Be Inspired by the Innovators of Knowledge 12

[sarah_manning]

In 2012, the Innovation of the Year award drew some amazing submissions. From gamification, to automated error-checking, to a music management application, to location-based services and heat maps, our customers knocked our socks off with their creative uses of ServiceNow.

To continue to inspire you in your ServiceNow journey, and to further prove that all of our customers innovate every day, we'll highlight last year's finalists, honorable mentions and their innovations here in the community. You'll glimpse outside-the-box thinking and great business impact; plus, you'll see just how far customers extend ServiceNow beyond IT service management. Read through the summaries below and use the comments section to let us know what you think!

We can't wait to see your submission.

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2012 Honorable Mentions:

Ohio State University created a QR Assistant Scanner app - by taking a picture of a QR code, any technican can instantly submit an issue to the OCIO IM System.

Omnicare installed gamification of its ServiceDesk processes to improve performance and customer satisfaction.

RTS (Restaurant Technology Services) redesigned the Knowledge Tool - using KCS methodology to encourage self-service in restaurants, and extended using QR code capabilities.

JDSU invented a Windows Sidebar Gadget - to interface with ServiceNow and provide quick access to help, requests, approvals and knowledge.

Coca-Cola implemented Third Party Access - a self service portal for system access across hundreds of thousands of bottlers, partners, and new customers.

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2012 Runners-Up:

Company: KPN Corporate Market - a telecommunications and ICT service provider in the Netherlands.
Innovation: self-service portal with gamification and embedded knowledge.
Summary: created a completely new worker UI and end-user self-service portal using the ServiceNow content management system; added an end-user incentive program using gamification to stimulate the use of the portal and promote self service; on the right hand side of the user interface are prizes that can be purchased with points you earn using the self-service portal, like flash drives; visual design is amazing, plus the redesign of the whole interface itself was a project.

Company: Swing Shift - an 18-piece jazz band that plays all over the United States.
Innovation: Band management for music, people and gigs.
Summary: One of the Swing Shift band members is the 2011 Innovation award winner from VeriSign! Created a portal to manage music, gig calendar and people for his band; includes modules for charts (songs), chart lists, albums, individual members, jobs, rehearsals, set lists and venues. Far away from traditional ITSM modules.

Company: World Wide Technology - a systems integration company.
Innovation: Integrated deployment tool with error-checking workflow.
Summary: Created a way for deployment groups to perform automated code deployments for any type of deployment directly from ServiceNow; includes automated code deployments for WebMethods, Salesforce.com, Oracle (database changes through OMM packages: DDL/PLSQL/etc), XML rules. Makes sure the deployment is ready to go, the approvals have been received, and prerequisites met. Initiates an integration and does the deployment itself. In this company, ServiceNow manages the entire process from start to finish. Great demonstration of the power of integrating with other technologies.

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2012 Winners:

Company: Morrison Foerster - a large, full-service law firm with more than 1,000 lawyers in 15 offices.
Innovation: Runbook Automation workflow to automate Windows7 migration.
Summary: created Runbook Automation workflow to migrate 2500 users across 16 offices and 3 continents to Windows7; automated timing for notifications, scheduled tasks for IT analysts, email archive export/imports, exchange migrations, custom dashboards, inbound email actions, and more.
Highlights: Before ServiceNow, MoFo used spreadsheets, paper checklists and other disparate applications to manage Windows7. IT needed to consolidate its management methods and embark on a desktop upgrade — a huge challenge. With four different languages and hundreds of applications to support, plus juggling the attorney mindset of "time is money", downtime wasn't an option for MoFo's deployment. MoFo had to replace the engine in a moving car. Results: they calculated 10,000 people hours saved over the span of the project, with 70% of the savings due to Runbook Automation capabilities. Without RBA, the project team would have needed to triple in size.

Company: Pacific Life - an insurance company providing life insurance products, annuities, mutual funds, and investment services.
Innovation: Location-based services based on floor plan overlays and heat maps.
Summary: Find user cubicle locations on any floor without having to open multiple applications from a PC or tablet; this also allows desktop support technicians to see the location of other users with cases open on the same floor.
Highlights: Pacific Life saves over $25,000 a year with this application. Pacific Life's Carlos Gama started the project at Knowledge 2011: he stayed up all night after inspirational conversations with peers that day. He wanted to address a situation that was overly complex, but could have been much simpler: his team needed to look all over the place in the system to find the location of a specific asset. As he says, ServiceNow's open platform inspired the motto, "nothing is impossible". With ServiceNow, if something doesn't exist, you make it exist. Such a simple innovation, but it's easy to see how greatly it impacts productivity.

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Are these amazing uses of ServiceNow technology?