Hey, It’s Only Numbers…

Have you ever reflected on your high school years and thought, “I’ll never use this stuff?”  Yep, it happened to me as well. I came from a plethora of jobs before entering the realm of ServiceNow, from constructing exams for teachers and administrators to becoming certified in the education field, to helping people during an emergency crisis as a 911 dispatcher, to selling apartments.  Looking back at these jobs, I can see how each one taught me invaluable lessons that have groomed me into the person that I am today, working in IT as a System Administrator.

So, what is the correlation between these occupations, which are all in completely different fields with their own goals and outcomes?  The answer is that each of these jobs relies on data and quantifying success, drawbacks, and stagnancy.  When I worked for the Florida Department of Education, hundreds of questions would be evaluated from Subject Matter Experts to test the reliability, validity, and difficulty of an item over a three-year span.  As a 911 dispatcher, I used numbers to determine the time it would take a public service official to make it to a destination and the end result of that public service.  As a leasing agent, I quantified available apartments and the count of prospective renters, and I made calls to other multi-family housing to compare the market-value rates around the area.

In hindsight, my math teachers were grooming me for what really matters: how to illustrate productivity through numbers.  Companies crave numbers, especially if you can make fancy widgets and expound on your findings.  Little did I realize how often I would use these life skills daily.  When it comes to statistics, numbers, and visualizations, I would take on the challenge.  

I know you’re scratching your head and wondering why I would volunteer for such torture, but I understood the importance these numbers have on an outcome.  They could increase budget spending for education.  These numbers could ensure that public service personnel responded to an emergency and monitored their safety.  These numbers could ensure that people had a home in which to reside.  

Now, as a ServiceNow System Administrator, I find myself seeking Performance Analytics and reporting to tell a story about a hospital chain that saves lives every day.  Instead of being intimidated by the work, I say, “Hey, it’s only numbers….”