Field Service & Female Force: Reham Darwiche’s Creative Code

When technology meets creativity, innovation thrives. The Service X Factor podcast welcomes Reham Darwiche, Power Platform Lead at Intralox, who embodies this perfect harmony between technical expertise and creative problem-solving.

Reham takes us through her remarkable journey from discovering Microsoft Dynamics in college to becoming a respected leader in the field. What makes her story particularly compelling is how she describes technology as her canvas – "I'm an artist in my own IT department." This unique perspective shapes her approach to complex problems and has propelled her rapid career advancement from consultant to lead architect in just four years at Hitachi.

Drawing from her extensive field service implementation experience, Reham challenges conventional wisdom with a provocative statement: field service implementations should follow waterfall methodology, not agile approaches. She explains how the deeply interconnected nature of field service components requires holistic planning from the start. Similarly, her insights into Resource Scheduling Optimization reveal important limitations for companies with specialized travel requirements, like technicians who fly rather than drive to customer sites.

Perhaps most fascinating is Intralux's innovative use of AI to solve a seemingly impossible business challenge. Unable to place identification markers on conveyor belts due to food safety regulations, Reham's team developed an AI model that identifies belt specifications from photographs. This solution significantly reduces customer downtime while easing the burden on support teams – demonstrating how AI can solve tangible business problems beyond the hype.

The conversation takes an inspiring turn as Reham discusses representation in technology fields. As a mother raising two daughters, including one already interested in coding, she passionately advocates for women in tech. Her advice to "know your worth and speak up your value" resonates beyond gender boundaries, encouraging all professionals to recognize their unique contributions.

Ready to learn from one of the most insightful voices in the Microsoft ecosystem? Subscribe to our podcast for more conversations that blend technical expertise with human-centered wisdom. And don't miss Reham's upcoming presentation at the Regional Summit in Columbus on August 22nd, where she'll share valuable lessons from Intralox's eight-year implementation journey.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another edition of the Service X Factor
podcast.
I am one of your hosts, scottLaFonte, here with my esteemed
colleague and co-host QuadMcClendon Quad.
How's it going, man?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Oh man, this name is going to stick.
I'm doing great, I'm notcalling you Will anymore.
It's just going oh man, I am,as always, beyond excited, but
this one is, you know, our nextguest.
She is dear to me, she is nearand dear to my large fat heart.
I am beyond excited about ournext participant, so I am super

(00:33):
stoked.
I'm gonna let you introduce her, though all right, well, I'm
gonna introduce her.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
I'm gonna introduce her and I told her this the way
I.
She told me her last name whenwe were working at atashi and
she says my last name soundslike sandwich.
She told you that and Iremembered how to pronounce her
last name, which wasn't go forit hard but anyway, our, our
next guest is the none otherthan riam darwich.

(00:58):
Riam, how are you doing?

Speaker 3 (01:00):
I'm good.
How are you sc?
Quite, I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yeah, no, we're doing pretty good.
You know we can't complain.
Plus, you know you're ourFavorite guests so far.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Oh, I appreciate that .
I am I the first guest on theshow, just to make sure where I
stand, but the queue You're likefifth guest she twists.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
She twists the knife.
She knows this.
She knows this.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
But you know, that's why you've got to be honest and
transparent.
Fifth guest, but no lessimportant than the first guest
Well, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
I am super excited to be here and I appreciate you
guys inviting me to this podcast.
This is one of.
You guys are some of myfavorite people in this industry
, and you both know that verywell, so this is very, very
exciting for me.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
So full transparency.
So full transparency.
We all worked with each otherin our past lives and it was
nothing but a pleasure.
I mean, we were in the trencheswith each other and you know.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
I think, what I feel.
I'm sorry, riam.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
No, riam has, I have, I have.
I am not ashamed to say Ilearned so much from working
with, or even just having aquick conversation with Riam
Like she is by far one of myfavorite people or coworkers to
work with.
And she cry when I look at itand talk about you know women in
tech and her journey.

(02:28):
Like she is one of the people Isay you have to stop, observe
and follow their career, so I'mnot going to spoil it for others
, that's a good segue into, Ithink, one of yeah, I think
that's a good segue Will.
You want to tell the audience alittle bit about yourself and
share about your journey intotech and for our listeners, this

(02:49):
is just one of these momentswhere you can listen, learn and
if you have any questions, feelfree to reach out to her on
LinkedIn.
But go ahead, Rian, tell usabout yourself.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Absolutely.
So I'll start with now and I'llstart with where I got to now,
I guess.
But I am currently the PowerPlatform Lead at Intralux, which
is a conveyor manufacturingcompany.
I lead our Power Platform team.
I am an advocate for newtechnologies and enablement of

(03:18):
new things that come our way,responsible for the government
of the whole platform, and Iwork with a ton of amazing
people that are super, supersmart in the industry.
It wasn't an easy journey to gethere.
Even though it looks so fast,it looks like it was meant to be
in a way, to be honest with you, but it feels like when you
really drill down into everysingle step.

(03:39):
It wasn't easy, especially as awoman in tech, as you mentioned
before right, especially whenit's such a small niche
community, which is the dynamicscommunity.
I did, ironically, startdynamics in college, believe it
or not.
There was this professor thatone time was giving like a
special course in summer and hewas like, oh, do you guys want
to know more about dynamics?
And just told us everythingabout nav 2007 at the time.

(04:02):
And I'm I actually like this alot, but why I don't know.
So from there it was just ajourney Trying to understand why
do I like about it?
And I figured out that, a I'mpassionate about technology, but
also, b it's such a beautifulsystem that allows you to be as
creative as you want withintechnology, right?
So in a way I feel like I'm anan artist, but in my own it

(04:25):
department, I guess, if thatmakes sense, you know yeah, I
love how you say.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
The artist formerly known as reem darwish there you
go, hello everybody uh I lovehow you say it doesn't look like
it was a lot like so youstarted in college and now
you're a now you're a platformlead like this didn't happen
overnight, so, like one thing Idon't want to discount from your

(04:49):
journey is you put in the workwhere I met you at.
I met you at hitachi and, likeyou were one of the how do I
phrase this without getting introuble?
Oh, my goodness, I'm, I'm gonnaget so much trouble?
first and foremost, oh, my gosh,shout out to to all my mentors
I had taught you before.
I say this is getting trouble,but you were on that list as
well, but you were part of thatgroup that were coming in and

(05:11):
they had an initiative to kindof do more enhancement with
field service.
Now, at that level you werejust consulting and you jumped
up you know, really aggressively, not because you played the
typical, so the people play thetypical political game.
No, you put in your time.
I was impressed with you and wewant to talk about kind of how
you built some of therelationships up in the

(05:32):
Microsoft ecosystem and kind ofwhat you helped to bring with
improving the academies atHitachi.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that.
Well, first of all, Iappreciate you saying all the
great things about me.
It's always interesting to seeyourself in people's eyes, so I
really appreciate that Well, butfrom my perspective, I
personally have this motto inlife that you have to put the
effort in in order to actuallyreap the benefits out.
You cannot expect that you'regoing to be getting all these
great things that you want inlife if you actually don't put

