Taking the Show on the Road with ServiceNow

A lot of companies in 2022 returned to in-person and hybrid programs. While many picked up where they left off before the pandemic—reconvening their user community in one location, albeit with smaller audiences—ServiceNow used the opportunity to take a different approach for their large, 16-years-running program, Knowledge. Rather than bringing their user community to a single location, they took their hybrid user program on the road instead.

Guest speaker Nellie Greely from ServiceNow shares:

• Why they took the non-traditional approach
• How they delivered consistent messaging while localizing the experience
• Learnings and best practices
• The future of Knowledge moving forward

Transcript

Jude Braunstein (00:09):
Welcome to InVision's podcast, the Xcast, where we help brands navigate audience engagement in times of change. I'm Jude Braunstein, an executive producer of integrated engagements here at InVision, and I'm delighted to be part of this discussion. 2022 was a year a lot of companies came back to in person and hybrid programs. Many companies picked up where they left off before the pandemic, reconvening their user community in one location, albeit with smaller audiences. However, ServiceNow used the opportunity of a two year pause and took a different approach. Rather than bringing their user community to a single location, they took their user program on the road. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Nellie Greely. Nellie is a senior director, strategic events at ServiceNow, and the driving force behind the strategy and delivery of ServiceNow's user program Knowledge. Welcome Nellie.

Nellie Greely (01:04):
Thanks Jude. It's lovely to be here with you.

Jude Braunstein (01:07):
Let's start with a bit about Knowledge. What are the objectives of Knowledge? Who attends, and how many?

Nellie Greely (01:12):
Yeah, thanks. You credited me a minute ago with being the driving force behind Knowledge, and that's super flattering, but I'm not sure it's true. One of the worst and one of the greatest things about Knowledge is that it takes a village to make something like that successful. It takes the entire company to bring that show to life. Our job as a strategic events team is to shepherd, to steward, to care-take, and get it across the finish line in a way that is really impactful. I appreciate the compliment, but I wouldn't be doing my job if I let that go without shouting out to all the other people who make this event possible.

Nellie Greely (01:55):
Speaking of that, Knowledge got its start in 2006, 16 years ago, because customers came together to make it possible. Early customers, they wanted to share what they didn't know about ServiceNow, what they were learning about ServiceNow, and find out more about how they could leverage ServiceNow to be successful. It was all about learning and sharing, hence the name Knowledge. At its core, Knowledge is still very much focused on that concept of shared learning, on customers sharing stories, stories about success, stories about best practices, stories about lessons learned, and stories about what the future looks like or what they'd like it to be. Yes, customers come to Knowledge to hear from ServiceNow, also, about our vision, innovations for the future and how we're delivering on our promise to make the world work better. But, it's that customer to customer connection that is still the primary driver for attending.

Nellie Greely (03:06):
You asked about objectives, and fundamentally we like to look at Knowledge as a celebration, a big one. But, a celebration of our customers and a celebration that shines a light on those shared moments of learning, shines a light on customers who are doing incredible things with our technology. Celebrating knowledge, the sharing of knowledge, the gift of knowledge, what's possible when we all come together with sort of a shared vision and a shared purpose. Making sure that our customers are able to share with each other how they're making their employees, their customers, their communities work better by leveraging ServiceNow. That feels like a privilege and honor, and we're always super excited to see them in the spotlight.

Jude Braunstein (04:01):
Lovely, that's great. 16 years is a really, really long run for a conference like this. How has the program changed over the last few years particularly, or generally over the last 16?

Nellie Greely (04:15):
Not only has the event changed, but ServiceNow has changed. We're thinking about, as we look to return to a big marque show in Vegas in May of 2023, and the last time we did that was 2019, we're not the same company we were in 2019.

Jude Braunstein (04:31):
Yeah.

Nellie Greely (04:31):
The world isn't the same place. Like it did with everything else, the pandemic forced some changes on the program, the most significant being that we had to shift completely from in person to digital only. That lasted for two years. I think that, even though that we weren't able to connect with our customers in person and we had to go to them via a digital format, which is tough. It's hard to connect, it's hard to create moments of connection and network in a digital way in the same way that you can do in person. But, I think what we found just based on the volume of people that turned out for those digital experiences is that, that energy, that connection, that desire to come together as a community was still very much there.

