCon. How it’s similar and different from the rest of the Knowledge experience and how you can get the most out of it and to make this a little more interesting, Earl, Lauren, and I have all been to Knowledge and participated in CreatorCon up close a few times or more than a few times in the past.

However, we’re also joined by Pranav. He has not been there, so he’ll be asking the questions and we’ll do our best to answer them. So first let’s do some quick introductions for the new listeners. Lauren, You’re still pretty new to the show, so give your quick intro.

Lauren

Hey, everybody. My name is Lauren McManamon. I am one of the senior developer advocates on our developer advocate team. Prior to joining ServiceNow, I was a ServiceNow developer. Joined the Big House in 2017 as a solution consultant and focused on creator workflows. So joined this team back last year, right around almost, I think it was July or August, so still still pretty new to it, but starting to finally hit the groove.

Chuck

Welcome. Welcome. And Earl Duque.

Earl

Hi, everyone. My name is Earl Duque, I am a developer advocate here with ServiceNow and I’ve been with the team almost two years now. It feels like I only really just joined. Still, everything’s coming up rapid pace still. But before I joined ServiceNow, I was with higher education, mostly doing senior development and engineering with ServiceNow on different teams, leading student developer teams and all the like, but jumped around a bunch of companies before joining ServiceNow.

Chuck

And once again we have Pranav Bhagat.

Pranav

Hey everyone, my name is Pranav and I’m a senior developer advocate, quite new to the team. I can’t say I’m very new. It’s like already four months. Time flies in ServiceNow. That’s what I can say. Before joining ServiceNow, I was working with a client. I was working with a customer. I also worked with clients in the past. I was helping them with all the implementation and all, and that’s about me.

Chuck

All right, now, it’s not all about you because you’re the one with the questions. So let’s start with a question and we’ll see who can answer this.

Pranav

Oh, yeah. So first, my first question is like I have heard about this term CreatorCon a lot from everyone. What exactly is CreatorCon?

Chuck

All right. Excellent question. And to understand what CreatorCon is, I want to back up and explain what Knowledge is. Knowledge has the word NOW in there. KNOW. ServiceNow, at one point they used to be slightly different colors on the logos, so it is the creatively named user conference for our platform, for our customers, for our partners to get together and learn and share and network.

It is a big event. As Andy Ho, one of our big cheeses in our training department, likes to call it, it’s more of a religious event than a tech conference. Everybody is very passionate. Everybody is very excited to be there and share and learn, which is kind of weird from a software standpoint because, you know, not too long ago I remember software, you got kind of angry and aggressive.

And when when are you going to fix my bugs? Everybody’s open and respectful when they have opinions. So Knowledge is and physically it’s the expo floor where we have different booths. You can see demos, you can talk to product managers, you can interact with your peers. There are activities to be done. Who knows, maybe karaoke and games and some other stuff that’s going on at various times on the Expo floor. There are keynotes, there are hands on sessions excuse me, hands on labs, breakout sessions. A very number of things that you would expect at any tech conference. Now, what makes CreatorCon… what is CreatorCon? CreatorCon is the developer event inside of Knowledge. They happen at the same time. Once upon a time when it started back in 2015, it was like two days after we said, Well, a lot of people aren’t sticking around for that, so let’s just make it an event in an event. The CreatorCon, is the developer section now we say developer in a loving way. Like I said, all skill levels, whether you’re freshly minted sysadmin, there’s something that CreatorCon for you. If you have architect in your title somewhere, there’s something at CreatorCon for you. So it’s the more technical view, the more technical content of the platform, you will see some very creative stuff.

We have a hack zone where people make fun and exciting use cases that connect to or are back end driven by our platform with APIs and metric tracking all kinds of very cool stuff. Wow. That was a long explanation. It’s a it’s a great time. What else you got in that?

Pranav

That’s cool. I love the fact that it is for not only for developer and admins, it’s for everyone. Anyone can join it. And what kind of activities I can expect in CreatorCon.

Lauren

So hinting go back to what Chuck said. This is… these are events. They’re more targeting the developer personas, whereas a lot of the lab sessions that exist within Knowledge, maybe target admins or managers or things like that, these are targeting developers. So when you’re looking at the course catalog, a lot of them will start with a specific CC abbreviation.

