knowledge 24 is in the books this episode is just Lauren and me reflecting on some of our favorite memories while they're still fresh welcome to breakpoint the service now developer [Music] podcast hello service not Edmonds Builders developers and curious individuals and of course we always say that with the utmost love and respect welcome to or welcome back to breakpoint the service now developer podcast where we bring you the latest tools tips and tradecraft to accelerate your career my name is Chuck tamasi senior developer Advocate and I am joined by the one and only the incomparable I'm just still recovering from knowledge so we're going to go with that and keep it short the senior developer Advocate Lauren McManaman how are you today Lauren I'm doing great and so and my uh my foot massager got a workout this past weekend after oh you brought that amazing yeah yeah I have regrets maybe this is something we take a look at later that says what worked well and what do we need to take a look at I need to take a look at bringing a massage gun or something because my dogs were killing me yeah you were like the title said we're going to just kick back enjoy a drink all right we don't have any drinks right now but imagine we do and uh reminisce on how we did and what we did and what we observed what worked well what could be improved and we encourage your input in the comments on the community we'll give you a link in a little bit all of that about knowledge it was a big event and this is only the tip of the iceberg from our perspective you had a different experience I'm sure as did everybody everybody's experience was unique very fortunate to have crossed paths with many of you I did a little how many people do you think we had there Lauren 20,000 I I that's what the numbers that I was seeing was either somewhere between 18 and 20,000 I don't think the the final number is in but it's up there all right if that's the case you know I shouldn't reveal any numbers we're going to have a competition of how many selfies I got let's just say was a fair percentage of that number we'll just leave it at that I had a privilege of crossing paths and getting pictures with a good number of you many whom we've seen in previous conferences many whom we've only seen online and some for the very first time it was great to meet you all so just wanted to throw that one out there Lauren you suggested a topic before we even got to the conference so tell me about what led up to knowledge that you wanted to Spotlight well one of the spotlights I want to just kind of go over not too much but a little bit is the process of writing a lab so there was such a phenomenal wealth of information at this year's knowledge um but still not enough like I saw a lot of people that was like oh there weren't enough labs to year oh there wasn't enough this well there is always the option to write one for next year so I want to kind of go through the process of writing one a little bit in case you were interested in doing so writing a lab has a lot of value not only does teaching help you kind of Master that topic deeper but it also gets you a free ticket to the conference so right uh so just to kind of give a realistic expectation of what writing a lab is about uh you have basically two chances at it you have the first call for content which is the creator con one which opens usually at the end of the year and then you have another chance which is the knowledge the greater knowledge call for Content um obviously the Creator cron one is much more technically oriented so if you're wanting to do things aimed at developers aimed at at uh you know someone that would be creating or building that would be the the slot to aim for but however do not get discouraged if your slot isn't picked for Creator con there's also the option to try for the greater knowledge one as well it would just be a little bit less technical uh this year we went with this really great provider called gitbook to write our lab books in it was a phenomenal phenomenal Aid I want to give a huge shout out to Jason mcke kind of our captain of Creator Cod for making or helping make that decision because previously when writing a lab you had to write it all using markdown which isn't difficult um however it is an added layer of difficulty for people that have not done it before so essentially kicking off in the beginning part of the year once you have been approved for a lab you are given a couple of months to create it um the getbook is obviously the humongous portion of that effort where you write step for step every single thing that must be done in the variety of exercises that your lab represents typically a lab is I believe an hour and a half isn't it Chuck yeah about 90 minutes 100 minutes something like that yeah and so you're cons continuously also testing to make sure it whatever content you have is appropriate for that time frame not only that but you're also tasked with building the PowerPoint around it obviously we don't just stand up there and go for the getbook you also have to have a presentation um some of them are recorded for a digital experience so you also sometimes have to do a digital recording as well um but all of that is basically done over basically from when the newest release of the year comes out until late April you have about two and a half months to get the whole thing done so in this case we were building on Washington for knowledge 25 we'll be building on Yokohama so that's correct that's always nice yeah and there may be some gotes in there we will say you know Washington was new there may be some bugs this an audience we'll say bugs in in the new features if you're doing latest and greatest if you're doing something that's already been out and you want to go I want to talk about you know flow designer or top 10 things I've learned in flow designer you're pretty safe there yeah you don't have to use the newest release I will say I just always I always challenge myself in the lab series that we've done to be on the newest because I mean we gotta try you know if anything I'm selfish and I'd like to get my hands on the newest release and give it a test so yeah yeah I will say the biggest mistake most people make who are building Labs anyway