Packing for Dreamforce - Makeup & Hair Goodies

If you haven’t read my blog before, let me start by telling you that I am a makeup artist on the side. I used to do hair and makeup full time prior to my career as a Salesforce Admin and Business Analyst. If you’re curious as to how I got here, you can ready my story here. With that being said, I love makeup; I might love makeup more than I love shoes. If were given a choice as to which I loved more, I couldn’t choose! It would be like picking a favorite child. As I mentioned on my previous post about shoes, shoes are a way of expression to me, for me makeup is the same. With all of that being said, as far as Dreamforce goes, I don’t go too crazy. It is technically work, although for me, it’s my favorite time of year. I love it more than Hanukah, Christmas and my Birthday combined!

Before I get into this, I want to post a disclaimer; I would never ever tell anyone they have to or should wear makeup. As I mentioned above, I have loved makeup for as long as I can remember and it is always a key component of packing for me. 

When choosing products to bring with me on any sort of trip, I think about a few things:

• What type of event is it
• What types of looks will I be doing
• Will I be doing anyone else’s makeup

For Dreamforce I stick to full coverage looks, similar to what I would wear to work, but something that I know will stay all day, won’t move and will photograph nicely. If you didn’t hear on the Road to Dreamforce episode on admin success at Dreamforce, there is going to be a photographer available to take headshots in the Admin Zone!

I posted a picture below of the products I will most likely bring with me. I’m not going to go into detail on each item, but for each category of makeup I will go into the type of makeup I chose and why.

Skincare – When travelling, I typically only bring a few skincare items with me that are easy to use, effective and travel friendly.

Makeup Remover Wipes – my favorite brand is Neutrogena, these take off a good amount of makeup and never irritate my eyes. These are also great for touch ups. This is also more sanitary to use on others when doing makeup on other people, so you’re not potentially spreading bacteria in a bottle of eye makeup remover.

Daily Facial Cleansing Cloths – Oil of Olay makes these, but to be honest, I always get the Wal-Mart brand (they work the same). These are dry cloths that you can wet and have cleanser on them. They take off everything including waterproof mascara.

Moisturizer – I usually just put some of my moisturizer into a little travel bottle and throw it in my carry on. The one I’m currently using is by Garnier. If you have dry skin check this line out, works just as well as some of the high-end brands.

Face Makeup

Primers – The key to getting your foundation to stay all day is a good primer or primers for different purposes. Think about painting a wall, you prime the wall before you apply the paint so the paint applies evenly, same goes for foundation. I’m loving the Hourglass primer, which I apply all over, especially in my dry areas. A lot of us struggle with large pores. There is nothing you can do to make your pores go away or to change their shape, but you can minimize their appearance. I really like the pore minimizing primer by NYX for this. If you like Porefessional by Benefit, it’s almost an exact dupe for about 1/3 of the price. I just apply this where I have large pores (on my cheeks and forehead).

Foundation – I’m going to bring my Bare Minerals makeup with me. I love this foundation. You can build it up to a very full coverage or use it lightly for minimal coverage. What I love most about this is when you do make it full coverage it does last a long time. If you’re speaking and going to be under hot lights, Bare Minerals in most cases doesn’t break down where other foundations might. If you’re looking for a good drug store foundation, check out Revlon Color Stay. This has been a favorite of mine for as long as I can remember. It can feel a bit heavy on the skin, so if you’re not used to wearing foundation you may not like it, and it isn’t as travel friendly as Bare Minerals.

Concealer – I use Maybelline Fit Me concealer, it’s creamy and really brightens your under eyes. It’s an almost exact dupe for NARS Radiant Creamy concealer for about 1/5 of the price.

Setting Powder – This is something I definitely wanted to touch on. If you know you’re going to be photographed, stay away from the white setting powders (like Makeup Forever HD), these can cause flashback. They are great for film, bad for photography. When I say flashback I mean your face appearing 3 shades lighter than the rest of your body. If you are looking for a good setting powder to set concealer or foundation with, get one that has some color in it. I recommend Ben Nye Banana Powder for setting concealer. I use the Bare Minerals mineral foundation to set the liquid version of their foundation.

Blush/Bronzer/Highlighter – I typically like to bring one palette that I can use with various colors. The one you see in the picture is by Tarte.  This palette was limited edition, so I won't be able to link to it.  I will probably bring this or something like it with a highlighter and deeper bronzer for contouring.

Eye Makeup

Eye Primer – similar to what I mentioned above about face primer, the same goes with eyes. If you don’t use primer, eye shadow can tend to crease and by the end of the day it may look like you never even had shadow on. My holy grail eye primer is Primer Potion by Urban Decay. I have tried so many other brands and this is the best one I’ve ever used.