(05:59):
the effort in and at some pointthat effort becomes effortless
in a way, because you'reenjoying it and you're doing it
for the greater good, so you'renot giving as much energy
because it is something that youenjoy doing, so it becomes a
passion, more or less than awork, if that makes sense right.
So when I was at Hitachi, oneof the biggest things that was

(06:19):
happening at the time is thatfield service was starting to
like really gain momentum.
I guess it was like four orfive years after the field, one
acquisition and all that funstuff right and it was still in
a way, in newish to themicrosoft ecosystem, right?
so at that point we are, westarted to see all those like
small, medium businesses thatare trying to jump on that

(06:39):
bandwagon, which was amazing.
But then all those enterprisecompany didn't really have a
play, because field service waskind of there but not really
there, right?
So that's where the idea of Awe need to educate our new group
of people who are field serviceor dynamics consultants on what
field service is, because it isvery hard to just pick it up

(07:01):
and learn it from docs very hardto just pick it up and learn it
from docs.
And number two, you have toidentify the gaps that exist in
the system so you can have atleast some sort of a strategy of
how you fill the gaps.
When you have a customer that'scoming in and be like I don't
know how field service would dothat, and you're like, yeah, I
don't know that either.
Well, that's not a really goodanswer, right, you have to go in
with.
Well, mr Customer, we're awareof that, let me tell you what

(07:23):
our pitch is and we candynamically change that for you,
right?
So, with that said, when youhave these kind of, I guess, in
a way, needs at a company thatyou love and you love the people
that you're working with andyou want to see it grow and
succeed, you have no otheroption but to grab the bull by
the horn, in my opinion, as anygood, dedicated architect would

(07:46):
do.
Yeah right, you just, you justdon't sit back and watch right.
And that's where you startconnecting with mvps, you start
reaching out to people, you I, Ipersonally feel like we are in
a community that is such like asmall village but global in a
way, so I never felt like Icouldn't reach out like to Ben
Vollmer and be like hey Ben,what do I do here?

(08:06):
What do I?

Speaker 2 (08:07):
do there.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Right, like any any person off of LinkedIn that
posts something I've never feltlike I couldn't reach out and be
like tell me more about this,because I have this issue and
can you help me solve it.
And it is amazing how small thecommunity is, in a sense, that
everyone wants to help, which isamazing, and that's how you
build these relationships.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, no, that's spot on.
I mean, I think that's the onething I love about this
community, and even the MVPcommunity, right.
I mean you know we're, all youknow, experiencing the same
trials and tribulations and samechallenges, and so sharing that
and helping out each other, asbig as we are and I mean it's
global I mean we know people allaround the world it just feels
like it's such such such atight-knit community, like like

(08:51):
everyone just lives in myneighborhood exactly yeah, she's
, she's part of that.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
You always you were part of that group that I feel
like there's a you know youdidn't get the, some people
didn't get the accolades and,like you know, the big sticker
or the badge, but like thecontributions are definitely
there.
There were so many within thatorganization and even outside,
where you kind of brought themalong and helped them out, and
so it's interesting and for ouraudience.

(09:17):
I promise you we'll get intoall things field service and
power platform, but this is amentoring moment because you're
talking to somebody awesomesticker.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
I want sticker.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Thank you, we're gonna get in so much trouble for
this.
You brought others along yourjourney.
Can you help some of ourmembers of our audience who are
like you know, they see the postand they're like, hey, I think
I'm listening to her.
How did you make that jump fromyour everyday consultant to
essentially we had tiers atHitachi folks for architects if
you don't know it, but like I'mgonna say, lead architect, which

(09:52):
is, if I look at otherorganizations, it's essentially
directors.
So how did you make that jumpLike skill-wise, and what did
you do to help others to seeyour value?

Speaker 3 (10:03):
Absolutely no.
Thank you for that question.
So in my opinion and just toput things in context, I was at
Hitachi for four years, startedas a consultant, left as a lead
architect.
So within those four years Ijumped three or four tiers right
, and I say that again just forcontext.
But then from my perspective,when I first joined as a
consultant, I had this greatknowledge in field service, but
I wasn't always limiting myselfto that knowledge right.

(10:26):
I think that it is veryimportant that you grow yourself
in all aspects of not just thetechnology.
Like yeah, it's great that Ican write a flow, that's amazing
.
But then, as a lead architect,I'm not going to write the flow
myself.
You know what I mean.
I'm putting the strategy and thearchitecture of best practices
to write that power automate andhow to kick it, and should it

(10:46):
be a power automate in the firstplace, or should I do a
post-operation plug-in orwhatnot, right?
So I think that one of the bestthings that you can do for
yourself is to surround yourselfwith your primary focus and
then your secondary, I guess,topics and things and tools that
enable you to have theseintellectual, strategic
conversations without being justvery technical.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
So I don't necessarily know how to write a
JavaScript.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
I don't know how to write a plugin, but I understand
when I need to write a plugin.
I understand if I need to postup or pre up a plugin.
So you surround yourself withall of these knowledge that you
can use later on, but notnecessarily be the one for.
Another example would be Idon't know how to write a power
bi dashboard, for example, if Ireport, but I know that the

(11:31):
capabilities and the limitationsof what I have in dynamics that
might lead me to go there.
So that is really the wholegoal is to know enough but not
be biased and still becomfortable to venture outside
of your comfort zone right andjust come up with the best
solution that you can come upwith for your customer.

(11:52):
It's not because I am pushing amicrosoft agenda, it's not
because I'm pushing copilot.
It's because this is what'sbest for you, mr customer, in
the grand scheme of things, andI think that's where you elevate
up customer

Speaker 2 (12:04):
in the grand scheme of things, and I think that's
where you elevate up.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
I think that's spot on.
I mean, because we're all inthat same sort of boat and yeah,
I love to tinker and justunderstand how the product works
.
But to your point, you don'twant me writing a JavaScript,
you don't want me writing aplugin.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
I'll be here for a year and a half.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
You just don't want that Five coders stand.
You don't want me writing aplugin, I'll be here for a year
and a half.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
You just don't want that.
Five codes, five coders Standup.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
But that's not my role.
And so, knowing my limitationsand knowing that, hey, I don't
need to, I need to make sure Iarchitect a sound system, a
sound platform, a sound solutionfor the customer is the goal.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
One thing that makes me laugh.
Like you guys can, can't see us, but I shook my head through
some of the things that rio said, because so so, we felt it over
here.
So so here's, there's one thingshe doesn't she, she says,
she's not technical, don't letit fool you, for one second.
All right, I got caught up bythat, okay, so you know she.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
She said what do you mean?