is underestimating the time it takes to that oh gosh especially the screenshotting I think that's the weirdest one is not only do you have to be extremely specific with your instructions as specific as in the upper leftand corner find this word click it and then like it has to be you can't just say click a button you have to describe where the button is you have to describe what color it is what orientation of the screen do you need to scroll down and then for every I mean optimally for every single step there is a complimentary screenshot that is sometimes annotated that is the right um Zoom right you can't have it's too zoomed out because then no one can read it so I think from my lab I was looking back through it I think from my lab there was like 95 screenshots wow and it was an intro introductory lab it was a very easy you to be very specific about that yeah yeah yeah the other mistake I think most people make whether it's a lab or a speaker session is they don't take advantage of the office hours we provide we haveing several sessions a week call for Content has its own own open Office hours if you're just ideating show up if you don't have an idea show up there's stuff that ends up on The Cutting Room floor that other people have picked up and go I want to speak about that I'm qualified or that gives me an idea they are invaluable and then when you get to the content creation part you can shape it you can hone it you can really make it effective and somebody will say you know it' be better if you flip those two bullet points around you're you're you're sort of Buri the lead on that you can get that information out of it and make sure that when you get to the conference it's as good as it can be because you've already gotten it you can practice delivering this if you want to go hey I've got a 15-minute speaker session I want to run it past you because a lot of times it's just us Advocates and Jason mcke sitting on these calls and we end up shooting the breeze you know just chewing the fat or having a chinwag or whatever the idiom is in your area for doing nothing but catching the uh we would love to have you show up and try your content on us try your ideas on them so take advantage we could do a whole session on this just alone Lear we move so we got a ton we're we're not sworn to secrecy either I've had people join and say hey what topic do you think would be good at creater conon that no one seems to be mentioning doing something on yet yeah like that that works too like we're not we're not we're here to help you get approved right that's the whole point of office hours we would like to improve as many sessions as possible so if 18 people are making a topic on the same thing obviously that's going to necessitate Some Cuts but if you present on a more Niche topic or something that hasn't as well represented it's going to give you a better competitive Advantage I'm already Brewing some ideas for next year and I shouldn't yet very nice have to write them down to my future self put them in a in an email that delivers in about three months true well a similar note to putting together the labs I want to do a quick review of what it takes to put together that keynote because Lauren and I just don't show up and dance around on stage and riff this is as I've told many people the most produced production I've ever done in my career everything everything you see on stage is scripted down to who moves left and who's coming in the stage and what we we don't get into the lighting too much thankfully that's all by our stage crew but we do get into what you see on the screen in terms of cameras and demos and huge huge thanks to all the people this really took an army to put together but we start planning this out in January we're going what's coming out in the next two releases after the current release so Washington came out and I said I'm talking to the product manager going what do you have for me in xanadoo and Yokohama because they know they know what's on their road map they know what they're building that far in advance does it exist no it's not like they can whip up a demo screen and go here we go we use a tool called figma to make mockups this is how we test things out and say what if we put the button here what if we put the AI on this side versus that side so they mock these things up and they are fully clickable so what you saw on the screen was smoking mirrors but it looked great we also took a giant leap of faith this year and did not do click-throughs normally would have a recorded demo and somebody would stand at a Podium you probably saw this in some of the other Keynotes and they um you know Britney was doing some and and I think Christy was even doing one somewhere yeah and and they would say now I'm going to do this one Soul was even brave enough to do it on his local laptop as a local instance one of the developers I saw it said Local Host on the URL but and he was typing and making typos and then backspacing went wow that's really going out on a limb because there's a huge risk that something might go wrong anyway short story is we used videos of those figma recordings to put on the screen and time it out with who was saying what and what do we want to show it was kind of like putting the wheels on a unicycle as it's going down the road right also too because we couldn't decide which one to come first the use case or the features and so it was kind of a chicken the chicken in the egg scenario of like which do we decide first the product teams had figmas but we had to align them with our story what's our story we don't know until we know what the features are like you were saying so that's what you saw on the screen there was also a lot of discussion of who do we put into that fireside chat you and we landed on Pat Casey which worked out really well he's he's known he's loved it it worked out really well then there was the panel discussion are we doing one like last year with Ebony or are we going to do multiples I opted for multiples in case somebody got sick you know if anybody had called in at the last minute and said uh it's not going to work we have to scratch that and figure out what we're doing for the rest of the session if you know we have four and one of them