Eye Shadow – the palette I show here is the Full Exposure Palette by Smashbox. I will probably bring this or a palette like it so I have different colors to choose from, but are all in the somewhat neutral color family. If you’re looking for a drug store alternative to this, check out the new Nudes Palette by Maybelline.

Eye Liner – This is probably the toughest product to get to stay all day. Even if a product claims to be “bullet proof” our eyes tear throughout the day, we sometimes rub them, and when we do that, off comes our eyeliner. I find that after applying a liner if you set it with some shadow of the same color it will last much longer. I tend use a gel liner on my top lash line and a pencil liner in my water line.

Mascara – You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get long, full lashes. My favorite mascara is by a brand called Essence. It’s in a pink tube in the picture below. Its less than $5 at Ulta and performs similar to They’re Real by Benefit or DiorShow by Dior. I can make my lashes look like falsies with 2-3 coats of this mascara.

False lashes – For a very dramatic look I will wear false lashes. I will probably do this for the concert. My favorite lashes are the ones in the picture. I got them at IMATS earlier this year (makeup artist trade show) and they don’t have a brand on them, sorry. But if you are looking for false lashes I recommend the Demi Wispies by Ardell. You can find them in most drug stores.

Lips

I don’t plan on doing any crazy lip looks, so I will probably bring 1-2 neutral colored lipsticks and the same for lip-glosses. I featured a few in the picture below. The only other necessity for me is some sort of lip balm. When I talk a lot my lips get very dry. My favorite at the moment is by EOS. You can get them at any drug store.

All about hair

As far as hair goes, I’m doing something different this year. I’m not going to bring much hair product with me, maybe a dry shampoo, some hairspray and a few hair ties. I’ve decided I’m going to treat myself to the DryBar on Sunday the 12th. Even though I can give myself a killer blow out, in order for me to do this I need to schlep my dryer, my brushes, and product, which adds a lot of weight to my bags. For $40, I can get my hair blown out. If you haven’t been to the DryBar you should check them out. They have two locations in San Francisco. I’ll be going to the one in Union Square and already have my appointment booked. Typically I can get my blow out to last 3-4 days with dry shampoo. If you don’t know, I have very thick, coarse, dry, curly hair, so I don’t really have a problem with oily hair. If anyone wants to go with me, let me know and I’ll tell you my appointment time and you can book yours at the same time. It’s a lot of fun.

I hope this post was helpful to some of you. If you have any specific makeup questions, please leave a comment below and I can answer. If you’re looking to have your makeup done by me, leave a comment below as well. There is no fee if you let me take before and after pictures that I can use for my portfolio. We will just need to plan ahead to make sure our schedules match up.

If you love makeup like me, and are making your list of makeup essentials for Dreamforce share it with the hashtag of #DF14COS so you can be entered into the contest, too!

As always, thank you for reading. See you soon!!! Dreamforce is almost here!!!

Cheryl

Packing For Dreamforce - My Suitcase and Other Accessories

Since the idea of this contest was to show your bag(s) that you are bringing to Dreamforce, you can see mine below. I always get compliments on my suitcase when I travel, so I thought I would share some details about it and tell you where you can get one too.

I purchased the suitcase you see in the picture below for Dreamforce last year. I don’t travel that much anymore, so I had a crappy suitcase that was basically falling apart. I decided to treat myself to a new suitcase. I got this one from Kohls, the brand is American Tourister, and it came in a set of three. There was the largest one, which you see in the picture, a medium size suitcase and a small travel tote. The whole set was on sale for $99 and it’s held up really well. I’ve taken 4 trips with it and no issues so far. I have also seen this brand at Wal-Mart and Target, so definitely check these stores for luggage sets if you need one. Another great place to find deals on expensive luggage brands is T.J. Maxx or Nordstrom Rack, you can find nice pieces there that are heavily discounted.

The black Tory Burch bag you see across the suitcase is my favorite cross body bag. This was my splurge earlier this year at a Tory Burch outlet center in upstate NY. I recommend bringing a cross body bag that you can use at night or when walking around. This way it keeps your hands/arms free for other things while still being able to keep your bag close to you. This particular bag has a long cross body strap that can be removed as well as a shorter gold plated strap that can be used to carry this as more of an evening bag. This strap can be removed as well. If you are looking for a bag like this and looking for a more affordable option check out Target. They have a great bag selection. I have a few nice bags from Target that can pass as a designer bag. I have a bag that looks similar to this, but in a different color that was less than $30 at Target.

