Presenting my SN App at Knowledge!

It has been a VERY long time since I’ve updated this blog but I wanted to give a bit of an overview of what happened with my Knowledge 24 presentation about the Marvel Snap clone I’ve been creating now called SN App.

You may recall I mentioned that I submitted a talk to the ServiceNow CreatorCon conference and it was accepted.  This meant a couple of things – writing up a presentation, and also ensuring that I had my own artwork and designs that didn’t infringe Disney copyrights :).

Developing SN App’s Artwork

I got to work trying to come up with some ideas for card artwork using MidJourney to generate superhero-inspired characters and locations for the game.  My first and most obvious idea was to take inspiration from the people and places that form the incredible ServiceNow Community.  I got some fantastic suggestions from the folks on the ServiceNow Discord and SNDevs Slack Community to come up with some great characters to include in the game – more ideas than I realistically had time to create!  

I ended up with a good representation of people for my playable cards from notable ServiceNow company figures like Fred Luddy, Bill McDermott and Dave Wright, through to community legends like Chuck Tomasi and the dev advocate program  crew, and some anthropomorphic representations of other ideas like the evil Jellyscript, and tireless Liquorbot.  There are lots of names represented in the cards – see if you can figure out who is who from the artwork below:

In addition to the Character cards, I also created a few Location cards with meaning to the ServiceNow ecosystem.  The one I’m most proud of is the Demo Location record which is a nod to the fact that ServiceNow Demo Data used to list addresses of a number of US Hooters restaurant locations as an easter egg:

To complete the design based on the card artwork created by MidJourney, I called upon my good friend Mike Stevens who is a talented freelance writer/designer/photographer to get the card artwork to really pop (check out his stuff at getmikestevens.com!).

Side quest!

Having now created card artwork, it seemed like only a small step to have the cards actually printed up, so they could be delivered to the actual people who have inspired them!  About a week before leaving Australia bound for Las Vegas I had a rush print job done to get professional quality playing cards made up!  I got about 150 cards printed, and set aside a full set so that I could find the actual subjects of the cards to give to them.   This turned out to be an excellent way to network and introduce myself to people I met at Knowledge.  Lots of people were very excited to get their hands on cards – probably the most popular card amongst the attendees was Iron Chuck, which is a true testament to the huge impact Chuck has had on the industry.

A large portion of my Knowledge experience was finding opportunities or excuses to find the people that were represented on the cards and getting a chance to say hi and thank them for their contribution to the community that I’ve been a part of for almost a decade.

I managed to deliver cards to a lot of the people who had cards, and tried to get selfies with each one.  At the end of my session I had dozens of people line up to get a copy of a card, and it was really great to experience the reaction from the audience to my silly little project.  I like to try and bring a little personality and fun to my work in ServiceNow, and it was great to see people responding to that positively.  Here’s a collage of people who recieved their cards over the course of the conference:

One particularly touching part of this process which I think is worth mentioning is that Mike “The Mayor” Lombardo who was unable to attend the conference due to poor health was very engaged and encouraging of everything, and had a number of members of his team on the case working to get his card to him.   His legendary energy and enthusiasm was a real highlight for me, and I was glad the Glidefast team were able to get a copy of his card to him.  It was truly sad to hear of his passing not long after.  It was clear why he was so well loved and regarded in the community.  He gave all his other players “+2 power”, so I feel the card ability is quite apt.

One more thing…

The whole experience was one of my favourite parts of the conference, and I really enjoyed meeting everyone who came to my session and anyone I met throughout the conference.  By the end I had met almost everyone I had intended to give a card to with one exception – Bill McDermott.  

As you can imagine, getting a chance to meet the CEO of the company on one of the most important community events of the calendar was difficult.  By the end of the conference, I’d got to the point where I had accepted that this particular goal would probably not happen.  At the final closing event of the conference I found myself sitting and having a great chat with some new and old friends from the ecosystem in the foyer of the concert, when we got news from inside the concert that Bill had been sighted.  With encouragement from the crew, I made my way into the concert with a goal to find Bill!   As luck would have it, as the concert wrapped up and the attendees started to leave I managed to finally hit my last major goal for the week – I managed to meet Bill and delivered two of the most sought after cards – Bill from the Deli and Fred the Founder.  Bill was gracious enough to take his card and promised to deliver Fred’s card, and posed for a selfie.   Thanks Bill! 

 

If you’re considering talking at a ServiceNow event, I’d recommend finding a project or topic that you can use to inject a bit of personality and fun into.  People like Earl Duque, Chuck Tomasi, The Toulsons (Travis and Sarah), Jason McKee and Maria Gabriela Waechter in particular have all provided a great model for how to bring a lot of fun to their content, and I find it makes things more accessible and interesting.  Seeing how well received this is, I’m more encouraged to produce whimsical and silly content in future, and I’d love to see more of it in the community!

 

Post Credit sequence

Despite my success at Knowledge, there were one or two cards I didn’t manage do distribute, notably Dave Wright who has been speaking at ServiceNow events in Australia ever since I joined the ecosystem.  I’ve always enjoyed his style, and when I saw that he was again going to be performing keynote duties at a recent WorldForum conference in Melbourne, I knew I had to try and get him his card!  Luckily I had the help of a bunch of ServiceNow Employees – Kristy Merriam and Jason McKee had the contacts to be able to arrange a rendezvous with Dave during his very busy schedule.  I had a chance to revisit my little side quest with him and share this story.   It was great to be able to close out this little adventure by connecting with someone who has been a constant presence in the ecosystem for so many years.

What’s Next?

Quite a few people have asked me if they can get a copy of the whole card deck.  I’m working on doing a second print run by the end of November 2024, so if you’re keen, reach out on kevin@kevinclark.com.au and I can look into printing and shipping costs for you.