Speaker 2 (13:03):
and I'm like, well, she said she's not technical,
what do you think of me?
And she broke me down in 20seconds, right?
So, like you know, you know,don't, don't, don't drink the
kool-aid on that.
Now, just just, I have to askso you don't just do
architecting like so.
You took architecting, wasn'tyour normal here?
Let me give you a kind of ahypothesis of what I think the
solution should be, and andhere's kind of the general area

(13:25):
you did more than just drive thetechnological direction and
strategy behind it.
You also did some things withproject management to keep
things on budget and look foropportunities.
You want to talk about that andhow you upskilled in that area
as well.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
No for sure.
I think that a lot of times,you know, when we think about a
role on a project, a lot ofpeople stay in their lane.
But from my perspective, Inever thought that you're going
to get the best out of me if Istay in my own lane.
I am a very opinionated personand I'm going to give you my
opinion, take it or not.
I'm still going to say thatRight, I'm going to give you

(13:59):
that and I'm going to let youdecide whether my opinion is
valid or not.
So when we are in a project andthen, for one reason or the
other, the other roles areeither lacking because of
experience, because just adifferent perspective, because
they're not seeing things theway you're seeing, because
they're not dealing with theother people as a good architect

(14:23):
should do, you step up andmaybe not even architect, maybe
a team player you step up andsay, hey, just a thought.
Have you thought about, insteadof doing this sprint this way
and this sprint that way, haveyou thought about shifting
things up?
Because of the following reasons, and I feel like this is where
you again coming back to erasingmatrix you're not necessarily
responsible, but somehow you areaccountable, really, and you
just need to upskill insituations and in scenarios that

(14:46):
you don't necessarily knowabout for the greater good,
right, and then you learn fromthese people, because, even
though project management is notnecessarily a role that I play,
but the skills that you use toproject manage are the same
skills that you use when you aremanaging your backlog and
knowing what tasks I want towork on first versus not.
If I have a story that is 20points, I somehow need to manage

(15:08):
that story to know when todeliver, when should I start
designing, when should I do this, when I should do that.
So, in a way, we all play theseroles and have these skills in
our own little lanes, andsometimes you just stick to that
template and apply it in otherplaces, right, and that's how
you, in my opinion upskill tothose roles.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, like I'm gonna go ahead and say it Like.
So it was because of peoplelike you Brandy Megan and Tanya
Love.
Y'all Hope y'all are listeningwe are gonna have y'all on the
show as well.
I know I'm gonna catch hell forthat, by the way, but it was
folks like you that interesting.
When I actually tried to go tothe top when I went to Hitachi,

(15:47):
I remember Sean saying you know,yeah, you can be an architect
but you know you can, youarchitect the way we want to.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
And I was like what?

Speaker 2 (15:55):
do you mean by that?
And like T-Rex Tabor, yeah,shout out to the T-Rex love you,
man.
It was.
It was.
It was crazy.
Because I was like what are youtalking about, dude?
Like I, I know my stuff.
Are you crazy?
You don't know who I am.
And then it was.
I got on a call with with you.
I got on a call with brandy, Igot on a call with with I've
seen tanya, I've seen megan andman it.

(16:15):
There's architects in the worldand then there are real
architects and you guys had, youknow, raised the bar so much
within the industry and Ilearned how to be a real
architect and I appreciate it.
I said so it's, it's not justabout the technology, it's also
about building customerrelationships, looking for other

(16:35):
opportunities, projectmanagement, it's, there's so
many levels to it.
You guys just excelled in thoseareas.
So I'm gonna get into, kind oflike the product piece, if you
don't mind, if that's okay.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
Let's do it.
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Cause you have gotten your hands so dirty with field
service, I have to ask, fromyour experience, what are
probably the, what are some ofthe misconceptions or the most
misunderstood aspects about afield service implementation
Like what do customers see andlike they think is going to be?
You know what theirexpectations are, and then

(17:09):
there's reality, so go for it.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
So I'm going to say something that I think is a
little bit controversial and Ithink I'm going to get a little
bit of any court, but that'sokay.
But in my opinion, myperspective is that when you are
standing up a brand new fieldservice implementation, everyone
screams.
When you are standing up abrand new field service
implementation, everyone screamsScrum, agile, iterations.
When it comes to your firstfield service implementation,

(17:32):
you cannot be Scrum, you cannotbe Agile, you cannot be
iterative.
You have to be waterfall.
The software and the product ismeant to work collectively, all
in all, from types to servicetasks, to the invoices, to AI.
Nowadays, it is meant to workall together.
So most of the failedimplementations that I see and I

(17:53):
won't say failed, but maybe thegaps that I see in the
implementations, including theones that are in my company
today that I'm working on iswhen we are iterating the
implementation and then wedesign the incident types, for
example, but then we don't talkabout when it comes over to a
service task and how I'm goingto build for these services and
whatnot like.
But there's not thatcollaboration because you

(18:14):
already put yourself in a cornerthat now you have to build on
top of it instead ofcollectively architecting a
bigger strategy all in all foryour system.
So in my that is the biggestmisconception when it comes to
field service implementations.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah, I would agree with that because honestly it's
been the biggest strugglegetting organizations to realize
that it just doesn't work.
It just can't Like, how do I goahead and just do incident
types or service tasks?
Just can't like, how do I goahead and just do incident types
or service tasks?
There's you have to do so muchcoordination of effort in in

(18:53):
your user stories that it justwould become a project
management nightmare absolutely100.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
And then I believe that people forget the data flow
and they start talking aboutthe data as if the data is only
incident types and the data isonly invoices and the data is
only service tasks and servicesand products.
But it's not.
It is the same data that'sflowing from one place to the
other.
It's a life cycle.
So then it is so hard toconsider oh, I'm gonna do this

(19:17):
here, but oh, shoot, I forgotcompletely that this doesn't
work there.
But now I'm in sprint 16 andI'm like already way in the
weeds.
You know what I mean.
So that is, in my opinion,where a lot of the gaps come in
and people forget about that.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
Well, real quick, and then I'm going to turn it over
to you Will.
So you know, one of thesessions that I'm doing at UG
Summit is about field servicecommon pitfalls in field service
, and this is one of them.
Oh, I like that, I love that Inyour opinion, I mean besides
the whole.
You know, agile versus hey,don't go in agile.

