all right we are recording and you know hey welcome everybody and Chuck all right let's just go all right hello everybody my name is Chuck Kumasi senior developer evangelist at ServiceNow I was before the recording started I was just telling Alisa that my dad said what is your title now and I said senior developer evangelist this is that I mainly do at church but in a way kind of I guess I will not be about boring you with powerpoints no death by powerpoints on any of my sessions for this so if you if you just want to listen you can turn the camera off there's really nothing to see it's more of a narrative and a story and as a quick background I mentioned my dad I come from a family of nine kids so the competition I discovered early that it was it was fairly competitive to stand out in the crowd it was with nine kids you gotta get your voice in there or you just left at the breakfast table some days and that's not unlike today's job market there's a lot of people out there that are doing what you're doing or something very similar and how do you rise above that and make yourself stand out as a subject matter expert so today I'm going to share with you some of the tips to help you stand out and become recognized as that subject matter expert well at least what worked for me and maybe you can take some of that to your career what I'll be covering in this session are four things so our outline if you want to break it down to that are going to be first identify your area of interest whatever that may be it may not even be technology focused you may want to be a a music expert to research and learn all you can about that dive in deep 3 consider branding how do you separate yourself from the crowd Oh present company included here with a bow tie I'll get into that and then for share you really need to get yourself out there and share that information so let's start with identifying your area of interest for me it's always been I've always enjoyed computers and I've enjoyed making things talk to other things computers talking to paint telephones when I was doing that in earlier in my career or today it's REST API services over the Internet talking to ServiceNow find out what really excites you and follow that I again for me if it involves the Internet all the better I'll spare you my long history that was the earlier session you can watch ACP 2101 and get that but I really found a passion in ServiceNow as a development platform I got exposed to this as a customer I built an application I won an award and from there it just exploded I'm always seeing opportunities and new things to build almost like on a weekly basis hey why are we using a spreadsheet for this when we could have an app for that and and the vision is is very big and the pipeline is deep now identify what your area of interest is and then zero in on that if you simply say my interested service now that's probably too broad focus in on that and and get it narrowed down to do you enjoy security maybe it's around ACLs maybe it's around SEC ops maybe it's around something else how about reporting in analytics you know diving deep there are so many opportunities to do this because the platform and the application suites are so big and so rich you can really find a specialty in that yeah if it's not technology focused if you want to do something on music or cooking great go nuts you know have fun follow your passion second thing is research and learn daivi and deep become that expert find a mentor if you can if this is an area that's new for you hook up with somebody who's experienced in that and learn what worked for them and bounce ideas and say this is the situation I've got and listen to their opinions you don't take everything they say but listen and get feedback find some coaching opportunities work with your manager say I'd like to go in this direction and learn about that and they can suggest potential resources that you can hook up to one thing that's worked well for me is finding things that are sort of out of the box things that don't really people don't think of first I want to be innovated I want to be creative I want to be the the person who brings you service now jeopardy something I built and we debuted at knowledge 19 last year we played it three times in the developer theater and the creator Kahn theater excuse me worked really well big success a lot of fun the application is available on the share page at developer.com if you want to go check it out a lot of service portal goodies in there there's some trivia about ServiceNow in there we're just some fun but I don't think anybody's ever thought of writing Jeopardy before the idea came from doing knowledge 16 17 and 18 we were building applications we were showing some cool stuff but it it after you do that a couple of times it felt a little routine and and not interesting by the time you get to day 2 or day 3 of that application mmm the crowd is dwindling they're not engaged they're checking their Facebook let's do something new let's have fun and jeopardy came out of that and I dove in deep to that topic I started watching jeopardy to remind myself what are the rules how does this go what should be played here what's next what's the transfer of control here and and how do you translate that into a ServiceNow version of the application do we need buttons do we need people to raise their hand how do they so a lot of fun there the other one that I'm currently working on that I was trying to debut at knowledge 20 if it was an in-person event which didn't work out is a karaoke a ServiceNow karaoke and there's customer use cases in some of this stuff as well how do you relate karaoke to what customers do there's cueing there's CMDB my CMDB is just a bunch of songs that I get from YouTube okay how are those maintained this is a living breathing database of songs for me but they there's normalization in the artists it lots of great things that I can dive in deep so think outside the box to get yourself some examples oftentimes those start at my own desk hey what is it that I am having a problem with at work or at home that ServiceNow could possibly solve again I am I'm focusing this discussion on what works for me but you can translate that into music cooking whatever for your interests and become educated learning in whatever that subject is we are its subject matter expert it's not ServiceNow matter experts again translate this as needed the research and learn then we