So that’s a clear indicator in the catalog of what indicates something that is in CreatorCon. So we have specific labs. So for example, there’s the Builder track series, which is a series of six labs, a kind of take someone from a non developer to, you know, someone that’s confident enough to call himself a developer. There are breakout sessions where a lot of our awesome developer MVPs are talking about things that they and their companies have built and there’s even a specific keynote.

So that’s really exciting that we have a dedicated keynote on the final day of the overall Knowledge conference. On the pavilion within the Expo Hall as well, we have our own section where a specific developer related content and also just more fun, relaxed stuff. So keep your eye open for that as well.

Pranav

That’s awesome. Like, I love that there’s different activities.

Earl

So how I usually explain my experience with CreatorCon, especially since I’ve been to quite a few now, is that I started off my ServiceNow career as a help desk consultant. As a lot of our listeners have similar contexts. I was with The Help Desk and then eventually I became a system administrator for ServiceNow and then became a developer and then became a senior developer and a team lead and a developer manager and an engineer and senior engineer.

I grew my career from the ground up in ServiceNow. And so from that context, whenever I go to Knowledge, just by nature of what I’m interested in, I tend to go to all the things that are CreatorCon focused. And that’s because CreatorCon, as Chuck and Lauren were alluding to, is that it’s developer focused, it’s more technical. We’re not talking about implementation steps for any application suite like CSDM.

We’re actually going to sessions about the APIs and the scripting and the coding and all the best practices for system administrators and for developers. It’s more about the things that I need in my life to do my job better because I am a developer. I’m on the more technical side of things, and that’s what CreatorCon really is in a high level.

It’s all the… all the fun stuff and all that kind of fun stuff I’ll let somebody else talk about. But it’s also the same things that keep me in CreatorCon. So I was attracted just by the sessions. But then when I got to CreatorCon my first time, there was a lot of things that I was just having fun with over at CreatorCon.

Chuck

I’m going to “Yes, and” that one with special things like the hackathon. We’ve got an event for developers to show their chops and compete to make an application in a certain amount of time. I mentioned the hack zone where we’ve seen everything from drones to windmills to trains to alcohol serving robots that are all based on ServiceNow.

We’ve got meetups. So if you’re looking to introduce yourself to other people, perhaps in your region, perhaps in your area of interest, we’ve got a specific Meetup pavilion for that. We’ve got a competition. If you… another different way to do it. It’s called “Coffee Flows”. Every year we have this big shiny thing on the show floor and “Mission to Mars” a few years ago, “BrewOps.” Where you compete either against other players or other teams to achieve a number of predefined steps to create a flow, create an app, whatever it is on the platform, those really get some interest because it’s like a game show. You’ve got the leaderboards and everybody is going as fast as they can and cheering people on and a lot… a lot of fun stuff there.

And of course there’s after hours activities like games and parties and you know, there’s some swag that you can earn at the merch store for T-shirts and stickers and who knows what else. I was… I was just looking at the catalog, the online catalog, on knowledge.servicenow.com, there’s a specific category for CreatorCon and there’s things like five things I wish I knew before using custom actions in Flow Designer.

That’s… that’s pretty deep and that’s the kind of things that developers are looking for. There’s Ask the Experts sessions. We’ve got experts there and you can ask them what you want or they have a topic for you. (such as) “When work starts to flow.” “Why you should stop using legacy workflows.” We have a lot of people out there that are still creating legacy workflows.

Well, I’m not going to get into that because we have a limited amount of time on this particular show. Perhaps you could talk about it some other time. “Citizen development.” What does it take to get a citizen development program up and running and continue to run as a developer? We’re going to be working with these citizen developers. So important stuff to know, lots and lots of great content.

I invite you to go over to knowledge.servicenow.com and take a look at the catalog.

Pranav

That’s awesome, Chuck. Thank you for… thank you for answering that. I really want to see how the Coffee Flows works and also I’m super excited about the hack zone thing. What my next question is like Who come to CreatorCon?

Chuck

Nerds.

Earl

Yeah, I mean…

Chuck

I’m joking! And I wear that badge proudly.

Earl

I mean, I gestured broadly toward myself! And I agree. Well, I mean, that’s the cool part about CreatorCo, the people you’re meeting at CreatorCon are the same ones you’re going to be building community with and be learning from and contacting later in your day to day job. That’s the beauty of it. The network you build at CreatorCon is something that you could take with you for the rest of the year when you leave the venue.