(19:51):
It doesn't really work for fieldservice.
I mean, what would you say youknow might be another, you know
common pitfall that you seewithin field services like that
you've seen from your years ofexperience saying, man, I see
this all the time.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
I think the biggest thing that I see is that people
stick their implementations towhat they know for field service
is work orders and bookings,requirements, work orders,
bookings and requirements Likeeverywhere you go work orders,
bookings and requirements.
They stick to that, but thenthey forget that there's a whole
module behind it that supportsit and needs to enrich it so you
can actually get a good workorder, booking requirements,

(20:27):
scheduling experience, forexample.
I'll give you an example.
Other people forget about workhours and work.
Our templates like calendarsand holidays and all of that.
They forget about that.
So then you set up work ordersand bookings and requirements
and scheduling and you go andyou're like my scheduling
assistance is not findinganybody.
Well, yeah, it's like you missa huge, huge prerequisite that

(20:52):
you completely dropped, and Idon't fault people so much for
that, because I feel likesometimes the documentations
that we have are not as good interms of explaining why you need
to do that.
They're not enriched.
So I just feel like people juststick to what they see, surface
level and the videos that wehave.
All talk about these fourcomponents but really miss a lot

(21:15):
of enrichment to how to getthat thing to work, because work
hour templates, resourcerequirement, groups, you know,
incident type estimates anddurations and analytics and all
of that fun stuff.
It's just foster the cracks, inmy opinion.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
You know, shout out to David Clark man back in the
day.
He used to do so much for fieldservice man.
We appreciate you.
We miss you.
Fella, hope you're doing well.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
We miss you, David.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
Riam, so you can't see us.
I wish they could, man, becausethe energy is just crazy.
So here's the fun part.
I've stolen this and I know Itook it from you.
Customers come in and they,just like you said, they just
wanna install it and you have totell them this field service is
data driven.
As one of the very few peopleother than myself but talking to

(21:58):
another person, you are one ofthe very few people that have
actually implemented RSO.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Now, I'm sorry if this makes you guys Stop having
a heart attack, stop having aheart attack.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
I have a little indigestion.
Anyone have any?
Come hey, all you need is real,you're good.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
You're good like seriously, like she makes.
She makes it that much simpler.
She's also done scheduling aswell, so, just like I, I this is
there's a reason why I saidlet's bring her.
Well, I, we wanted to bring youon here because, again, you
know, it'll probably be athree-part episode if we went
through you.
You know just a forte a littlebit about what you're great at,
but let's just get into it.
Anyway, point is let's go intoRSO, rso what are some of the

(22:36):
challenges you see customersfacing and how do they fix those
challenges?
For RSO and it's broad onpurpose- RSO specifically
Putting it on the spot, no less.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
I know, I know, I know, I think and I think that
everyone's going to have thesame answer.
To be honest with you, it isthe only logical answer is that
I am bound to those five thingsthat I need to optimize on,
right, yeah, why can I not writemy own custom logic, especially
now with AI coming into play?
Is there not a way that I canlike explain what my

(23:06):
optimization strategy is and letAI create a scheduling pattern
for me that can take that intoaccount?
For example, like why is itthat I only have these five
options?
I'll give you an example hereat Intralux.
None of these five thingsmatter to us, not one of them.
We can't take any of that intoaccount, to be honest with you,
especially that we travel, like,we hop on planes and we travel

(23:32):
to our customer sites.
So distance to me and traveltime and traffic and all that
fun stuff it just is absolutelyuseless to me.
I don't need it, I don't carefor it.
Flight schedules exactlyproximity to the airport, for
example.
You know, things like thatmatters to me, but I can't use
it, so RSO is great, but onlyfor a certain category of

(23:52):
companies that has these five intheir own list of what they
optimize on.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
in my opinion, we were working on an engagement.
I never forgot it.
It was one of the many ones up.
I think it was an opportunitywe were working on how about
that?
And somebody wanted their own,their, their their own
scheduling portal, and whichthey always do, and they also
wanted rso.
And I'm looking at this and myeyes are crossed.
I'm like why?

Speaker 3 (24:17):
do you want?

Speaker 2 (24:17):
customers.
Why do you want customersmaking bookings and then you're
going to optimize like you'regonna have to tell them.
I'm just like I'm I'm confused,figuring out how I'm gonna tell
these people that this isn't,this isn't real and I remember
Sean was like it's cool man,real is gonna help with with
with it.
She's got it and I'm like whatdo you mean?

Speaker 1 (24:37):
Like oh my god.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
She's gonna help.
Like this is this is a, youcan't fix this and you get on
there and you break it down.
You want to help peopleunderstand the kind of like the
how scheduling really works andwhy you know optimization and
then optimization and scheduling.
Why they?
Although they kind of go handin hand, there is a clear
delineation between the two.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
No, absolutely when you're scheduling adoption?
Yeah, when, when you arescheduling and outside of our so
hello friend, when you aresorry in case you can see this,
but this is the cutest littlepup.

Speaker 2 (25:13):
And you haven't seen her dog.
If you see her dog, you'regoing to love it.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
That's funny.
When it comes to schedulingitself, right, I feel like with
the three types that we have,between manual, assisted and
then RSO, obviously, betweenmanual and assisted, there's
always going to be that.
It's like a co-pilot experienceof a sort, right, someone's in
the driver's seat already,someone is making those
decisions, there's a humaninteraction doing it, blah, blah

(25:39):
, blah.
That's great.
I at least feel comfortablethat the schedule is going to be
pretty nailed down to the bestof my people.
But when it comes to RSO, in myopinion there's still that doubt
in people's minds that, yes, itcan do it.
I still want to see, I stillwant to look at it, I still want
to confirm it.
I still I don't trust it.

(26:00):
And there's a reason why peopledon't trust that because
there's a flaw to the logic,right, and it operates on, in my
opinion, a binary standards.
It's a black or white, that'sit.
There's no gray areas.
So, and other times, when itcomes to scheduling, we need
those gray areas.
We need those where, oh, Ialready scheduled a crew to go
out but this person got sick andnow I have to replace the whole

(26:20):
thing.
But that I can because I usedresource requirements and now I
have to reschedule everybody.
There's not that flexibility,unfortunately, when it comes to
things like that, and that's whypeople still steer away from
rso and default to, I'll just doit myself.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
What if I have an appointment at this customer
site tomorrow, but then there'sanother one three days later?
Why can't I combine them?

Speaker 3 (26:43):
exactly, exactly.
It just puts those limitationson you and that is.
There's a lot of things infield service unfortunately that
does that.
It doesn't let you coloroutside of the lines, even
though dynamics, in my opinion,is the XRM toolbox right.
It is an XRM, it's not a CRM.
The flexibility is the valuethat it brings.
So to be confided in thoseboundaries in field service

(27:06):
sometimes it's like I reallycan't do that for real, but I'm
not used to that.
So it creates that feel forpeople to not trust it, so that
people drift away from it,unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
So hopefully, with Copilot now and AI hopefully
that's coming where there'll bemore flexibility.
That's all we can do, right.
We can hope.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaking of flexibility, realquick, just a little pitch in
here.
Today we were talking aboutautonomous agents and how we can
use them and whatnot, and oneof the biggest things that we
have today is that some of ourpeople, especially for smaller
offices, I guess, the ones thatwe have in EMEA, the ones that
we have in APEC and whatnot thedispatcher is the person who is
going out, like I'm schedulingmyself as a technician.

