The ServiceNow Career Time-Machine Series - Chuck Tomasi
ServiceNow is rocketing along with explosive growth and significantly impacting the world of work. The ServiceNow community is also growing, and it is being led by pioneers dedicating their time to pursue a joint passion for nurturing and cultivating its people.
In this article, we ask: "If you could travel back in time to the start of your ServiceNow career, what would you advise yourself?". And we have the pleasure of hearing from community leaders. Together they have inspired, set standards, solved countless community challenges, promoted knowledge sharing, and published books and guides.
Presenting your time-traveler advisors: @Chuck Tomasi, @Maik Skoddow, @Pradeep Sharma, @Uncle Rob, @Jeremy Duncan, @Kali Alexander, and @Tim Woodruff.
As a cherry on top, you get a description of traits that will propel you toward success in the ServiceNow world, as seen from ServiceNow recruiters Erkan Ozlav and Cathy Allen.
Chuck Tomasi
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We all know him, and we all admire his competence and good humor, as well as his significant contributions to the ServiceNow community. You can't think of Chuck Tomasi without thinking of ServiceNow. He is a true cornerstone and legend amongst his peers.
Already established in the IT industry, Chuck started his ServiceNow journey on a fateful day in 2008. When asked what message he would like to send back 15 years to his younger self just starting this epic voyage, he states:
The Now Platform is going to change your career and your life.
Further, Chuck would share that he will go on to be amazed by "[...] how quickly you can build apps that improve work and fun." Here alluding to the immensely improved time-to-deployment of business applications made through hyper-automation, low/no-code, and citizen development democratizing the esoteric world of IT delivery.
Finally, as all wisdom is earned through experience and learned through a community, Chuck wishes his younger self to "[...] try to reach out to the community to see if something exists before building it yourself."
This a lesson all inevitably will learn, after creating the next amazing customized application from scratch, only to realize that it is already available through an out-of-the-box plugin, on the store, or coming in a near-future release of ServiceNow.
Understand the fundamentals first. Get your CSA, then start exploring.
On the topic of advice for the next generation, Chuck suggests starting with a healthy foundation followed by a pragmatic approach in experimenting with the platform in your own ServiceNow instance. For this, you can visit "[...] developer.servicenow.com and get a personal developer instance (PDI) and try things out. Build something for personal use to get experience."
A key pointer from Chuck here, which translates to learning any topic, is to find something that you are passionate about:
You'll find your own challenges and learn more when you are personally invested.
This rings true in most ears, at least in mine. The most intense learning experiences come about when you want something specifically. You will not become a Master of Development by reading documentation and making a few sandbox tests with the tool. You do not become a Master of Architecture by understanding the theory of design thinking, TOGAF, ITIL, IT4IT, or others. You become a master when you have been passionate about a vision, pushing yourself and honing your craft to achieve it in a practical context.
Further, Chuck was tasked with giving himself advice for himself for today. Chuck has been around since the start and has been in IT for decades. What resonates with him today is that you must "[...] keep sharing. If you want to really learn something, teach it - share it. It makes you and everyone around you better."
It is all about being passionate, staying hungry, and humble. About knowing limits, when they should be pushed, and when they should be governed. He states: "Focus on the things you can control and work with your leadership on the things you cannot."
And finally, a golden nugget that we all should take to heart and appreciate:
Remember to pay attention to family. It's so easy to get wrapped up in the work you love at the expense of the people you love.
Thank you for taking the time to share words of wisdom, Chuck. I hope that many will benefit.
And thank you for reading. If you like this series, you can look forward to the next piece, where a true Community Titan, Maik Skoddow, will share his experiences.
More from Chuck
Break Point is the podcast for ServiceNow admins, developers, and builders of all skill levels. Join your hosts, Chuck Tomasi and Lauren McManamon, Sr. Developer Advocates. They talk to ServiceNow product managers and developers about the Now Platform features, customers to discuss apps they've built, interesting people in the ServiceNow ecosystem, and others about career tips to take your developer career higher. Take a break with Break Point.
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