backs out we're not stuck we just adopt and and adapt and move on so and Lauren really handled the the the the game play on what are the questions and coordinating and practicing with ay and jeline and Anker and CJ and it came out wonderfully I was watching that just yesterday on the big screen at home uh because unknown to most people you really can't hear that well on stage Pat was 3T away from me and I could barely hear what he was saying some of the time uh because all of the audio is projected at you the audience and I was listening back again on the big screen go gee I wish I had heard that I could have gone in deeper but then it would have gone longer because I didn't know exactly what he was saying uh in the moment but it worked out well we we had a great time the um yeah everything is scripted we were to the point where an hour before we started just moments where we were supposed to go into the makeup room and get touched up uh I was talking to the production crew about transitioning demos to cameras to demos to cameras because the night before it looked a little like we were lingering in certain places when we shouldn't have but uh we got that all worked out yes I was a control freak on this one but it was is a ful experience for us I remember just as they announced our names Lauren they said please welcome to the stage senior developer Advocates Lauren McManaman and Chuck tamasi the crowd erupted it was yeah Mayhem shouting and I paused for just a fraction of a second go is that for us well then let's get going I will say this year we had I finally got access to the Tableau report we had a record number of people in attent was it 5800 5850 un ABS so I I want to pause here and also like thank everyone for coming in such amazing numbers I cannot describe to you what that feels like on stage because you always hear of like well you can always see the first two rows that's Malarkey you can see everybody I mean you can't see their faces but you can see the bodies especially when they brought the house lights up you know you would you would ask you a show of hands of how many people have attended all 10 and there were I would say probably about 10 people in that audience that have been to all 10 thank you for all of that um yeah send me a message I have something for you if you want it I'll mail it to you also it's very funny to see um because this is now my second big Creator con keynote I've been involved with and it's very funny to see that this one that we had so much more creative control over how many like different versions of this keynote there has been like Chuck mentioned oh that there was versions that had one MVP or three or four but even within that there was one portion of the MV p panel where we were we only had 10 12 minutes to do that and so I had figured oh I'll I'll ask each MVP one question right and then have have them speak kind of more ad nauseum to that answer but during the rehearsals I liked all of their questions to every answer so much it was hard to trim them down right so we just I'm like like speak briefer because we y'all give awesome answers for everyone so it's funny um you really so one of my biggest problems is that I really struggle in a situation of flexibility like I like things to be consistent um so being part of a production like this where things are seemingly changing almost daily definitely weekly um it's really it takes a bit to get used to but it was much much much easier this year to weather those changes here's a dirty little secret and this kind of goes back to one of our presentation topics that we covered recently is always plan for less time than you have oh oh gosh yeah on the agenda it says this is a 1-hour keynote internally we are targeting 45 minutes so when you add up the intro and Pat's chat and the demos and the MVP panel and yall break in the rules and claing in between every MVP Inu yeah had one job audience one job I honestly know that that was very sweet I fact I like that even better I'm like oh heck yeah that's that's the best and that's exactly why we do that is we target 45 and then Lauren says I really can't throw out any questions can I have 12 or 13 instead of 10 I can go yes yes you can and then yes you can but don't tell the demos right well the demos are that was the advantage of doing it as videos is we had to stay on script because we didn't have a clicker we if you notice nobody had a clicker on stage so yes the back of house people as they call them are going off of what we say there were literally lines under words underlined that Lauren had to say so that they knew to start the next video Advance the speaker notes Etc because what we said was absolutely crucial to making the rest of the production run so we could not vary there were there were little points in there where you know we could change a couple of words and instead of saying cool every time it was double cool or super cool or you know I ran out pull asaurus after a while because there's only so many am to react to the way something shows something so incredible stupendous cool amazing like we're almost have to start pivoting to other languages like still going magnif yeah yeah so yeah Target less time and I think the video ended up at 51 minutes which was absolutely perfect no one shoots you for going under you know no that was that was a br scores we got our survey response is back for the keynote and we got a 4.8 overall which is really really really unheard of thank you thank you everybody foring out the surveys thank you so much for filling out the surveys I don't I think you still have time if you want to keep going I don't think if you got the app still on your phone I deleted mine but thank you yeah a little insight into the keynote all right other things that worked well you had mentioned the colors and the the creativity that we had so yeah talk about that so for years so but prior to me even joining this team Chuck and Leadership of this team have been really trying to create what they call a developer theme so you'll see this like at other companies right where they have their brand and then they have a separate theme for developer is things like content and websites and things like that and it service now we've wanted to do that