welcome to customer connections the podcast where Tech meets Innovation with a splash of creativity I'm your host director Jerry Campbell and alongside me is my Visionary co-host and Senior portfolio manager at service now Shaya Greer get ready to embark on a journey where we will unravel the secrets of digital transformation exploring Cutting Edge strategies and sharing stories that light up the tech landscape whether you're a digital Pioneer or curious learner we've got something for you stay tuned get inspired and let's make magic [Music] happen good morning good afternoon good day wherever you are thank you for listen to the customer connection podcast where we get your service now projects going in the right direction fast I am Jerry Campbell director of customer industry work fure insights and scale with my esteemed colleague portfolio manager SAA Greer today our guest is Amanda Justice also known as AJ AJ welcome to the show thank you Jarry thank you so much yeah so I'll tell you about AJ here AJ joined Trilogy software at Austin Texas in 1999 from MIT and so she HS several roles including data warehouse performance engineer help desk manager and the director of trilogy's post post deployment group to expand her expertise AJ transitioned into management consulting and later became an Enterprise architect playing a key role in the successful launch of emc's V block we're going to have to talk about EMC here in a minute but uh in 2012 AJ joined Cyrus 1 where she was instrumental in passing transformative tax legislation in Texas creating a data center Boom for the state and led the site selection of some of the largest data centers in the US her contributions were crucial in helping take Cyrus 1 public in 2013 from there she was fulfilling a lifelong dream from everyone for the past decade AJ has focused on Enterprise architecture and modernization energy and utility operations Global she is currently the director of Enterprise architecture at service now where she leads a team supporting the company's largest Enterprise customers in the Western United States outside of work Amanda and her husband have enjoyed exploring the US in their class a mobile home recently completing a t all F States AJ is also an amateur Billiards Champion wow we got to talk some out about that a little bit too who's team Place ninth in the world in 2021 AJ has two grown children and lives in Austin Texas again welcome to the show AJ what a career thanks Jerry I appreciate it thanks for having me yeah so as I alluded to we have some rules of engagements here at the customer connection and really the rules of engagements are you need to explain your acronyms use minimal acronyms or else we have What's called the jargon jar at the end we may ask you to contribute to that fund at the end if you cannot explain or help our audience understand what that acronym is so I'll just go back to really quick you said emc's what is EMC so it is the name of the company it's a large scale hardware company and it was bought out by Dell many years ago but they were the leading innovator and convergence infrastructure platform and launched this V block which was all self contained converged infrastructure platform that really kind of transform the world of infrastructure way back in the day so a lot of the old school folks on the phone will remember the the battle between EMC and the players in the space back in the day it was a game-changing strategy for EMC at the time and we have a lot of EMC folks here at service now oh wow wow that's good to know so we understand the rules of engagement right AJ I do he I have a lot of acronyms so I'm going to make sure I spell them out promise okay awesome cuz our fans and customers they want to know what that is and sometimes we get lost in that jargon I know us in this especially service now we love to spit out our acronyms and jargon so we'll keep it simple our listeners uh before we dive in I want to just say a couple of things like Austin Texas man that's my back door I uh my sister's a UT grad I lived in Georgetown for several years and now I'm in Dallas for work but what is really jumping some ice breakers here I know there's a saying that Austin's weird why did you perceive as Austin as being weird I think that just an Eclectic group of people in centered in the middle of the state in a very conservative state but it's an actual very liberal area of the state where people can just be themselves nonjudgment be who you are how God Made You and do your thing it's a really interesting collaboration of companies Innovation firms venture capital firms that are really focused on building some of the best technology in the world and it's really inexpensive to live here comparatively I mean we're getting inundated by lots of other folks and the housing Market's really exploded in the last 10 years Tesla's mov moving all of their headquarters here for both SpaceX and their battery operations so it's just a it's a place you want to live it's it's a lot of topography the rest of the state's pretty flat we have a lot of Hills here in Lake just a pretty a pretty area to live in yeah I was going to say I I was there recently and they said it's like the Silicon Valley of middle of United States right and you have Dell you have apple you have Tesla it's hot Google campus there also right it's everybody's there yeah yeah my husband works for Cisco and they have a big campus here as well all right let's jump into it uh could you share a bit about your career journey and what inspired you to pursue the role of Enterprise architecture well I I think a lot of Enterprise Architects fall into the role and mainly for a lot of the same reasons I mean our focus is strategy process optimization technology with a desire and a understanding for the future right we're futurists at heart so we always I can stay up to speed on the latest and greatest technology so if you've got a love for all of those things EA which we call inpr Architects EAS uh tend to be natural fits uh if they enjoy those things but I fell into it about 10 years ago haphazardly um after Cyrus 1 went public I decided to take the blessings I got from that public it was awesome and decided to get back to the community and I went to go work for the largest nonprofit in the city working for uh Chief Information officer officer there to build out the largest tier one medical research institution in the US Del Medical