And I mean I… that’s where I met Chuck, who’s now my colleague, and I believe Lauren met Chuck also at CreatorCon. Yeah. A lot of the people that I’m… I call friends now are people that I’ve met at CreatorCon and especially if you’ve been to Knowledge before, you’re going to have fun reuniting with these people again or meeting people that you’ve only interacted with online and now having a face to put to the name and just being able to build that kind of community is something that our team is very proud of and we focus a lot of our time on because it’s something that makes us unique in the industry of technology, is that our community is very interpersonal and it’s something that attracted me and I’ve not left ever since.

Chuck

I have to “Yes, and” that one as well. What are the things that people like doing at Knowledge is getting a selfie with me and I invite you to also get a selfie with Pranav and Earl and Lauren. They are celebrities and rock stars as much as everyone else in this ecosystem. So but one of the things that I do is say, Yes, can I get a selfie of you too?

So I’ve got this collection over the years of selfies with people so they not only have a picture of me, but I have a picture too. It’s the same picture, it’s just whose arm is sticking out further, right? And I love going back through the years and look at like, Oh, there’s Mark Scott, when he was still a partner or consultant and… and now he’s an employee!

There is Lauren from 2016 and now she’s on our team. You connect the dots and see who you can pick out from this massive collection of selfies. Then go, yeah, they’re, you know, they’ve changed their path on their career.

Pranav

Yeah, I can say like I’m totally jealous of Earl and Lauren, they have a selfie with you, Chuck.

Chuck

We’re going to fix that!

Pranav

Yes, absolutely. And after I think seven years in working in ServiceNow, I finally will be able to get a selfie with you.

Chuck

We’ll get a team shot.

Pranav

Exactly. So as a first timer, what are some of the essential thing I should be aware of regarding meeting new people.

Chuck

So one of the things to be aware of is that there are going to be networking opportunities. There are going to be Lauren and I were just talking about this in our previous meeting before the microphones were hot and said there are people that… that will give you a job offers. Be ready for that. I’ve seen a lot of people change their career trajectory because of Knowledge.

Don’t tell your boss, they might think you’re a flight risk but hey your career is your own. We’re going to get into a whole different discussion about career management. Bring business cards, or as I have upgraded to a digital business card. I have one business card, people will scan that and they get my contact info so we don’t lose it and it’s in their phone immediately and they can even make notes to go, you know, got a picture with Chuck on Tuesday.

Do your career management as best as you can. It’s going to be a wild ride, but there… the present company included, a number of times I’ve gone to Knowledge and somebody says, Hey, are you interested in joining my team? And I say, Well, tell me more. You don’t have to make a yes no right there, but get some information to consider it and take down some notes.

It’s… it is vitally important that you build this network in fact, at Knowledge 10, when I was a customer, I made contacts and I made comments and we had dinner, socializing with people. Not hourly trying to do that, but just doing what you normally do at a conference. And it paid the biggest dividend of all because a few days later I was let go from my job and it was those contacts that gave me job offers, real job offers within minutes, within hours of me being dismissed.

So it was like, Wow, if I hadn’t made a comment about some lady’s laptop bag, we wouldn’t have started a conversation. And then a few days later she goes, Oh, what kind of work are you looking for? Like, Whoa, didn’t expect that! Turn to my wife and I said, “What was that?” About 30 minutes since we just left the office to me saying, Hey, I will consider that as a… as an opportunity.

So things happen and Knowledge that can change your life. Be ready for them and be, you know, be respectful, be professional.

Earl

I’m going to jump in and now give you a “Yes, and” situation and explicitly tell the listeners now that as much as the Knowledge commitee and the developer advocates are going to try to facilitate these opportunities and stuff for you and these networking opportunities, remember, this is your opportunity. And we want you to know that you need to step up also.

And so my first CreatorCon back in 2017, I remember sitting in one of the large breakfast halls. Everyone’s grabbing breakfast, thousands of people. I picked a random table to sit at. I was by myself and I was eating and I remember hearing from two tables away that someone was talking about an industry that I wanted to get into.