for years but we've been trying very incrementally to push that idea we didn't want to like tip our hand too much and it just get flat out rejected uh so every year knowledge is a great opportunity to test the waters right because it's an event um it's not like a permanent fixture yet so they can try things and see if they work and pull them back if not and so this was the first year we really got backing and the AOK to try out a theme and I think that anyone that visited the EXO hall floor saw that the Creator area looked distinctly different had lots of textures had lots of color it had an amazing amount of pictures of real people real developers within our community that you could point to and say hey that's so and so not just you know like a hired actor um and I think that I I think that worked spectacularly not going to lie I I've I heard so many people reflecting on how much fun that area looked and how icon like iconic it was becoming even just in the days that knowledge happen so Chuck as someone that's like kind of fought for that for a very long time what did you think I loved it I loved it we had had creativity years ago if you remember if you've been to some of the older knowledges we had mascots we had uh you know creativity Around Mission to Mars or Brew Ops or you and this was kind of a feel back to that U real feel-good moment in fact the Creator conon logo was distinctly different than the service now logo it was until about 2019 so it was it was nice to have our own attachment and I think I think it actually started bleeding into the other sections if you looked at the rest of the show Flor you saw you saw more color in you know that that thing where the book opens up and the splash of colors comes out or the flowers that bloom and turn into light bulbs there was there was more color in other places and I think we had an influence on that uh I don't know one way or the other I haven't talked to Jim ler or bran te we did we did start talking to him way way back in like October November about what are we looking for what do we need and they came up with this concept about blocks like building blocks because that's what developers can relate to uh that's great and we started pivoting off with that so if you not a lot noticed a lot of hexagons without lines those are blocks without lines but it it worked out really really well and I am so excited to see this start working into like the intro for Creator toolbox or the that that carries that forward and we can keep building not to make a pun but building on these building blocks to do that very exciting and I hope that that resonated and made for cooler t-shirts that's for sure oh my goodness yeah the t-shirts look spectacular I love the uh and this might be a good transition Point as well I really like the hackathon pins this year too like everything just everything was so much more lively and I think think that with how intense a lot of people's schedules are I think that also helps too let's let's dive into that since you mentioned it huge thanks to Earl for being the central point of organization facilitating the hackathon everything from team formation to getting instances configured to staying awake till 3:00 a.m. with the judging process it was it was really really really well executed Lauren and I stopped in just briefly on Tuesday night and everybody was so focused and and had a good time um had selfies that Jordan and live were running too they live streamed the like building for of it which was a very cute idea that was an exercise and improv here Chuck take the mic talk about Stu like okay yeah like all right I'm here but I think they had like around 140 people is that correct amazing that whole Pavilion area was just packed and then flowing out even there were even people outside the Pavilion area working on the hackathon so that was cool uh big hackathon something you may want to consider next year dear listener if you're if you're making plans already going hey if I could go to knowledge 25 what would I do starts about 4 pm on Tuesday and goes till midnight uh come with ideas come with a team um congratulations to our winning team the torture developers Department still love that name it makes me smile the tulson were on there there were uh I I I'm trying to remember the five people in the picture uh jeline J she was win again again incredible woman yeah yeah so very very cool a lot of lot of other winners and finalists and um honorable mentions that go out there I'm going to leave that announcement for Earl but uh great great stuff hackathon was was wonderful and we mentioned jesselyn she's an MVP we had a wonderful time with the MVPs that I just oh yeah kudos to the MVP team Selena and Sarah and V and and live and just everybody who's involved with that mvp program did a great job we had our second MVP dinner this was something suggested a couple of years ago that's only the second one yes yes the first one was last year no I had no idea the first one was last year it's already that because I thought with how professional and how like beautifully done it was last year I'd assume that they've been doing it every year that's how good that team is they are just and the community itself the MVPs had awards for their peers and self organized Awards it was very cool they even filmed like video messages for everyone that oh it was very cool it was it was so inspiring I was touched that that Community is if if you're not already an MVP consider doing this is people who give back to the community either they're creating content answering questions organizing Dev meetups let us know this isn't just a commercial about how to become an MVP and get more involved but this is really something special they had preferred seating at the Keynotes like right up front they were cheering the loudest at our keynote that was yes unbelievable that the experience so much easier like I I think that as someone that's still pretty new to the developer advocacy team um something that really helps me get out of my shell and feel very comfortable in whatever I'm doing is how supportive the MVPs they all come to like everything we do in Mass they're very uh encouraging they Che like Chuck said they cheer very loud so like as someone on the