Center and we had no Enterprise architecture group um so I've been tasked to pick every bit of Technology set up a strategy office set up an architecture team um and I fell in love with it right off the bat um and had to map out all the Technologies for that hospital which is going to be game changing for our medical industry um in Austin Texas so once I kind of got root of the the types of tools that we use the processes that we use to pick technology why we picked that technology I fell in love I started researching everything I could about how to become an architect and and it was just a natural fit kind of given the fact that I loved all these other things strategy and technology and architecture futurist thinking so it was just a great fit for me that's cool that's cool so tell us about something that's interesting or really surprising to us outside of the Enterprise architecture world tell us just something interesting about it that you know we might not really truly understand well so I as a leader I'm a big believer trying to understand the people that work uh for me and around me like what what makes them tick how do they operate what are their motivators and so I'm a big believer in Myers Briggs and inag and spend a lot of time trying to get to understand the humans around me and one of the things that's been fascinating in many years of leading different kinds of teenss is how different the personalities are in Enterprise architecture they're all over the map they're strong Rovers strong extroverts um their personalities are wildly different from each other they're fingerprint every single one of them there's nothing similar about any EA that I've ever worked with and what's amazing about that is especially coming into service now with a huge team of interent Architects they're quite natural collaborators because you can't be an expert in every single thing and so we collaborate with each other when we hear a customers pain or we experience a challenge collaborating has anybody run into this and where has somebody kind of solved this problem before where going learn from each other I would say That's Unique I do a lot in cyber security and person types in cyber tend to be quite similar they're risk adverse they're not not par I'm paranoid paranoid budge where that's that's good at their job is to think of the unthinkable what could potentially happen and how do I protect my organization from these bat actors not necessarily case in the EA they it's a wide range of personalities and people um and collectively they make a pretty powerful Army when they work that's that's awesome right there um never would have thought that they were collaborators in that aspect but uh that's pretty cool let's really get into the meat of this and that's the service now I expect right uh as the Director of Enterprise Architects how do you see your role at service now in shaping and supporting this organization's uh Enterprise architecture so there's one of the things I came from a customer so I've been with a customer for the last 10 years and I I joined a couple of years ago from a customer and I think first of all I'm taking my customer hat off and I won't um and I think that's what makes me a better architect just that I'm always having that customer hat on and when I'm talking to customers it's we we have this issue I think one thing that is interesting about this role is the platform is huge does a lot of different things um and the customers have a lot of Technology working around the platform sometimes not at all but adjacent to what we're trying to do where customer might be will chair uh kind of going across different applications to solve various problems and an Enterprise archetype needs to look at that entire back um and be agnostic and be candid about what the platform can and cannot do you know what was make more sense in service now versus maybe contain the system of record but move it into service now system of action where we have to go do something and then we upload or modify the system of record to make experience for employees even if we want to optimize processes easier the customer um and service now you know it's up in these workflow buckets but a customer doesn't think about it in workflows they think I have a problem and it might be a combination of several products that have to come together and work together to solve that problem and that's where I think uh Enterprise architecture kind of helps act as a bridge between these different pro teams and the customer because they understand the customer's business and say okay based on this problem these are the elements that need to come together on service now or with third party systems to get work and solve that particular challenge for the customer I think that's what we bring to the table and I think that's why bill mcder made such a huge investment um in Enterprise araure and provide this service for free to clients as he sees the value in not yeah I love that customer first thinking so I come from a customer space as myself and I always try to tell the team this think is a customer thinking so yeah go ahead Santa what do you got for us I love that aspect of like being the bridge for the customers with the platform and service now right really understanding the customers Journey so you can really speak to what the platform can do or perhaps cannot do for the customer through a realistic lens I will say that so I I love that I love hearing that and I'm new to service now so it's good to understand like the different departments different organizations and how you guys show ups for customers I really love hearing that so my question is around can you explain how service now architecture facilitates scalability and flexibility for a large Enterprises with complex it environments sure I'm very much process oriented person um so scale begins with process um most of the time a customer's environment is complex because their processes are not good um so I spent a lot of time uh asking them questions about that process what are those handoff ones that there they've got a particular Challenge walk me through what that look like how does that you have a problem you have some kind of request or some kind of need that has to go from closure let me tell me what that process is what does that look like for the person working at or many people might be working on process and the enduser who's experiencing