get to how do you make yourself stand out say on the Internet how do you get yourself to be recognized and that's where I accidentally found this out by I considered branding be unique be identifiable you know bowtie people know me for the bowtie that was that was purely an accident again I wish I had a plan for some of this stuff but hopefully this will resonate with you if you want to stand out I think of some of the people that you recognize for me if I go way back to say the 80s Casey Kasem's voice when you listen to the American top 40 I don't know if any of you are familiar with that radio show he used to go down the list of the Billboard Hot 100 top 40 hits of the week he had a very characteristic voice I yes I've been influenced by him and his how he speaks but or somebody like the comedian carrot top what do you know carrot top from his hair that big bright orange hair just lots of different ways you can make yourself stand out if you have a plan for it it works out well I'm not saying go dye your hair orange and do that but it might be something you wear it might be something you do it might be something you say it might be a mannerism you've got take advantage of that so you can be recognized for that and weed people say hey did you talk to who's that who's that guy that knows all about ServiceNow reporting that has the that wears the kilt you want to wear a kilt that's I made that up on the fly but it'd be that person that can be identified even if they don't remember the name that's very important the other thing is share that information because you could be the smartest developer you could be the smartest geologist you could be the smartest whatever but until other people know you really sort of in your own little box no one's going to know that it's why doctors Oh part of the reason why doctors would write in the Journal of American medicine or what other other publication it's not just to share with your peers to let them take a poke at the work and say that's a great idea let me practice that but you get that recognition you get that notoriety so if you are just starting out and you haven't done anything public before here's a quick guideline of what you could think of start by sharing with some peers you trust to get their feedback and generate interest maybe it's a co-worker who sits next to you and go I am thinking of inish this project I learned a lot I'd like to share it on the ServiceNow community for example I want to write a blog entry can I share a draft with you you get some feedback from you I mean people do this on Facebook I don't do it regularly but once in a while they'll say hey I wrote this blog article could you take a look at it and let me read now by that time it's already been published but share internally share with a small group of people and get that feedback hey musicians don't get to the big stadiums right away it plays small venues it hits a feedback they find out what works what doesn't they adjust and then go on to the next work they they and and they may even start by practicing with friends and family so it starts small and get that feedback from trusted people say look I you you won't hurt my feelings if you say this is terrible or we need to adjust this or rearrange that that's what they're there for you have to open yourselves up to that another good way to do it would be sure in a community setting both online and in real life so the community obviously we've got community service now comm posting blogs articles possibly videos there there's also in real life so think about service now user group meetups developer meetups if you again if we're focusing on service now content go into those things go to meetup.com what we've done lots of virtual meetups right now and share that information say hey I just finished up a project or I've got a tricky question I've got a challenge that's happening right now how can I get through this maybe you jump on a zoom with the you know meetup from Stockholm next week it really doesn't matter where or when or how just get into a group where you feel safe and we're with like-minded people and most the time they'll be happy to help you out I've got friends who do this with brewing beer okay they do micro brews and we share with friends we share recipes and they improve the way they go they're becoming a subject matter expert so now I know my friend Joe knows really good ways to brew a specific kind of beer and if I get to that point I either will engage him with how I can do that or I'll just drink his beer I mentioned public publications like blogs videos not too many our paper applications service is circulating around these days I think most of the things that go on virtual but if there is an opportunity look for those and share that information again start small get some peer reviews incorporate that feedback and then you can stretch and grow and what you will find what you will find is that people will start asking you for this content let's say hey do you have another video coming out when is when is the next blog entry can you start contributing to this other thing and that will start to lead you to new opportunities Lisa was there a question add something here is a lot of people don't think that they're expert at something and they get they're shy I think or they don't realize it's something that comes easy to you is where your expertise comes from and so may not think of yourself as an expert but might actually be one or at least someone and I didn't really think about this until you mentioned it but the word expert and experience have a lot in common when you think about it how did you get to be an expert from experience think about projects you've worked on or what you're working on currently if you it's one of those phenomenons where as soon as you buy you know a Honda Accord for example you start seeing them all over the road like wow there are so many Honda Accords out here I mean you sell your Honda Accord and you go get a Toyota Camry look at all the Toyota Camrys if you've got your eyes and ears tuned for those opportunities they will come much easier so as you're working on projects as you're working with your peers as you're reading through the community you may start to see a pattern that you didn't previously recognize and jot down some notes that's that's largely how I do this I'd start with my own projects and then I take notes ago that would make an awesome video let me write