receiving end of that like it it really means the world to for them to support us because we really love supporting them so it's it's a nice little uh Circle you know and even many of our employees who were former MVPs were so involved with that Maria gabri um Adam Adam Adam Paige just there there's there's there's several of them I think we had a photo of employees who were former Earl Earl's a former MVP Earl yeah and MVPs we poached there's still part of that core Community there they had little chachkies that they were passing back and forth Maria Gabriella had the 3D printed Donuts again this year just little stuff whether it was a sticker or a temporary tattoo to or something they had personally made it was just fun to see that interaction of that Community it is more than just getting a badge on the community that says I was a 2024 MVP it was it was really something special that transcends the the event and the the status it was you got to see it it was I was I was just standing back Savory go this is something special yeah another thing that we got included in this year um which I'm not I'm not sure if any listeners were part of the session but if they were please let us know in the comments uh of the community post uh Chuck and I were invited to provide some like closing remarks to the Japan session so every year because it's such an arduous Journey obviously to get from Japan to Las Vegas the uh president of that team Suzuki son he puts together this like nice reception at the end of knowledge and also believe at the beginning of knowledge if I'm not if I'm not incorrect on that but regardless yes there is there's like an onboarding thing or at the beginning for them as well yep and so this year I believe we had around 300 attendees from Japan which is really amazing to me because I will say like most of the content is in English and like Japan's business language is obviously Japanese so for them to make the huge journey in such amazing numbers for you know an english- speaking conference predominantly is a really amazing thing and so that's that's partially why they put this reception together and we got to encourage you know that developer Community as well it was really really exciting um they're we're trying to spread this like new brand and the Creator conon messaging and like the fun and Community sense of being a service now developer internationally a bit more broadly this upcoming year um they actually have their own developer Advocate manabu badan uh he's a little bit newer but he's doing an amazing amount of work they're already this like great hackathon in the summer so Chuck and I were there just to kind of cheer on all that great work that's already happening um and it was really really awesome to meet everywhere I've never done a presentation with a live translator before and that was very cool yeah I'm glad I just watched Shogun because I felt like um what's his name uh Blackstone black black yeah where I was a fish out of water this was this was a very new experience for me uh we walked in and Pat Casey was presenting and he would say about you know 10 seconds worth of dialogue and then it would be translated live of what he just said uh I think most of the people were understanding because when a joke was made or something they would laugh before it was translated yes and I I didn't realize what a verbose language Japanese is because he would say 10 seconds and it would take 15 to 20 to translate like oh I'm really curious as to what they're saying and how they're saying it and the nuances such a beautiful language that I I I felt again you know like Mr Blackthorne going I have no idea I hope they're translating me accurately they could be you know reciting a sausage and meatloaf dinner I don't know it was uh it but it was it was really nice to to be there and to be asked to speak in front of all these people who came so far I hope they had a wonderful experience they were all dressed in suits oh that's that's one thing is that I I spent a month there last year and everyone in Japan dresses to the nines it was like if I was going to a work event I was like I'd have to dress up because everyone there dress is so nice it's really really really nice and it was nice to see so many of my friends from the office again like I uh knowledge is more and more at least for me becoming like a family reunion it's always all these people that I haven't seen all year and it's it's such a blessing to to get time even if it's just a few minutes to see them it's really great yeah was that was really cool we we were I think we were given five minutes and we had to pair down our discussion real fast in the moment well I as so Yuki son she's the one that kind of uh she's I believe her title is the executive executive events manager out a double check but she is basically the one that put these types of events together and she I did not know the timing was going to be that strict until I looked at the back of the room and they had a sign that that was like two minutes left I was like oh they're really like this is like the keynote they yeah that's after I finished up my half go sorry well Chuck was doing a really great job of speaking slowly for the translator which was which was appropriate right I didn't factor that in when I was designing kind of like the outline of what we would C right and I was like I have to do some annotations on it I we got the point across and it went well we have our other teammate pranav who was involved a little bit more this year than last year he uh he did one of your uh Builder track Labs thank you very much for that this was a new experience for him as well building the lab and learning how to write that guide book Etc so he did a great job there and he also created a new game so people kept asking me are we seeing a karaoke are we playing Jeopardy I said no we're not we're doing something new and panov's got that so made my job a lot easier this year and the hackathons but it also you know gave him a chance to shine on that stage I we walked up while he was presenting and it went well it really went well so it was it was fun to see him you know take on that role as well and and create something new hopefully he'll get some content out of that