that and once I kind of understand that then I can see why it's complex and then when you start identifying hey does it make sense to shift that process into a platform that's best read um in terms of process optimization or does it make sense to stringline that experience for the in user to make the Resolute that more transparent either using chat GPT making that expence for the user more streamlined I've been very surprised I've been here I don't think I've opened up a ticket at all uh I resolve everything through our M service and it's very seamless to me and so that's a big part of where we're trying to take our customer experiences just to make that less of a ticketing experience and more of an interaction with user um and that's in order to do that you have to understand the process behind the scenes allow that automation to occur to simplify the architecture so and that's why I spend a lot of time in process how they resolve that and we're helping them identify workloads make sense and service now or in a third party system where we just kind of improve that action experience uh with the users but that takes some time um and helping the customer understand where their processes might need uh to be improved and have to get their arms around that it's chain nobody likes change um but they kind of see what the future state would look like um hey I'll I'll never have to open up a support ticket again that's that's a easy stale for a lot of people because nobody wants to help this ticket to wait for somebody to get around calling them to risk their issue that you are absolutely right um have you seen customers where you thought you were going in and it was going to be simple like I just need to understand their processes and I know kind of the fix and you get in there and you're discussing with them and it turns out to be a bigger problem than what you originally thought um that always happens um sometimes a problems are easy right and there's natural bits of saying this this is probably going to be an easy one for you to optimize what you already currently own and streamline that just through getting smart people together and showing them how they could transform it but I think uh generative AI is really shaking ship quite a bit right now is trying to understand that what it means for their organization where they should um and what happens when you start having those generative I conversations customers naturally start we got this problem over here could gen solve that problem um so you start digging into that area and you realize that's a much more bigger sense complexity then they even realized on why they can't use J at that point because they're not centralizing their record or data or even processes on platform so it's it's very hard for Gen to kind of serf for dozens of systems and kind of come back with the right response you have all these broken processes and system that don't talk or inter with each other so that's a little bit more of a longer Ro customers to try to figure out how Ani can and help them in terms of what how they might want to consolidate their platforms diges um but it's all doable it's all doable start what's available start with what there's gen is not already possible it's here we're doing it it's happen so start with those use cases that are making the most sense and that they organically grow from there but every customer has complexity and the role of Enterprise Architects is to drive them towards architecture recommendation to simplify that complexity but it takes a village right it's us it's going to take the customers Enterprise architecture team together and come up with a strategy on how they can get there yeah I love that stuff too like that be talking about uh process and understanding those basic processes and as a customer I always tell my team technology without process is an automated meth right and that's what it is because you can have all the technology you want and all that you know technology and gen Ai and all that stuff at your fingertips but if you don't have those key components together of process and handoffs then you're going to be me messing up even more so let's jump into another area and we talked about gen right and everybody it's here you said it it's here and you know when chat GPT came out everybody was scared of it and everybody was like what is the security considerations around that so in this organization uh and service now as a customer what are some security considerations that organization should be aware of when uh deploying uh service now and especially with Jim AI out there today I work in some of the most highly regulated Industries predominantly in energy and utilities um it's been last decade or more utility sector and we are a paranoid bunch of people um so we're all we're late to Cloud we're late to everything because you know people want their lights to come on and when they don't come on that's too happy about it and we've got a lot of Bad actors out there trying to penetrate these grid management operations these utilities or you know water treatment plans I mean they're coming at us from Every Which Way and trying to identify vulnerability so generative is concerning to our regulated markets including Bing so one of the things that I love about service house approach is having it contained on the platform and just working with that customer data um and then in futurist terms in terms of where we want to go potentially letting customers use their own LOL loans they can protect and choices about how they want to keep their data secure and leverage the power generative AI but in addition to that there are mechanisms that recommendations that we make from an architectural perspective further Harden that customers Cloud instance of service net um with things like ball um or using our government Community Cloud um let's say the utility for example and get things locked down in a head ramp environment I'm good generative AI but as long as we have those additional controls around the platform security with critical information protect Solutions like fall um to you know Harden that inness uh then I'm all good and and I think a lot of our utilities operations are seeing that as well is that if if we can go there want to make sure we're we're hardening the environment and doing those layers of protection um to continue explore how gener of AI can help improve process and just to wrap