that down so I don't forget or that would make a great thing we want to cover at the next developer Meetup or I want to talk about this at knowledge this is big this is huge I learned so much and I really want to share this with other people to start building that subject-matter component and that's really where it comes from I I'm not doing anything special is I'm doing my assigned work and I explore some curious opportunities I learned from it and I've got that that gear engaged that says is this gonna be useful you think you can share this sometimes the answer is not really I think everybody in the world knows that and B you'd be surprised how many times I'm wrong on that point alone like yeah everybody knows the little gear icon up in the upper left is how you personalize a list oh not everybody knows that it's funny how many people go really I didn't know that or right-click on this really I didn't know I'm learning little tips like that all the time which is proof that you can share these things and people will learn somebody told me just the other day a little shortcut on lists I said you know it saves me one whole character I don't have a type of % anymore what I'm glad they shared it with me and I will carry that on as I go forward so it's it's amazing how how easy how trivial some of these opportunities are any other questions now is the time subject matter expert you don't you you you can be a very narrow focused subject matter expert I know some people that are the subject matter expert on like one specific piece of the platform and those are the people I go to when I've run out of resources so don't think you have to be a know-it-all about everything because you can't type your question in the chat so when they just says your tips have been helpful thank you you know I've all started someone we talk about that experience like you and I used to do some being asking experts on the community long I don't know then you wish you know you keep doing them and and you change the format a little but you know we still do them people can blog sometimes you know if they've come and talk to us in the community will help you become a little bit more of an expert search okay to you what are the other things that have helped you broken since you've been here since 2010 right I was here in 2010 so we started with when I was here there were about a hundred and seventy-five employees and I think through attrition I'm somewhere around employee oldest employee number fifty and now there's eleven thousand people so that puts me in the oldest one half of the percent of Wow I don't feel that old but yes it's true we've done a lot we've grown a lot things that have been helpful is be open to feedback I have it's a mixed bag because when I write a book or write a blog entry or do a script for a video and I sent it off to before editing I'm always a little cautious because that's my baby that's my work I've poured my heart and soul into that and they're just gonna come back and say no this is wrong and this is wrong that was the completely wrong attitude to have it's they're there to make it better they're there to find the mistakes cuz the last thing I want to put out is typos and grammatical errors and conflicting statements that don't make sense but to have somebody you trust a bounce those ideas off of is hugely valuable it was a mental hurdle I had to get over that you know this is the best it can be it's not and it's so many times I find myself rushing out to get something publicized and with with little planning comes little success with more planning comes more success well that almost sounded like it was out a spider-man or some taken no was I that was not my idea that was originally Josh Nereus and Dave Slusher I happened to be a guest on that show quite a bit I love the idea I wish it was my idea it was not and it has worked out very well it's it's completely different from many of the other videos you see where people have practiced and people rehearsed and everything looks easy it is not easy on there and when we run into issues we solve them and show you how we solve them so that you don't run into those so it's it's a very much hey I skinned my elbows and knees doing this and our product managers look at that and say maybe there's opportunity for improvement here can we make this easier but as as part of that I it's it's really come out as another one of those areas where you could present yourself as a subject matter expert again unique opportunity the branding on that is it's unscripted it's not a demo we're solving a problem and we're showing you how we're solving a problem I love the angle on that because it's something I've never ever seen before in in a like a developer presentation like that maybe that's what Tim Carter has just asked a question do I feel everything didn't know about ServiceNow and my job is strictly change management I've only been working and changed for a short time but I feel so inadequate what do you recommend as the basics first be able to get to the SME level if you want to be considered the change management expert or the reporting expert or whatever and you're just getting started go in and do that research and learn phase don't find out what it is you need to know if you don't know what you don't know some people hate that phrase because it's too open-ended but I I completely appreciate it if you're new to something seek out a mentor seek out a coach somebody who and there is a difference by the way it's not the same thing if you want to know the difference all right real quick since we do have a couple minutes a mentor is somebody who will guide you who has done that before a coach may not have done that before but is really good at getting people up to that level so think of a like a football coach they may never play the game but they're a really good coach and make good players they know what resources need to be done they need to what exercises and and things make good players a mentor is someone who has done that before who can give you advice based on their experience and will give you a different direction than the coach sometimes if it's it's rare that that's ever the same person or that same person has the same role or both of those roles so don't think of them the same kind but seek out a mentor and or a coach to identify how can I get more experience in that jump in again there's lots of training available on now learning there's lots of