Over the five years Fred* had worked for ServiceNow, his account here on the Community had remained dormant. But suddenly, this April, it sprung to life.
Fred became a prolific poster – often sharing his thoughts twice a day. And what thoughts they were. It was like an infinite number of monkeys, all with long tenures as consultants at ServiceNow elite partners, had suddenly hit the typewriters.
But what these metaphorical monkeys were churning out wasn’t Shakespeare, it was rapid-fire tech advisory management speak. Slide decks’ worth of bullet-pointed advice condensed into each post.
An uncanny number of the posts were exactly 175 words long, suggesting an AI engine had been prompted to produce them to a fixed length.
The topics were what you’d expect Fred to be writing about. He’s not only a ServiceNow employee, but also a CMA: a Certified Master Architect, the most elite academic title the company hands out.
It’s a difficult and expensive certification to attain, and it’s arguably even tougher to hold onto, with rigorous requirements to earn a set number of points – including through “thought leader” activities – that need to be notched up every two years.
“The truth is the points are super difficult to maintain – close to impossible – and it is very depressing to go through it each year,” one CMA told me.
“You won’t see many people say that out loud because many are afraid of getting negative reactions from ServiceNow.”
This is a tricky problem without a simple solution. CMAs are held to a high standard and are looked up to as subject matter experts and leaders. There is immense pressure put on their time.
“Because we all work full time, it’s unnatural to perform the exact set of activities that are expected from us [to earn the re-certification points],” one CMA said.
The temptation to tick the box by resorting to GenAI to pump out generic thought leadership posts must be huge. But, in my view, the program needs to change because no one’s winning at the moment.
Mandating that a very clever group of experts (i.e. the entire CMA cohort) must produce a large amount of content on an ongoing basis will inevitably lead to a reduction in the overall value and quality of that group's output.
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* Not his real name.