(27:51):
I am saying I'm going here, I'mgoing here, I'm doing this, I'm
doing that.
So I don't need all thoseprocesses and checks and
balances in place.
I need to create the work order, I need to put the incident
type, I need to schedule myself,I need to close my booking.
I need to do all of that for meand I just have to tell it I

(28:14):
finished this visit or I didthis and I did this.
Schedule me here, schedule methere.
And then it writes back andwell, you're like laughing here,
you're like dying, but yes,there is now.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
Speak it back right now.
I'm loving it.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
Keep going yeah like with AI, I feel like we are
tapping into a world where wecan still leverage the core
field service features that welove so much, but then enrich it
with you know prompts andenrich it with experiences.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
That is not necessarily just what you see in
field service today yeah, solike there's, there's a
difference, like I think so, ifyou guys haven't figured out out
, like Ram knows her stuff andshe's literally worked with
almost all the products previewor public within that field
service suite.
But I think customers havefound so much value in just
having that conversation, likeunderstanding the difference

(29:02):
between routing or, you know,figuring out traffic patterns
right, you know what is it.
Are you trying to get to adestination or are you trying to
see?
You know what are your scopes,what is your goal for
optimization, defining whatthose are Like.
I think once customers havethose conversations with someone
like yourself, or with myselfor Scott, you know, and then you

(29:23):
can build this with agents,they are out there now to kind
of build and bring thisinformation to the fore for our
technicians or for our end usersto use.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
Okay, I'm gonna be 100%, just a real comment.
We'll pick here.
Well, my opinion is thatcustomers need education.
In my opinion, right, yes,they're bringing us on as
consultants to kind of take overand flush things out and
whatnot.
But I feel like if you don'tpartner with your customer, you
are on a losing immediately fromthe get-go.
My linkedin just say all yourcustomers are partners in your
journey.
They really are.
They really are if you don'tpartner with your customer,

(29:55):
regardless what kind of acustomer it is and how hard they
are to work with and whatnot.
But that educational piece, inmy opinion, is key.
It sets the tone for thecustomer feeling that they are
part owner and the decisionmaking process.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, so I gotta be.
Um, I got one more productquestion and then we're going to
go into kind of like what yourthoughts are as far as what you
would like to see, or where doyou, what are you most excited
about?
Use cases, all that fun stuffand then we'll go into another
topic that I'm incrediblypassionate about.
I think you are too.
I just got to say this I do whenit comes to food and family.

(30:30):
We gotta get you out there tolike UG summit or something.
You gotta do some speakingsessions.
Like I don't understand, likewho we have to bribe, but if you
guys aren't putting her onDynamicsCon or or or any of the
UG groups, we're going to havesome issues here.
Anyway, all right, so one ofthe very few people who have
actually implemented track, atechnician for a field service
portal Don't yell at me, I'm sosorry, Okay, tell me tell me I'm

(30:55):
so, so, so, so, so, so sorry.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
Over.
Like experience?
Tell me.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
What was your experience with taking a feature
that may have not necessarilybeen ready and enhancing it to
go into production?

Speaker 3 (31:09):
Oh my gosh, that was probably one of the scariest
times of my life, to be honestwith you, because you're like
I'm betting all your money on apreview feature, right, and we
all know how great previewfeatures are.
No, no, this is anybody justsaying they're pretty feature
for a reason, right.
So it is absolutely scarybecause there's multi dimensions
to that.
A.
You have to be very carefularound setting the client

(31:30):
expectations right.
Like that's number one,literally number one.
If you don't do that and youcontinuously keep doing it,
you're doomed from the get-goCustomer expectations.
This is a preview feature.
It is going to fail, there aregoing to be bug and I'm not
going to be able to fix it.
Like these three things have tobe communicated throughout the
whole process.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
In my opinion and it could change at any point in
time.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
A hundred percent.
I cannot guarantee this.
Second of all, build reallygood relationship with the
Microsoft product owners forthat preview feature.
Really try to get insights inright.
They are your partners in thisright.
I mean, you can easily findthem on LinkedIn.
You can easily reach out tosomeone from Microsoft Docs and
be like we're trying to do this.
What do you think if you havefast track architects or if you

(32:10):
partner with fast track?
Use them.
Use them to the max, right,because they can get you all the
help that you need.
So I remember when we were andit wasn't called track your
technician I don't remember whatit was called at the time I
can't find my technician I thinkit was fine my tech.
I think you're right, it wasfine my tech or something like
that yeah yeah, and I rememberat the we had to be very

(32:31):
realistic with the customerabout it.
As a preview feature, we builtan amazing relationship with the
FastTrack architect who got usinto the product owner on the
Microsoft side so that we canunderstand what's coming and not
coming.
And then from there you crossyour fingers and you pray to be
honest with you, right, Like youtry your best, but then you

(32:52):
really have to, in that case,document all the things that are
not working or you can't do.
And then from there you'restill in preview.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Still in preview?
No way.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
Five years later.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Stop it.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
No, I honestly thought it was deprecated at
some point because I stoppedhearing about it.
To be honest with you, I thinkit's close.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
We're going to get canceled.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
The field service is a great product but you guys got
to understand Microsoft hasmade such a huge investment into
improving it.
There are great stories andcustomers have found amazing ROI
with the product, but you know,it's just very few people do it
into infield serviceimplementation.
So you're talking.
The reason why Reem is here isbecause, well, multiple reasons.

(33:35):
One of the big reasons is she'sliterally touched all the
components you can think ofwithin that suite and she's
literally played all the rolesin implementing them.
So that's why we're picking her.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
I wish more customers that I had would do IoT.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
I love IoT.
Oh man, good, good fun time.
So I have a question.
We have to throw this out therebecause we love it so much and
you work for a larger microsoft.
Um, I don't want to necessarilythrow out the name if we're
okay too or not, but you, you,you're, you, you work for a
larger microsoft, uh, customer,and are we allowed to say your

(34:10):
name?
Dumb question Are weInterlochen?
Right?
We can say your name, right,scott, yeah, no issues, right,
yes, okay, cool, all right.
Interlochen, interlochen oh,she did.
Oh God, we have to cut that out.
Okay, so cut that out.
I'm sorry, mississippi to misscool, all right, so you work for
interlocks, big Microsoftcustomer.

(34:34):
You went to the customer side.
You lead biz apps.
Tell me what makes you mostexcited about the Microsoft
suite?
What's coming out?
Is there some opportunitiesthat you guys are looking to
grow and enhance adoption?
What are you?
What are you seeing there?