well I know one of the reasons I love building on the platform is to generate content that we can share it's all part of that learn share change lives thing that I've got going on that we talked about a while back with the upcoming other strategic events for the year I can if if and when we get to go I see some definite use for those types of fun games he did a great job M seeing it too yeah I we've got karaoke and jeopard not karaoke karaoke's on its own instance for reasons I won't share here but U Jeopardy Family Feud uh we even have a custombuilt Wordle game that is on its own instance so I we will we will migrate PRS who wants to be we can't say Who Wants To Be A Millionaire because that's tra trademark he called it Who Wants To Be A swager which sounds like an old Jeep vehicle called a Wagoner but that's that's just my brain making crazy associations uh we also had the closing concert and party over at the wind huge musical Talent from Pitbull uh unfortunately I didn't make it in I I was in the hallway taking pictures and and associating you know getting a lot of people still wanted selfies so our VP our new VP Alex was standing right by he was laughing the whole time going this is your job you know just wondering what's going through his head but it was nice to connect with people uh we are we are getting serious uh cosplay going on it went beyond the shoes I expected you know people with various green shoes or Green Jackets or whatever uh we had one guy dress up as pitpull we had one guy dress up as Bill McDermot so Bill changed it up this year and wore a white jacket on stage you he normally he's got his black leather jacket and his black pants and whatnot even though we're we're all told don't wear all black or all white on stage no to not wear to not wear black or white on stage don't wear all black all white or let me break that too they let me break that I wore a black shirt they did let me I think it was beforehand when we had a screen behind us instead of that wooden background that was newe this year it was that blow the camera so yeah and Bill wore this white jacket I don't know where this guy got it or how he knew but this guy looked like Bill only without the the gray hair he was dark hair he had the glasses he had the white jacket I like cuz it was so unusual to see him that way but he nailed it I don't know if he ran out and got one or what you mentioned photos we actually so every year every year Chuck does this like f like Photo campaign it's like National Geographic walking next to this man where it is like it's so really it's really nice but also because it's such like a frenzy every year we get comments of like I'm really sad I didn't get to run into Chuck or or like The Advocates at all right right so this year we tried something new which behind the scenes we were all threating about doing which was the developer Advocate photo op because our biggest you were you nervous about that why I no I was nervous that no one would come oh I was nervous that we be standing there like idiots for an hour and everyone's just walking back being like they want pictures with those goobers but no like lots of people came over 100 came correct yeah I think we had somewhere between 90 and 100 is what we were counting um which was part of a larger contest to count how many selfies Chuck gets but we'll we'll we'll roll that out you if you'll see that coming out on social media and whatnot soon the um so we were counting it was a lot of fun and and worked out really well I was I was partially inspired by some of the celebrity photos we see on other events uh Donna and I take a cruise every year uh a Star Trek themed cruise with celebrities and they have photo ops with them as well and I watched how it was organized and what the what this was like so I said hey look if people are looking for us let's put it on the agenda and let's make it an event that you know they can feel like the celebrities we put the important people in the middle of the pictures flanked by Earl and panov and Lauren and me and and that was a lot of fun that really was yeah uh funny you should say you know National Geographic in there because Robert Fedor did post something like that when I was talking to uh five people from Germany for at least 20 minutes and and his comment was something along lines of you know we've captured the wild Chuck in the his native environment and it's been known that he can go on for 23 hours like this he he was you know doing some tongue and cheek humor it was really funny wish I could find it real quick and do that so thank you to everybody who stopped by to take pictures with us it meant a lot it it really did mean a lot and we'll look forward to doing something similar in the future so if you're looking for those maybe even we do two because maybe somebody couldn't make one of them they had prior commitments we'll we'll see how that goes we we did mention some things that worked well like the developer brand uh there were some things that you know didn't work well that could have been could have been sharpened up we had some Lego build your own mini fig so I you know made one well that worked really well worked too well it worked that's the problem we ran out of pieces we ran out yeah at first I thought Lauren said well we ran out of hair and I thought well you know that that's okay for people like Glenn Chason who doesn't have any hair but yeah then then we started running out of like and and you were saying somebody some people were walking around with just pants yeah I saw a couple people they like well I'm I'm just happy to have you know something I was like that's very that's a very positive way of walking around with a headless horseman we we had made 3D printed badge Clips so you could fashion this to your harness and carry it you know basically your own little mini fig on your chest so the as a result of or as a prize for sign it was like signing up for the community and posting about it right right there was there there were little gifts and incentives to do these activities around the floor people would go Hey where's the community Pavilion and how do you check into that and uh so it was a scavenger hunt sort of passport if you wish and and you would get little trinkets