Nellie Greely (05:28):
Yes, it was a trade off. We weren't able to see each other in person, but we still wanted to be together, and customers still wanted to be together. You hear grumbles in the industry about all the challenges with an online format, and digital fatigue is real. But, I think when you have that foundation of a shared passion and a shared vision of the future, that it's pretty easy to overcome those challenges and focus on the value of being together, whether that's in person or online, or some combination of the two.

Jude Braunstein (05:57):
Yeah, exactly. To that point, then, when you and your team decided to take the show on the road, and you went to New York, Las Vegas, The Hague, Sydney, what was the reason for that and engaging the local communities in that way?

Nellie Greely (06:16):
Yeah, well, I think when it became clear that Covid restrictions were lifting enough globally to make it possible to return to in person events, which was super exciting, our leadership, well, they were really mindful that even though those restrictions were lifting, that not everybody would be comfortable traveling. We'd been in forced isolation for a couple of years, and I wasn't super keen necessarily on getting back on an airplane and getting back out into the world in that way when there was still so much unknown about the lingering impact of Covid and all that. But, also, travel budgets weren't what they were prior to Covid. A lot of companies saved a lot of money by not sending people on the road. Not only that, but companies drastically reduced their carbon footprints incredibly by not having people on the road, and so that was a hurdle to overcome.

Nellie Greely (07:17):
Rather than expect that global customer community to just hop on a plane and come see us in one location, leadership decided we should go to them. We should put our team on the road, leverage our local resources, and go to where our customers are. We did that in four cities around the world in May, The Hague in the Netherlands, New York City, Sydney, Australia, and Las Vegas. Then, the goal was to surround those in person experiences with a digital supplement that would bring the spirit and the promise and the value of Knowledge to the entire global community, whether they were in person or online.

Jude Braunstein (07:57):
Nice. Then, when you decided to go to those four locations and engage those regional audiences, how did you balance delivering the consistent message across all GOs, whilst also localizing the experience?

Nellie Greely (08:13):
Yeah, that's a great question. Because, one of our goals as a company is to just be really super consistent in how we go to market. We don't have a brand in the US and one in Europe. We have one, and we have one brand promise. The goal was really to fundamentally get back to what the real value of the show was. It goes back to connecting customers with other customers. While everybody can be inspired by a big brand name, customers really want to hear from customers in their own region or area, companies who are dealing with the same microeconomic challenges or the same local regulatory headwinds. They want to build and extend their local networks. That's not always possible if you have to travel internationally. You're going to run into customers you may never see again. It's also, then, about making sure that all aspects of the show resonate with that local audience so that it feels, Jude, for example, like a European event or an Australian event versus just a transplanted US event. You know what I mean?

Jude Braunstein (09:19):
Yeah.

Nellie Greely (09:22):
That's reflected in the people that are put on stage. It's not all American voices, it's European accents. It's a global community bringing this content to life. It's also about honoring the local culture and where we find ourselves. For example, in Sydney, we opened Knowledge with a welcome to country production to honor the local Aboriginal culture and to celebrate them. That's a very standard part of how events go to market in that part of the world, and it was completely unique to the Sydney event and felt very authentic then to that audience, because we were honoring the land that we were standing on and the gift of that land from the Aboriginal culture. That was a really powerful moment in the show as well. I think while the overall structure and the key ServiceNow messages remain consistent from city to city, what makes those individual local shows so successful is to anchor on those local customer stories, but also be inspired by and honor the local culture, the food, the local music, and really pay homage to the place where we find ourselves.

Jude Braunstein (10:39):
That makes so much sense. I saw the welcome to country, it really was beautiful and you really did have a sense of that you were standing on hallowed ground of the Aboriginal ancestors. It was lovely. The notion of going to-

Nellie Greely (10:54):
Yeah, I got goosebumps right now just thinking about that.

Jude Braunstein (11:00):
The notion of going to where your audience is makes a whole lot of sense, particularly as you said, where people are still a little bit reluctant to travel, travel budgets are not back to where they once were. But, did it make financial sense for ServiceNow to produce this type of a show?

Nellie Greely (11:20):
Yeah, I think it depends on who you ask. The math is easy or hard, I think, depending on how you look at it. But, a single show is always going to have more economies of scale than four. Right?

Jude Braunstein (11:36):
Yeah.