Speaker 3 (34:47):
100%%, and I am going to say everybody's favorite two
letters A-I.
I know it is a buzzword, Iunderstand I get it, but trust
me, when you hear my use cases,you understand why this is very
exciting for us on the interlockside.
So as of right now, we haveevery single module implemented.
We have sales and marketing andcustomer service and field

(35:09):
service and we have some XRMstuff that we did for
inspections ourselves becausethe inspection out of the box
did not really cut it that muchfor what we wanted, so we did
our own little thing.
It's just being just being justbeing straight up honest.
You guys and I'll comment onthat here in a little bit.
I'll talk about that in alittle bit.
But I say all of that and I saythat we've extended it, but I

(35:31):
also say that we extended itwithin the boundaries of field
service.
What I mean by that is youextend, you build on top of it,
but I still store my inspectionresponses where I'm supposed to
store them, just like theout-of-the-box inspection would
have done that, because I wouldtake advantage of all the
analytics that comes with itout-of-the-box, right.
So that's what I mean you tapon instead of you completely

(35:53):
demolish and get rid of it.
You tap on, and I have so manyof these um examples that I
think a good architect would sayI can't do it, I'm going to
build you something different.
It's more of there's a gap.
Let me fill that gap, but stilluse all the other components
that I can use for that gapright, or for that feature.
Sorry, didn't mean to derailGoing back to that.

(36:14):
We've implemented everything atthe moment.
So we've always thought of ourimplementation as a crawl, walk,
run, right, and we are nowwalking.
We literally are toddlers,we're walking, we're good to go
and it's time for us to startrunning and for us to start
running.
It is really two things and itenrich the customer experience
and make our people's experienceand life easier.

(36:35):
These are the two things thatwe're working towards right now,
because we got the data, we gotthe basics, we got the
frameworks in place, we got theSOPs, we got everything that we
need.
Now it's just a matter of howdo we then make it better.
It's like I built my house andnow it's time to decorate it
right, just to make it easier onthe eyes.
So, with that said, when aicomes into play, one of the one
of the my favorite use cases ofhow we've been leveraging ai is

(36:59):
belt identification.
So can I say, can I talk aboutwhat intro locks does go for it?
Do you this?
Is you okay?
Okay, so we sell modular belts,which means that they're
plastic belts.
I have here somewhere I'll showyou guys later, but we build
plastic belts that are like Legopieces.
You put them together and youmake this beautiful big belt
that's hygienic and whatever,right, but then have you ever

(37:22):
seen a belt that has like a QRcode on it?
It just doesn't.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah, no, I actually haven't.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
No, have you it?
Just no, it doesn't.
Yeah, no, I actually haven't.
No, have you ever seen a beltthat has a placard on it?
No, you can't do stuff likethat.
It contaminates food, forexample.
You can't have foreign materialsitting on a belt when it's a
tyson chicken and chicken isgoing over that metal.
You can't do that right.
So a lot of times, these arethese are the problems that you
see in real life like oh, whatdo I do now?
There's no way for me toidentify my asset.

(37:49):
If my customer picks up thephone and say hey, my belt broke
, can you send me another one?
And this is a customer thatbeen with you for 10 years and
they have four buildings wheremy belts are running.
I don't know what belt to sendyou.
I have no idea what you want.
Oh, let me grab a picture andsend it to you.
Grab a picture, send it to me.
It looks like a gray belt andit looks like it's an acetal, I

(38:11):
guess, or a plastic, but itcould have easily been a green
belt that faded into gray, right.
So there's so many aspects tothat.
Where we built an AI tool Lastyear, the team and I did a
hackathon it's our thing of howto end the year, so we did a
hackathon.
It's our thing of how to endthe year, so we did a hackathon.
We built a belt identificationtool where we fed the model

(38:33):
different pictures of belts,stacked them with the properties
that we care about producttheory, style, material, color.
Those are the four things thatwe identify a belt with, and
then now all I've got to do ispick up my tool, scan it or send
an email with a picture, andthen the model is going to
return for you.
Probabilities.
That's to say, based onprevious purchase history which
is in Oracle, by the way, not inDynamics and based on what I'm

(38:56):
seeing of specs of this belt andbased on what I have in my
database, I am 85% sure this isa Series 7000, green acetyl,
whatever.
Da, da, da, da, right.
And that is just one way of howai is going to do both.
It's going to impact ourcustomers and it's going to
impact our end users.
Our customers are getting thesebelts.

(39:18):
If a belt is down in a freerelay or in a tyson chicken or
in amazon, operations are downlike we're completely down.
So it reduces downtime to ourcustomer because they're getting
those replacements asap.
Right, and it reduces the timeon our customer service folks
that are not having to go in andsearch and google and look for
two days what that belt isunreal, wow, unreal, unreal.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Like straight up, if you guys haven't disliked, that
is unreal.
I love how you say we did likean end of the year hackathon,
like it was some little thing.
Like that's unreal.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
The roi with that like that, that's the amazing
amazing, yeah, but this is thisis what we're excited about.
These are the things where Isay we start walking.
Right, we're walking, we'restarting to run.
This is the kind of stuff thatnow we want to dangle and enrich
our system with.
So we we continue changemanagement, we continue adoption
, we continue our digitalexistence with our customers and

(40:14):
just make our people's lifeeasier, because Dynamics and
Field Service is not the easiestto use.
So how do we make it easier forour people to continue loving
it?
It's things like that.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Absolutely.
How do you continue loving it?
Yeah, because adoption is huge,right?
You don't really get rid of thethings you love, unless you're
my parents.
They got rid of me.
That was a good investment, Toosoon too soon Shout out to Kyle
mom and dad's favorite.
That's right, kyle, love youbuddy, love you so little child
man.
What can I say?
So, ria, like again, like Ikind of we kind of shifted

(40:46):
topics earlier and I was goingto get into it but I decided we
probably just hold off quite abit.
You are a, you have been aarchitect, you've been a
consultant, you've done PME-ish.
Well, you've done a lot.
That was a Drake reference.
I think that's a Drakereference.
I don't know what my kidslisten to, but you have done a

(41:06):
lot and are going to continue todo.
Can you speak to me aboutsomething I know you're
passionate about?
I'm passionate about it toorepresentation, particularly
women in tech.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
What are?

Speaker 2 (41:12):
why is it so?
Why is it?
Why is it so important to havea strong female representation
in tech, especially in fieldservice or the microsoft space?

Speaker 3 (41:24):
in my opinion, it's not necessarily about I have to
prove myself.
It is where we belong,naturally, in my opinion Like I
just don't feel like andunfortunately there has been a
lot of stigmas around certaincareers that this is male
dominated and IT has become oneof them for some reason, right,
but then, in my opinion, I amraising two girls who one of

(41:45):
them is extremely curious whenit comes to coding and
development and whatnot, sonaturally I have to empower that
by being a role model for her.
You know what I mean and showher that, yeah, we do belong
there, even though our societyin our community is telling us
you're not really the best whenit comes to those IT jobs,
because, you know, technology isfor man, right?
I just believe personally thatwomen belong in that field as

(42:08):
much as anyone else, and I'mgoing to double down on that and
say women of color belong inthat field more than anyone else
, right?
And you don't see thatrepresentation, unfortunately,
much.
Now we're seeing a lot morefolks are in there, right, you
have Kylie, you have Heidi, youhave Dion, you have all these
people that are, you know, outthere and representing us and
women in that field there andrepresenting us and women in

(42:33):
that field and in my opinion, Ijust feel like we bring a lot of
artistic visions into thesystem.
In my opinion, when it comes toconsulting and architecture and
being in that space, we bring alot of emotional intelligence.
Not to say that men don't, butthis is natively.
Statistically, women do thatbetter.
I knowott is shaking his headno comment.
You know, I'll give it to you,I'll give it to you.