up our last with our last question some an architectural standpoint how does service now support governance and compliance requirements of proc various Industries and regions this is my favorite question this is where I've met the two years of my time um I hate PowerPoint with a passion um I know we all the world uses PowerPoint communicate I understand that and I've built a million slides happy to hand them all over to the customer afterwards um but I don't like spending time in PowerPoint I am more of a show me how it's done and a big of what I've been working on in the last two years is demos and specific for compliance and risk automation or highly regulated Industries and I've partnered with half a dozen more Partners to say here's my customer's problems here's the industry's problems document these case work with them to build demos for that particular problem we're off to the next problem so we've built uh more than a dozen de um for this industry to help them see how the platform can automate uh risk uh and manage compliance um and make it native to how they operate where it's not an afterthought it's not sobody coming in an auditor coming in and say build this report to show me you've done it it's native to how we operate um so that's what I'm probably most proud of is we get to that we get to the solution faster when we can demonstrate done and I like to see it in action show me the show me how it's going to solve this problem across multiple modules even um to help me audit my risk and that's where I've really been focused and I think that's resonated with a lot of our customers and lastly I would say is we we need we been focused a lot on documenting better uh compliance is all about eviden and documentation and that's what our customers need to be able to show here's our per secures the information or here's how you can automate this risk area um and that's where I think you've made huge strides uh in the last couple of years for the energy and utility sector but it's it's periphera peripher proliferating uh in other areas as well Banking and federal government things like that they can be Rin and use these materials and demonstrate how solve uh these challenges because risk automation is not just an in utilities problem it's everyone's problem um so that's a very passionate area for me in terms of how I can help customers with compliance management that's so awesome um being from Missouri I I I'm a showby kind of guy myself so uh I love that you showing and demonstrating that stuff well I'm going to run down the jargon jar cuz we did have I did I need one I I I'm going to say one and that's llm but uh oh okay now you got me on that one learning language manage learning langel okay excellent job though no okay all right really good really good really really good so it's it's been a just an absolute pleasure AJ talking to you but before we get out of here I want you to just explain what are some of the biggest takeaways you want our listeners to know about you know service now meditation and Security in in general and Enterprise architecture that we have is there any big takeaway you'd like our listeners and taking this um well I mean I think the the excited part of the road map and and just because I I have so much focus on fiber security with the nature of what we do is Advan information protection uh take advantage of these capabilities that are built being built into the platform there's a lot of cyber security native this builds into the platform but if you've got you know very sensitive information that you want guard rail protect you know really takes some time to Vault and how it can be benefic beneficial to your organization and spend some time working with these channels that bill mcdermit is investing in our team Enterprise architecture our field Innovation offic field transformation officers our design students our solution Consultants are some of the best in the world and they're all free here to help you be successful on the platform I don't think I knew about these resources when I was a customer I would have certainly been able to be more successful created the platform faster I knew these resources available to me as the customer so take advantage these resources they're here for your success uh and they're teal they understand the platform so reach out to us so we're that's what we're here for and and and I'm really blessed to be here to be able to kind of work with some of the most amazing customer World um so take advantage of these great resources that are provided to you to help you be successful on hor awesome and speaking of that I know that we talked about documentation and I'm just going to throw a little something out there sha is an insights and scale my portfolio manager who writes some of that and documents some of that stuff in the vault space right and so working with AJ she helps document a lot of that stuff the technical stuff that AJ is talking about so but uh other than that you know you said reach out to you how can our customers Reach Out they connect with you or uh you know in this space if you'd like to give out some contact information for this sure I am very active on LinkedIn I blog constantly have like 40 different blogs out there so LinkedIn is a customer messaging Solution that's where a lot of customers find and then we can go from there but LinkedIn is really item if I'm learning something new and there's something great coming out in the product I'm putting it on LinkedIn the best way to reach me Manda Justice on LinkedIn hey it's awesome AJ thank you so much again for sharing your insights with us here and if you have comments or questions for us or our guest you can email us at customer connection that's one word at servicenow.com again thank you AJ and my esteemed colleague Shaya for joining us here you have a great day and look out for those biggest insights when you join the customer connection and you hear the from the biggest influencers have a great day thanks [Music] all thanks for tuning in to customer connections with your tech savvy guides Jerry and sha we hope today's episode sparked your imagination and fueled your passion for digital Innovation remember to subscribe leave a Stella review and connect with us on social media let us know what tech of Ventures you want us to explore next until next time keep dreaming big keep innovating and remember the future is just the connection away