training available in person you can you can get that training to be more comfortable in change management so I everybody was new at one point I remember sitting in my first sysadmin class and I had this full stack developer blinders on going how do I get a sequel statement to run its service now well the answer is you don't because that you don't need to hey you got to get out of that mindset and understand what tools are available to you how do you know you you know gold the community is another great place put a post out there and say hey I'm new what resources do you have there's hundreds of thousands of people out there that are willing to contribute and say this worked for me you should read this book you should go to this website and it may not even be a ServiceNow website it could be one of our partners it could be a person who already is a subject matter expert that is willing to share and lend check your linkedin network see if there's anybody out there that has a similar title and is a connection or could be a connection and say would you be willing to work with me go to the ServiceNow user group meetups when we get to do those again in real life and shake hands meet people get introduced if somebody's doing a presentation on change management which seems to be a pretty frequent note from the snugs that I've gone to introduce yourself to that person and say I'd like to get to know you better so it's going to be through those connections that you build your own knowledge base and experience base and and can be able to turn things out and you know what starting from scratch I totally forgot about this because a buddy of mine does this starting from scratch is also a great way to share information because everybody somewhere is starting from scratch they start out at ground zero friend of mine had two podcasts when he called the typical PC user when he started learning about pcs and then he switched over to Macs and he started another podcast called the typical Mac user and he quite literally started from the moment he unboxed it and turned it on he said this is what I need to learn I'm going to share as I go what did I learn what worked what didn't what hurts what doesn't and then he engaged his listeners and his followers that way so there's nothing wrong with taking notes early on in your career or early on in your experience of that that subject matter you say I'm not ask me yet but I could be and I'm going to share what I've learned for those who are learning along with me I just want to make I made a note to audience maybe I'm funny in here SME for that I put an event on the community for change management we can be a what to three-part series oh yeah you could have your own channel on change management before you went from one live stream version and now you only on the now community YouTube channel and you know we're broken it out into segments mm-hmm so this kind of shows that path of being a subject matter expert is now you have these difficult channels yeah sure so what Lisa's referring to as the community live stream started this in late 2017 as just a way to transfer I said look I'm on the community a couple hours a day anyway why don't I just turn on the camera and see what happens and it was a very real time you're watching me type I'm reading the question giving the thought process because there were there's a thought process that goes on behind every answer why did I go left instead of right why did I choose a instead of B where is this thing how do we discover that what's the reverse engineering to get there how did you know that secret table existed and that was a lot of fun but it was very hard to reference and after doing this for a while people were asking question remember that time you talked about service portal widgets no I might have it in a bullet item on some post somewhere but I wanted to make it more referenceable so be adaptable if you are presenting information whether it's a blog or whether it's a video or whether it's a podcast or whatever be adaptable and listen to your audience they're giving you feedback directly and indirectly as well and and I so in April of this year after almost two and a half years of doing this series I said it's time for a change so I broke it down and from one general community live stream and here's eight articles I covered and a special topic I said it's it's really I categorized this there's a section on api's if you see a screen that's and I branded it getting back to branding purple ones are for api's I call it API adventures lessons learned these are things I learned the hard way could be anything random code decoded I like the picture with the HTML gang sign hey I call it code decoded so it's deeper industry so lots of different things and now it's a little shorter format it's not a full hour always rarely and it's easier to reference so listen to your audience and be adaptable and maybe it's stopped the old project and start a new project I wanted to carry the community livestream theme through just because it was a thing already know you can become a subject matter expert and still adapt your delivery method it might go from writing to video to podcast you could have multiple avenues multiple channels of engaging your audience and again you don't have to be a quote/unquote expert like I said it's starting from Ground Zero you don't to be an expert to start creating content and becoming an expert so as we wind down our last minute or so let me just give you a quick summary of ways you can stand out from your peers that's very important in your career and become recognized at that subject matter expert first identify your area of interest second research and learn third look at the branding find some way to stand on be unique and fourth of course share that and feel free to share your ideas I'd love to hear what you're working on and ideas that you got you can obviously reach me on LinkedIn or the community or good old email any other questions while we close out I have a channel link in there I'm gonna Massimo do suggest that anyone has any more questions awkward Chuck will be following the post the blog that I included earlier let me go ahead and provide that one more time and you can watch you watch this video as I post the questions and share all right well we're at the bottom of the half-hour so allow everyone to get to their next session so we appreciate everybody's time today and have a good day thanks