The ServiceNow platform is easy to learn, and comprehensive to master. Developers must understand Business Rules, Script Includes, UI Macros, Client Scripts, and more elements to fully harness the power of the platform. It seems like there’s always something new to learn.
What about ServiceNow the company? It’s expected that such an institution has it’s own undiscovered history. Think you know all the secrets? Check out these six bits of corporate trivia and lore below. How many did you know about?
1. The Lost City
Everyone knows that ServiceNow generally releases two new versions a year and that the release names are alphabetical and are named after cities of the world. What many don’t know is that this practice only started in 2012 with the Aspen release. Prior to that, ServiceNow’s releases were named after seasons and the current year, such as Winter 2009. What even fewer people know is that the first city wasn’t always planned to be Aspen. The original planned name was to christen the release after Amsterdam, though this was changed just before launch.
2. Not-so-Random Sample Locations
ServiceNow instances for demo or development purposes can use a set of pre-loaded demo data. Some of the sample data includes employees, incidents, assets, and even locations.
Those locations, though, are not all that random. Most of them are actually the real addresses to Hooters restaurants. Don’t believe it? Ever been to 1111 W 120th Ave, Westminster CO or 1211 13th Avenue Dr Se, Hickory NC? You’ll find hot wings and cold beer there if you go.
3. Service-Now or ServiceNow?
Today, when you visit the website of the company, you’d enter “www.servicenow.com”, but that wasn’t always the case. The original URL used was, “www.service-now.com”, with the dash in the middle.
Branding wizards decided that the dash needed to go, but it turned out that another company owned the desired domain. And they happened to be a ServiceNow customer! The negotiations that took place remain a secret to this day, but one way or another, ServiceNow was able to acquire and start using the coveted dash-less address.
4. Gliding to a New Name
Before “dash or not to dash” ever became an issue, ServiceNow was known by another name entirely — Glidesoft. Rumor has it that founder Fred Luddy heard a pilot announce the plane would be “gliding” in to their destination while he was coding and just liked the name.
Even today, relics of that name live on every time a developer references a “GlideRecord” or calls the “gr.” API.
Another rumor persisted that the name was eventually changed at the request of certain investors who felt Glidesoft elicited mental thoughts of adult lubricants…
5. ServiceNow Was Not Always in Silicon Valley
ServiceNow’s maintains a world-wide presence with offices in major cities and a corporate headquarters in Santa Clara, CA, in California’s famous “Silicon Valley”. That office, though, is not home to the company’s origins.
Fred Luddy and a team of developers started building the platform in San Diego, CA — nearly 500 miles from Silicon Valley. Growing and moving from offices known as, “the schoolhouse”, to the “wooden spaceship” in Solana Beach, to Del Mar, and eventually to the University Town Center area. ServiceNow ultimately moved their HQ north in 2013.
6. Non-IT Use-Cases Aplenty
ServiceNow started with solutions specific to IT organizations. Nowadays everyone knows that you can use ServiceNow to manage business processes that have nothing to do with IT, and most customers use apps downloaded from the ServiceNow Store to do just that. What’s interesting, though, are some of the non-IT uses built into early instances.
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There was an instance built to order burritos for company lunches (Because, hey a Service Request Catalog is a menu!) and an instance to manage brewing beer. There was even an instance that used the Project Management application to coordinate all the details for a wedding. Now that’s a match made in heaven!
Have any other insider information? What secrets are you willing to share? Post in the comments below. Everyone can learn something new and interesting and TWITA.