And I got up from the table and I walked over and I sat down and I introduced myself. And one month later on LinkedIn, I contacted that person and said, “Hey, I’m trying to pursue new ServiceNow opportunities, but I’m not finding any at my current workplace, is there anyone over there that I can chat with?” And once that process started and I had my first conversation with them within seven days I had a job offer and acceptance and I had switched to that industry that

I was interested in. But it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t get up and I actually walked over and introduced myself. And so as much as we talk about these great opportunities and career changes inside our ecosystem, inside ServiceNow, inside Knowledge, it’s not handed to you. And for some people, maybe, but for the most of us, you have to “stand up and go walk through that door” kind of thing.

And so I just wanted to make sure it’s explicit out there this is an opportunity for all of us, and you have to take that opportunity.

Lauren

And I am going to “Yes, and” that statement because Earl is absolutely right. A couple of years ago, I read a book, I think his name is Keith Ferrazzi, he wrote a book called Never Eat Alone. And it talks about different approaches to networking and career building and taking advantage of opportunities. And it might seem a little bit impersonal of advice, but for the timing that you have at Knowledge, for me, I always make a list. I actually make a kind of like my own CRM of not only friends but contacts maybe I’m hoping to make. I kind of grouped them by how important they are, or maybe how long it’s been since I’ve seen that person and use that to kind of help guide my way. Because it might seem like you’re spending a long time in Vegas, right?

Like, Oh, I’ve got a whole week, but that time goes away so quickly. So whether that is like, like what Earl did, like taking the advantage of a lunch break to introduce yourself to a new industry or reconnect with someone that lives halfway across the world. Having a list might seem a bit goofy, but it helps keeps those things at the top of your mind.

Or at least for me, it’s always really helped. So that’s my little… my little take from that book.

Pranav

Awesome. Thanks Earl, Chuck, and Lauren about it like I’ll definitely try to jump in… going to some random table and talking to the people who are there. So that’s all the question that I had for you both. Thank you very much for answering me.

Chuck

I feel like we’ve only scratched the surface because there’s just so much there. But thank you for all the questions, Pranav, and thank you for the input from Earl and Lauren. Our call to action for you, dear listener, is go to knowledge.servicenow.com, browse that catalog, discover what you’re interested in, Dig into some of those CreatorCon sessions, there may be other sessions in other places that you want to look at.

Certainly attend the keynotes and take a notebook. Bring business cards, do the due diligence to make this valuable because one of the ways to ensure that you get to go back is to have a good report on what you got out of it. It will. We’ll be talking about a complete Knowledge survival guide of what you should bring and what you should wear and how best to survive that week.

It’s going to go fast, but it makes for some long hours. We’ll be doing an episode on that coming up soon. So subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss out on any of that. Well, thank you everybody, and thank you, dear listener, for joining us today. Don’t forget, you can find this and many other podcasts from ServiceNow over at our community at servicenow.com/community under the events menu or go to devlink.sn/podcast.

You can subscribe to this podcast for free and get it automatically delivered to you so you don’t miss that Knowledge survival guide that we’re coming up with. Find them wherever you find your podcast. Apple, Amazon, Google, you know, the places Break Point is brought to you by ServiceNow executive producer would be me. Video and captions by Earl Duque. Find out more about the ServiceNow Developer program.

You can head over to developer.servicenow.com. I’m pretty sure everybody has stopped listening unless you’re waiting for the creative outtakes at the end. Thank you Earl, Lauren, and Pranav for joining us.

Earl

Thanks for having us, Chuck.

Lauren

Thank you, Chuck.

Pranav

Thank you, Chuck.

Announcer

Please let us know what you think about this podcast. You can leave feedback or ask questions in the ServiceNow community. For more great information on ServiceNow development, check out the ServiceNow developer portal at developer.servicenow.com. Thanks for listening.

Bloopers

Pranav

(Beep) Testing testing can you hear me?

Chuck

(Beep) So we take a day or two and a half of Knowledge and then the second half of the third day and the fourth day was CreatorCon. (Beep) Someone’s not reading the script closely.

Earl

Nuh Knowledge annnnd CreatorCon

Chuck

(Beep) I couldn’t slow down. I’m sorry.

Lauren

(Beep) Yup. Yeah.

Earl

What are you talking about?

Chuck

(Beep) I miss anything. Anybody want a “Yes, and” that in any way?

Earl

I just want to say, Yes…

Lauren

And!

Chuck

(Beep) It’s gold. That’s gold.