(42:54):
So, so I just feel like webring a lot of those soft skills
that we are usually um, what'sthe word punished for sometimes
that we actually need in theconsulting space, right?
I know that when I am talkingto a customer and I am
sympathizing with the gaps thatthey're having and their

(43:14):
processes and saying I know thatthis did not work the way you
want it to.
Let's see if we can figure thisout.
I know that I am building acustomer for life, end of story
because I'm sympathizing withyou, right?
Whereas if lack of thatproduces just a lack of
partnership in general, right,yeah, so so we belong there,

(43:36):
bottom line, yeah, we belongthere.
We naturally fit there, in myopinion, right?
and I I personally don't don'tfeel like it's a fight to get
there anymore.
It's just a natural transitionthat we just in there so there
there are.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Real quick, I'm sorry about the scott, let me touch
it.
So, like you name some likeazure trisha, sinclair mizell,
like these are all women youknow, we got kylie, we got heidi
, we have brandy shout out.
Megan, tanya, dion yeah, forreals, these are all you know,
big, big players in the industry.

(44:10):
I don't know any.
The first thing about being awoman so I just have a daughter.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
It's hard man, it's hard.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Yeah, it's tough.
I see some of the things.
I just I have to ask thisquestion.
This is going to make everyonefeel uncomfortable.
I was oblivious to this becausethat's just sometimes how I am,
and I don't mean anything by it, but a trend.
You would get in a room, sayit's a bunch of guys, and they
look at a young lady and theysay, hey, you take notes.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
That has been my life for three years.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
So by the time I came along and was with you, I ain't
never seen anybody tell youthat.
So what are you?
What can you say to the younglady right now who's being told
to kind of sit down and justtake notes?

Speaker 3 (44:54):
Two things Know your worth and speak up your value.
Two things, don't be afraid.
Right, it starts with knowingyour value and know what you're
worth, because sometimes we, aswomen, tend to take others
perspective about us and believethat it's true, which is
unfortunate these days.

(45:15):
Right, do some self-reflection.
Know what you're good at and beokay with the things that
you're not good at, and that'swhen you know your worth and you
know what you can and youcannot do.
Second thing is speak up your.
Someone once told me that and Istill use it till today.
You're not gonna robustlycombust if someone tells you you

(45:37):
know or you you stand up foryourself.
It's not gonna.
What's the worst?
That?

Speaker 1 (45:39):
can happen.

Speaker 3 (45:40):
Right, speak up for yourself.
I think a lot of people, a lotof women, are afraid to speak up
and say you know, no, I don'twant to take notes, because
they're worried that I'm notgoing to be seen as a team
player.
I'm gonna seem as use my wordhere bossy or bitchy or whatever
the labels that they put on uswhen we speak up our mind.
I know I'm sorry, we'll cut thatout hey, no, you're good now,

(46:01):
because I want the kids to hearwe're good yeah, so so we don't
speak up because in the, in the,in the spirit of being a good
team player and being a goodemployee, I'm the greater good.
I'm just gonna go ahead andaccept that my role isn't note
taker.
Not because we're seeing it ashey.
They're leaving me as a notetaker because I'm a younger

(46:22):
woman in the room.
I'm going to be there for theteam.
You know what?

Speaker 2 (46:25):
I mean and I'm not saying you should not be a team-
player whatsoever.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
I'm just saying that know your worth and know what I
mean.
And I'm not saying you shouldnot be a team player whatsoever.
I'm just saying that know yourworth and know what you're good
at right, that you are betteroff leading a discussion,
because that's where most of mypower is leading a discussion
and analyzing.
Do you really want me to sitdown and take notes?
Is that really what you wantout of me?
You want the best of my, whatI'm good at right.

(46:48):
Right, and trust me, my notesare going to be horrible.
Horrible because I don't saygood notes at all so that's why
we have exactly that's why it'sit's a losing situation.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
I've gotten your customer notes before just heads
up, right what the heck is this?

Speaker 3 (47:04):
but you're reading that most loving way, it's all
good.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
It's all good you raise a good point because my,
my wife, you was Loving Way it'sall good, it's all good.
You raise a good point becausemy wife is in similar situations
where I'm like you know what,be confident, don't let people
you know she's like the samething.
She doesn't let anyone bringher down right, she knows she's
confident in her capabilitiesand that has to show.
It's not just for women, butfor everyone.

(47:27):
Be confident Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
Absolutely.
I mean, we all know the statsright about, like, when a woman
applies for a job versus a manapplies for a job, right.
When a man applies for the job,oh, I check five out of the 15
boxes, I'm going to apply anyway.
When a woman applies for thejob, oh, I'm missing three at
the very bottom that areoptional.
So I'm going to get rejected.
Right, and that is honestly how, unfortunately, we're wired as

(47:50):
women, because we are sometimesperfectionists, right, and we
want to make sure that we're notgetting just rejected in a way.
So we try to cover our bases,right, because we're worried
about what people are going tothink of us, because that's how
the society shaped us to be.
So it's just a full circle.
When you know your worth, likeScott said, you know your worth,
you're confident in what youcan and you cannot do, and
you're very candid about it,You're not doing it just to

(48:11):
retaliate.
You're doing it because youactually know what you're
talking about, versus saying Iactually don't know much about
this, I'll get back to you later.
When you showcase thatconfidence and you lead with
that, and you lead with that isnot my best and highest use,
right.
That's when I think that youcan overcome these situations
and say how about you take thenotes and let me lead the
discussion, because that's whatI prepared for and that's what

(48:32):
I'm good?

Speaker 2 (48:33):
at.
It's funny, like, because if I,you know, we tease, there are
some components that I don'tknow anything about and I'll
flatly say, hey guys, I'm notthe one for that.
I mean, if you want to give meextra time to pick it up, sure I
got that, I own this, but I'mprobably it's probably a better
person.
Nobody will think twice, right,when you hear other that's why

(48:53):
I don't hear places, yeah I hearother, I hear other.
Let me say why.
I hear women say that.
Or if a woman says that, theylook at them like oh, how could
you not know this?
And you kind of hear this, andyou see that in a negative.

Speaker 3 (49:03):
It's like yeah no absolutely yeah, because we we
are always challenged because,again, full circle, we are told
we do not fit in that space,we're told we're not adequate,
we're not capable to fit in thatspace.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
You're supposed to know it all.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
And then we try hard.
We try harder than anybody sothat we know it all, so that
when we are faced with aquestion, we don't sound
incompetent, even though it isnot a measurement of whether
you're good or not, it's just Idon't know it, I just don't know
it Right.
So I think that's where reallythings fall.
Through.
The cracks for women is thatthey try to have this.