along the way if you had ever won an award or like a finalist in the devies you got a little medal that you could put around your neck much like the Olympics so there was some fun stuff there was some fun stuff um so I'm glad I built mine on Tuesday morning while I could still put on pants right yeah and then the um there was also like a variety of colors you could see like which ones were the most popular because those went quickly when they ran out of those I think Thursday they said fine just put the t-shirts out and it it was it was you know people weren't just rumaging through these piles they had to walk up to the counter tell them their size and then one of our helpers would get them otherwise it would have just been a total disaster area with shirts on the floor but uh we we did have some issues with slow internet I think that was mainly Tuesday was it first it's always it's always Tuesday and of course my labs are always Tuesday it's like I I I feel like I'm always the guinea my I'm part of the guinea pig squad for testing out because you're first in the series of of three left yeah it's just a shame because it's it's um there are so many variables already with creating content right that for that one to still be a factor for both the presenters that work so hard to put put that all together and then of course the audience right like I was actually very lucky um the only issue that we had in our lab had to deal with when the links wasn't working um but right you we lost 15 minutes I mean granted we still finished but uh it's a shame it's just a shame and you got decent marks in the survey you got decent scores I did I did I got very very nice and and also like all the the negative ones were just about like oh I felt bad for the presenter dealing with the technical issues they're like oh she seemed really she seemed upset I felt oh here's a tip if you haven't been to knowledge before bring your laptop okay you know what that I will say there was one comment on my that's not that would hurt I'm really receptive to feedback I in fact I really enjoy feedback it gives you the opportunity for growth there was one piece of feedback where I it set me into orbit when I read it which was for my lab uh I didn't even know there was GNA I was going to need my laptop so was just a waste of my time I'm like well then what did you think this it was I come on like come on what else could have been could have been on we're not supplying laptops for thousands of people no yeah so that one's always like and you know what and that comment happens every year there's always one because usually like Chuck said my lab was the first of the series they' position it very early on on Tuesday so it's a high likelihood that's the person's first lab of the conference it's an opportunity for us to improve the communications it is it is an opport no matter how many times you tell somebody still going to forget their laptop but y we we can we can work on looking at it that way the if you've got ideas of what worked well or what didn't please send a comment we will have a short link Dev link. snbp 104 this is episode 104 I think according to my schedule it is so that's what we're going with and that's the link we'll use so that'll point you to the blog feel free to put your comments in there what worked what didn't you know even if it's just two thumbs up we'll take that as well I don't want to end on on this Downer note of what didn't work so I want everybody listening to start thinking about knowledge 25 the call for content is in a few short months so start getting your ideas don't phrase it like that it's it's at the end of the year toss it around with your team no it's like October November it's it's coming up the end of the year yes I mean okay Q4 we'll say Q4 Q we still Q4 sound like we're releasing software you make it sound like it's in July well in my brain it is I'm I'm I'm I told you I'm already starting to think of ideas for next year it's it's that important uh it's never too early to toss around ideas of what do you want to see what do you want to do where do you want to go who do you want to see that's probably the biggest one is the who but uh do you do you have aspirations of creating a lab or 15minute speaking session have you done something or as you do something and you learn you go hey I'm on my first UI Builder assignment uh coming up in July uh think about that as possible content what I learned in my first six weeks of UI Builder you know the resources I use there's always opportunities out there we're a little more sensitive to it because we're in charge of creating content all the time again if you have inklings of speaking and getting that free ticket it's never too early and and run ideas past us we always try to make ourselves available on LinkedIn yes and that's not the end of it also start thinking about the debies I we were unbelievably surprised by how many applicants we got this year uh I I still want more you know what I I want more applicants because I am so excited to see all the amazing work that y'all spend the entire your entire career making that being said the biggest Pitfall that we see consistently with Debbie's applications is that there is no statistics there is no measurable impact of their app they describe an app that is amazing and helpful and beautiful but there is nothing statistically to prove that so if anything start measuring the success of your app now that's the best advice I could give you because also a common mistake we see is that X number people use our app as as a means to measure success that doesn't measure success that measures breath like that shows that they have access do they use it does it help them we don't know lots of people have access to Google but very few people actually Google things correctly or Google things and do research well using that tool right so if you can start honing the statistics that prove the success of your application start doing it now if they don't exist money time save uh survey Sur scor survey survey scores count so it doesn't have to be just objective things it can be feedback as well um but there has to be something other than x number of people use our app and that was I gotta say it that's the majority of