Nellie Greely (11:37):
You build one keynote theater, one show floor, versus four. But, I think it forced us to pay attention to how we size the experience. When we chose the four cities, it was about density of customers within that geographic area, and then being able to size the experience. That resulted in some of the shows being larger than others. It's funny, our show in The Hague, it was the first large show in that part of the world in the Netherlands since 2019, and we sold out. Actually sold it out, and it was incredibly exciting. We were a little surprised, because it was really hard to predict who was going to come out, because we're no longer enticing people away from a few days in the office. Covid has changed the way we work. We're asking people to leave their homes and their families to come see us, and that's a much harder sell.

Nellie Greely (12:43):
We learned a ton about where our customers want to engage, and the response from customers globally was pretty phenomenal. There was a lot of appreciation for bringing the show to them, for not forcing them to travel. At the end of the day, the strategy and the investment really paid off. We got the best of both worlds. We had a Knowledge to meet customers where they were in those four cities, but also a Knowledge, the online experience, to meet customers wherever they happened to be. Although we'll be moving back to a larger global show, we will still anchor on that ability to bring Knowledge to folks wherever they are. Like I said, I think strategy and investment paid off, but make no mistake, it's always more expensive to do something four times than doing it once.

Jude Braunstein (13:42):
Absolutely. You answered my next question, which was going to be, do you plan on continuing this model? You've already said that 2023 was going to be a single program. What was the decision behind that? Why bring it back?

Nellie Greely (13:59):
Yeah, it's a really good question. We're hearing from customers and from our partners in the industry, and we're also watching what's happening with other tech events globally. We're getting back to not, sorry, let me say that a little differently. Nobody wants to go back. We don't want to go back to 2019. We're not the same company we were. But, being able to get our entire customer community together, there's power in that. There's heft in that. There's energy and excitement, and we want to celebrate that customer community in a way that showcases the impact of that, instead of doing the smaller isolated shows.

Nellie Greely (14:43):
Make no mistake, we will actually still be out in the world bringing content to customers in every market that we're in. But, Knowledge is about celebrating the community. What we're hearing from our customers, from our partners, from our vendor partners in the industry is that people are ready to get back to that, to come back together in a way that is more global in nature and create more of that excitement as a large community. It's a little daunting, but it's also super exciting. Again, there's, it's a little more cost efficient to do it once than do it four times, but that's not the primary driver, for sure.

Jude Braunstein (15:26):
It's true what you're say. We've been doing a lot of, this has been a year of coming back in person, and people are really, really excited to be back together and face to face. I'm excited. I'm excited to be back doing that as well.

Nellie Greely (15:44):
Yeah.

Jude Braunstein (15:44):
Were there any other key learnings that came out of this that we haven't touched on yet?

Nellie Greely (15:49):
Yeah, and I think this is from my perspective, we had a lot of great things to choose from in terms of what did we learn. I think first one would be that we need to listen to our customers and get super dialed into what it is that they need and want and expect from these types of experiences, is critical. Doing the right thing for our customers is always going to mean doing the right thing for the business. If you're taking care of our customers, everything else kind of takes care of itself.

Nellie Greely (16:23):
As I said before, we're not asking people to spend time away from home or spend time away from their office. We're asking them to leave their home and their families, and the payoff for that has to be super, super worth it. Second, I would say it's about continuing to focus on innovation. Events, experiences like Knowledge, it's really easy to fall into a, well we did that last year, we can do that again, dusting off the experience. But, we can and should be fresh every year. Farm to table, if that's such a thing in the event space. I know that sounds so stupid, but-

Jude Braunstein (17:03):
No, no, it's good.

Nellie Greely (17:05):
It paints a pretty good picture.

Jude Braunstein (17:06):
It does.

Nellie Greely (17:09):
Keeping our empathy for what our customers are going through and making their challenges our own, and using everything in our arsenal to help guide them and position them for a better future. Then the last key learning, and this is, you maybe get a different answer if you ask someone else, but for me I would say never underestimate the wonder twin powers of joy and fun. Just because something is a work related event doesn't mean it can't touch your heart or tickle your funny bone. I think if we're not sending customers on their way with a head full of knowledge and pocketfuls, heartfuls of memory and a smile on their face, we're doing it wrong.

Jude Braunstein (17:56):
I love that, and I think this is where we will end it. I don't know, like, what a perfect ending.

Nellie Greely (18:06):
Oh, nice.

Jude Braunstein (18:06):
On that note, Nellie, thank you so much for your time and for joining us at the Xcast. Thanks to all of you for listening. Be sure to join us for the next podcast episode, which is coming soon. Until then, cheers.