(49:40):
They're superheroes, they havethe superhero syndrome and then
you have the imposter syndrome.
They conflict with each other.
I want to try to be the mostperfect person of all times, but
at the same time I'm soinadequate, I'm not good enough,
and sometimes you just have toput all of that aside.
Yes, sometimes it seeps in andsometimes you're like I am a
failure, I am not really doing agood job.

(50:01):
But then you always have toremember that.
Give yourself some grace.
You know what you're doing.
You are good at what you'redoing.
There's a reason why you'rehere, there's a reason why you
made it.
You know four positions in fouryears, just like that.
So trust yourself.
Don't let that seep into youyeah, that wasn't.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
That wasn't easy, but you did, by the way, and that's
great advice.
So I'm gonna get in trouble forthis, and you're probably going
to punch me in the throat whenyou see me.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
So you'll be in a circle today that punches him in
the throat, by the way.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
Yeah, no, she hits hard, by the way.
She hits hard so I'm just goingto have to try to duck.
So you know, I honestly I wouldlove I mean I love everything
that you bring as far as likejust the energy, the support in
the community, and you have amessage that clearly I think

(50:53):
others need to see it here.
So can you speak about some ofthe things that you plan on
doing in the community, maybethis year?
Or are there some opportunitiesyou want to kind of, I'm just
going to be a bad person, usethis platform to be like, hey,
you know, y'all need to have mehere, don't be afraid to say it,
either go for it.

Speaker 3 (51:12):
So you're asking me about what I want out of the
community, I guess, or what Iwant the community to do,
because, like there's both thisis your time, either or let me.
Let me lead by one thing interms of what I'm really hoping
this community does movingforward.
We are at an era here wherethere is I don't want to say
distractions, because ai is nota distraction, but there's the

(51:35):
new kid on the block thateveryone just flipped it towards
right and that's whereeveryone's focused every summit
that you're going to it's thecool kid on the block.
Every summit you go to, everyconference you hop on every
podcast that you do, the maintheme is ai, ai, ai.
And this is why thisconversation is so refreshing,
because we touched on rso, wetouched on track technician, we

(51:56):
touched on scheduling, right.
Um, let's not forget that fieldservice still has gaps and
still has so much things tolearn about and so much to
educate on.
So, yes, agents, agents areamazing, but there's still a lot
of companies that are nowstarting to implement field
service and they still have togo back to basics.
So let's not forget the basics.
Let's continue educating peopleon all the good things that

(52:18):
field service does, all thefeatures that are coming.
I just found out there's a fewoptions that came to booking
statuses.
That allows you to like updatethe time automatically versus
not, and I'm like whoa, whoa,whoa whoa.
When did this come in it?

Speaker 2 (52:31):
is nowhere.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
It is nowhere right.
So let's just not forget aboutthe things that people have
either implemented and need tocontinue building on top and it
might fix a bug here and thereor a gap here and there and the
people that are about toimplement field service that
need that are years away from AIand co-pilots and agents.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
So that's my message to the community specifically.
That's a great message and Iguess I mean kind of
piggybacking on that.
I mean, how would you say youknow people can get involved in
the community?
I mean, what's your advice forpeople like where do I start?
What I do?

Speaker 3 (53:07):
in my opinion, I will reflect that based on someone
who I just dragged into thecommunity somehow, right?
So there's this person on myteam that has been doing
fieldster at microsoft for about10 years.
Right, shout out to christian,if you're listening he's never
been to single summit, he'snever been to a single meeting,
he's never been to a single youknow podcast.

(53:28):
He's never done any of thesethings.
So, in my opinion, I just feellike people, if they really are
interested in this, dig deep, goto LinkedIn, go to Microsoft
Events, go to your local usergroups.
There's almost a user group ina lot of the cities around us,
even if it's a couple of drivesaway, there's a user group
somewhere.

(53:48):
Drive to Cleveland, drive toCincinnati, go to these places
and connect with others.
Right, and that's exactly what Idid with Christian.
I said, christian, there is acommunity summit, come with me.
And he did, and he fell in lovewith that summit.
Right, and mostly it's reallyabout connecting with people
like you guys and getting toknow people like you guys, and
it just becomes a dominanteffect the minute you know Scott

(54:14):
, the minute I follow.
Well, everything else is goingto come in place.
So just take initiative, findyour nearest user group, in my
opinion, around your city, aregional, a local one and try to
attend consistently right andthen grow your circle from there
and just the the events justaligned in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
So, after we conclude this, you're going to give me
Christian's little information,cause I'm I'm going to put my
phone out.
I'm going to call him on that.
I'm going to call him on that.
That's what.
That's what that's what Tricia,dion and Mark Christie and Ian
did for me.
So I love doing the others.
So here's the deal we got toget more of you.
So the deal we gotta get moreof you.

(54:52):
So you know just, I can't waitfor any of the sessions that you
decide to present on in thecoming months, but this has just
been flat out, just awesome,and I really would love a part
two.
But thank you so much for whatyou asked and keep us posted too
.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
if there's any events or or talking sessions that
you're going to, we'd love to uh, promote those and, and you
know, get you a good listeningaudience.
Maybe Will and I can come andheckle you in the back.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
No big deal Come in August 22nd, columbus, ohio
Embassy Suites, I'm giving asession in the regional summit
about the Interlox journey, theeight-year implementation that
we have been through, all thelessons learned, all the things
that we failed at.
I'm really focusing on thefailures mostly so that people
can learn from that and thenjust a lookout for the future of

(55:38):
where we're going from here,just like the build
identification agent and thingslike that excellent, that's
awesome.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
Everyone you need to attend that session get there,
you better, you better, youbetter.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
You don't know what y'all missing.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
That's probably a great idea.
You should you better.
You don't know what y'allmissing.
That's probably a great idea.
You should probably have a.
I know I think ey did that.
But we should probably justhave like a couple sessions
where he's hired and get bringpeople on.
They just get to tell us abouttheir you know, some of their
messed up things that they didyeah, yeah, a couple of those
got a couple of those series.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
Night then field service nightmares field service
nightmares for sure 26 years ofimplementing systems.
I have a few this year, just afew, like three pages or four
Size 8 font.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
Ouch.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
Ouch, I deleted a component every now and then out
of an environment.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
Disabled a plugin that I shouldn't have disabled.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
It happened, right, it just happened, no happened no
biggie.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Well, reham, it's been really great having you on.
I know we're we're uh, out oftime here for our our listeners,
but you know it's beenfantastic having you on sharing
your story.
You know, to will's point loveto have you back on for a part
two and you know we'll work onmaking that happen.
And and good luck on youraugust 22nd.
That's awesome thank you.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
Thank you, guys, it was been a pleasure having this
conversation.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
Keep up the conversations, you guys are
doing great and next yeardynamics gone, that's right your
dynamics gone I'll be there.

Speaker 3 (57:03):
I'll wear my cape.
I'll wear my cape, thank youeveryone that's listening.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
We appreciate you all .
Have a great day.