Statistics that we got last year and this year so that's my that's my soap box for this this podcast episode if if you lack any ideas or you're looking for inspiration go back and watch the Deb's presentations of what Lauren and I said on stage make our job as easy as possible to put your info up there I I I have those bullets burned into my memory of what Veterans United did it breaks down into three parts they had a problem here's what they did to solve it they built an app for 240,000 cases across 28 assignment groups you see it's still my head this resulted in $429,000 in savings a 90% positive review from their production floor survey and one team get this see that's how well scripted is I can still say the script get this they doubled their workload but decreased their turn times yeah that's those statements are impactful that means it's working so if you want to get your award you gotta put that data in there so we have something to say about your app that's what it boils down to it it's not you know oh I you know built 18,000 service portal widgets and that's cool uh you know there's there's other aspects to the judging and we can certainly help you if you want to look at that but the strongest one like Lauren said the one that filters the most out is the lack of data so don't be one of those yep it can look as amazing as possible but it doesn't qualify even for the finalist round and and unless we have that data finless round is where we finally see the app prior to that we are solely going off your description right so that's why it's so imperative to have both your description and some degree of proof that it has been that helpful as you're describing huge shout out to Liv sather for running the program oh my gosh I mean last year was the first incarnation of the devies brought back from the dead from 2013 the uh this is our app of the Year contest she did as as a round two this was magnitudes better than the previous year Well we also had about six months ahead of time we started about six months earlier that's what made it so much easier and and we didn't have to design a trophy or get brand approval or anything so that was much much easier when we got to the point where what do we need for the keynote it was drop in it's like here the winners here's the names boom we're ready to go weeks in advance we didn't even have to think about it too much and then it was who's going to be receiving trophies on stage and where do they stand and do they know when to show up for rehearsal yeah the fun part thank you thank you thank you live for that all right on that note I think we've pretty much extinguished all our bullet items that we plan to talk about on this episode I know it ran a little longer but it was such a wonderful event thank you everyone who came thank you if you weren't able to attend there's various aspects available online you can watch all the Keynotes from our LinkedIn page or right from the main page there's an on demand watch it here there are some digital experiences if you want to go to now learning we have some of the labs available there as well if you wanted to do that there's tons and tons of pictures are showing up on social media that's pretty much all my feed is right now is knowledge I I saw this and I did that and I took a picture with Chuck and that that's probably why it's on my feet so much as I get a lot of at mentions but the um you know consider going next year there's a huge value if you need help putting that together reach out to us and we'll say look this is what you can get out of it it's not just a class reunion like you know as much as we love that aspect of it we want to make sure you're getting value your organization is getting value out of it and you can grow I said this before and I will say it again I have seen careers transform just from going to this event mine are like I would argue half half of the developer advocacy yeah I I would say maybe three quarters if not 100% of the developer advocacy team had their careers monumentally transformed by simply attending knowledge and taking advantage of the opportunities there yeah there's there's all kinds of opportunities so even if you have to I don't say this is this lightly but I've done this with conferences in the past I've taken PTO paid for it out of my own pocket and it has returned dividends Beyond Compare so hopefully it doesn't come to that for you don't tell your boss you're going there to get a new job don't phrase it like that true true true use use your words wisely yes well thank you so much Lauren for sharing Thoughts with me and thank you wonderful listener for joining us today don't forget you can check out the other service Now podcast they are all at our Community we've said it before join the community service now.com Community under the events menu of all places by the podcast is under events don't know but we'll figure it out from there it's because it's a party every time Chuck hey there we go subscribe to this podcast or any or all of them that we offer we have a lot more get them automatically delivered to you so you don't miss another episode breakpoint is brought to you by service now executive producers would be me and Lauren the two voices you've been hearing this entire episode we'll be back with another guest soon trust us check out the developer program at developer. servicenow.com yeah thank you so much Lauren for your help on this one thank you chck as always big fun please let us know what you think about this podcast you can leave feedback or ask questions in the service now Community for more great information on service now development check out the service now developer portal at developer. servicenow.com thanks for listening that's that let us begin and here we go well you start out a topic that actually started before let me try that again who is going to be that fireside chat kind of thing wait pause are we gonna are we gonna pause are we gonna admit that okay we we'll scratch that yeah but if you also too oh sorry no that's all right go ahead no no no keep going mine's I was going to PIV it to the next topic sorry we're always on we're we the biggest pitball pitball of a pitball yeah I have pitball in the mine that was a good one that was cool