4.8/5.
That was the audience rating score received by the CreatorCon Keynote at this years’ Knowledge conference. If you ask @Chuck Tomasi and @laurenmcmanamon , neither one of them knows exactly how you can get better than that.
After all, that’s near perfection.
That score was the result of hours of time and effort poured in by a plethora of individuals, including Chuck and Lauren, who just completed their second year as co-hosts of the CreatorCon Keynote.
“I'm so grateful for the experience of being asked to do something like that,” Lauren said. “As someone that has been in the shoes of an attendee witnessing this event, I cannot describe to you how much joy it gives me to be on the flip side, delivering that experience better and better each year. That means the world to me.”
The keynote started with Chuck and Lauren jumping out the gate – literally – and energizing the crowd for the hour ahead of them.
“I want to redefine what a keynote is,” Chuck continued. “Excitement, passion, and energy for the people and products. That's what we want to put into it, because if the presenters aren't pumped up, the audience won't be.”
A Conversation with Pat Casey
After some introductions and jokes between the two hosts, the keynote began with a discussion between Chuck and one of ServiceNow’s founders, Pat Casey, who was the original host of the CreatorCon Keynote.
“It’s always an honor to be talking to one of ServiceNow’s early founding members,” Chuck remarked. “Pat personally coded a lot of technologies that we still use today. Today as CTO, he sets product strategy and execution. I'm always interested to hear what he has to say.”
Pat and Chuck spent their time discussing the tenth CreatorCon and Pat’s ideas on the future of AI within the tech space.
Soon enough, it was time to move on, and Lauren re-took the stage to lead the crowd through the next segment.
The CreatorCon Cafe Demo
With the audience watching the big screens in awe, Lauren and Chuck took turns bringing ServiceNow employees onto the stage, discussing the newest platform additions to ServiceNow Studio with those behind the build.
Now, the content of the demo was great. You can dive into that here.
But, what about the preparation for a demo of that scale?
“It's a balancing act,” Lauren said. “I think the first, hardest decision is, which to focus on first - the technology, or the story of the technology?”
“Do you look for the coolest things and then try to write a story around it, even if the story doesn't really make sense? Or do you pick a story and then try and make it work with the technology of future releases?” she continued. “You have to do both at the same time, which can be a little tricky.”
Lauren also commented on the unique timing of the CreatorCon keynote, being the last keynote of the Knowledge conference.
“Sometimes we'll be forced to make creative decisions based off what Bill [McDermott] or CJ [Desai] decide to show in their keynotes. If they lean heavily into a specific technology, we don't want to do the same thing again in ours.”
Lauren said the massaging of the story and the content being showcased evolves multiple times over the 6+ month preparation period.
“I think it gets very exciting for people,” she concluded. "Once we get to a place where we can actually build the visuals around it, that's when we're like, ‘okay, we're locked in.’”
A Panel with our ServiceNow MVPs
Next, Lauren took to the stage with four ServiceNow MVPs - Jesalyn Smith, Ankur Bawiskar, Aylee Andersen, and Cory “CJ” Wesley were all provided with ServiceNow instances powered with the latest NowAssist AI features.
The five of them, seated in front of thousands, discussed their experience with NowAssist on stage.
“We did a couple of offline rehearsals prior to Knowledge,” Lauren said. “I had written out a bunch of questions, and I fielded the questions to every single MVP. I thought, 'okay, based off who gave the most interesting answer, we'll assign questions to the respective MVP.' Because we are pretty limited on time.”
“I was faced with an interesting problem which was, I liked all their answers.”
Luckily, the brilliant phenomena of stage timing came to the rescue. The show was running early, and Lauren had time to field every question to each MVP on the panel, allowing each of the innovate individuals to provide input.
“All of them came from very different backgrounds with regards to ServiceNow, with regards to their demographic, to where they're geographically located, and to what they’ve worked on using the platform,” Lauren commented. “I think that in the future I'll try to create that same type of discussion, because it resulted in such unique answers."
The Devvies App of the Year Winners!
With the keynote winding to a finish, it was finally time to unveil the much-awaited winners of The Devvies App of the Year contest.
Chuck and Lauren announced winners for both categories – the People’s Choice Award, and the App of the Year.
“I was honored to be the first winner of the App of the Year award back in 2010,” Chuck remarked. “I love giving new people the recognition they deserve and bringing them into the family.”
Chuck also commented on the importance of The Devvies contest.
“The Devvies has bi-directional benefits. First, customers and partners get the spotlight on what they have built. Second, we get insights to what custom apps and integrations they are building out there in the ecosystem and what challenges do they have that can be opportunities for us to improve.”
Some Behind the Scenes Action
So, do Chuck and Lauren ever get nervous up there, with the spotlight blaring down, in front of all those people?
The answer is, frankly, no.
"This year, not only was it my second time up there, but we had rehearsed it six times already,” Lauren said. “Essentially, I was like, I'm good. No more nerves. I think we could just go ahead and get started. In fact, I was desperate to actually do the event.”
For Chuck, who manned the keynote through the pandemic and has taken the stage every year since, feels similar.
“I think a lot of that is experience. But it's also about being comfortable with the content. We started ideating in January,” Chuck said. “By the time we came up with the products we want to feature, the people that we're going to spotlight, and the script, we realized, 'We've got this. Let's do this!'”
In fact, the CreatorCon Keynote is an exhilarating and energizing experience for Chuck and Lauren, who view it as a bounce into their other duties as Senior Developer Advocates for the ServiceNow Community.
“It sets the tone for everything we do in the upcoming year,” Chuck said. “It would look really weird if I was excited and jumping around on stage and then got on [our livestream] Live Coding Happy Hour or [podcast] Break Point and was dull as dishwater! I'm still excited about ServiceNow Studio, and I can't wait to show it to you just like we showed it to you on stage.”
By the time the preparation is done, they are rolling and ready to get out there. When the seats are filled and the lights go low, it is nothing but pure excitement for the two of them.
“As many times as we rehearse in the rehearsal room and on stage, there's nothing - absolutely nothing - like having that live crowd cheering to bring my energy up another level.’”. Chuck concluded, "Thank you for making us feel so special."