The last bag you see in this picture is my Dreamforce backpack from last year. I love this backpack so much. I carry my laptop and other office essentials back and forth between my physical office and home office all the time. It’s my favorite Dreamforce bag…ever. I will be using this bag to carry pretty much the same things I normally carry in it: my electronics and my notebooks, plus any items I want to carry on board with me. I tend to bring as much of my makeup on board with me as possible since some of it is breakable, and don’t want to risk it getting smashed in my bag.

There are some other things that I wanted to mention that I feel are necessities for me, so here is my list:

Umbrella – just in case it rains again, they did give out free ones, but it was nice to have my own with me.
Extra Ziplock bags – I always carry a few extra just in case

Sunglasses – I always wear my sunglasses when walking in the city during the day and it will be no different for me in San Francisco, it keeps wind and sun out of your eyes. If you are looking for cute and affordable sunglasses check out Forever 21, they have most sunglasses for less than $10.

Hand Sanitizer – I keep this handy in my bag so if I am around a lot of people or touching something like a public stairwell I can get rid of any germs on my hands if I can’t get to a sink.

Hand Moisturizer – Since the above can dry your hands out, I always keep this handy in my bag.

Tissues – Those little purse packs can come in really handy when you’re traveling.

I hope you found this helpful. Don’t forget to share your bag or what you are packing for Dreamforce with the hashtag #DF14COS so you can be entered in the contest, too!

As always, thank you for reading.

Cheryl

Packing for Dreamforce - Electronics

Before each Dreamforce I go through the debate of, “Should I bring my laptop or should I leave it at home?” Last year, I decided to leave my laptop home and only travel with my iPhone and iPad. I will be honest, I did miss my laptop last year. I have never really brought my laptop to sessions, but where it does come in useful is if I have to respond to an email and it’s going to be a lengthy response, it’s much easier to type on my laptop. The other reason I missed my laptop was after some sessions I wanted to try out a feature that I just learned about, and I couldn’t really do that without a laptop. That’s when I missed my laptop the most.


So, this year I’ve decided to bring the following electronics with me:

• iPhone – this is my personal phone
• Samsung S4 – this is my work phone
• iPad – more for reading on the plane
• Laptop
• Extra battery power for smartphones – I have one by Anker you can see in the picture below. It works really well and it’s pink!
• Headphones – mine are by Bose and I love them.
• Charging cords
• Extra lenses for iPhone – I recently ordered these from Amazon, they are supposed to make some really cool effects for pictures taken with your camera.
• Apps – my necessary apps on my iPhone are – Dreamforce App, Salesforce1, SalesforceA, Google maps, Uber, United Airlines (airline I’m taking). 

I hope you find this helpful. What electronics are you bringing with you to Dreamforce? Is there something missing on my list that you’re going to bring? Tweet your list of what you’re bringing with the hashtag of #DF14COS so you can be entered in the contest, too.


As always, thanks for reading.

Cheryl

The best vacation day...ever.

Yesterday, July 23^rd, was the sixth day of my vacation, and so far one of my favorite days.  No, I didn’t go to the beach or anything like that.  I attended the NYC Salesforce.com User Group and helped facilitate User Group Therapy sessions. You may be reading this and looking at the title again, saying to yourself, “Didn’t she just say vacation day?”  Yes, you read correctly. 

A few weeks ago, I received an email from Kendra Webb-Scott, the NYC Salesforce.com User Group Leader, stating that she was going to be trying something new at the NYC User Group called User Group Therapy.  The description of this read, “You asked, and we listened! Our focus for the next meeting is all about YOU! One of the biggest benefits of the User Group community is getting tips and best practices from your peers to make the most out of your CRM. That's why we're introducing User Group Therapy - an open forum session to allow all attendees to ask questions, seek advice, share experiences and generally help each other out.”  When I read this, I immediately knew I wanted to attend this and offer up to help out.  I can’t think of a better way to give back to the community that has helped me so much than to facilitate a session like this.

Kendra had this broken out into three different 45-minute sessions, which were held downstairs from the main area where the partners were presenting.  There really weren’t specific topics, but each session had different facilitators.  The session I was facilitating with Jean Winget was first at 9 AM.  That first session had around eight attendees.  After brief introductions, we jumped right in and the questions and comments just started flowing naturally.  The questions included making sure the right people were informed about Opportunities, building mobile apps, data integrity, tools for data cleansing, and some general adoption questions.  My co-facilitator, Jean, is a database/data expert and offered up some great advice on what to do if you have dirty data coming in from an integration, and who you may want to reach out to at your company to help you fix it.  We ended the session by talking about some great administrator tools that come out-of-the-box, such as workflow, validation rules, visual workflow (flow), and of course, my favorite, publisher actions!

After the first User Group Therapy session ended, it seemed that word spread like wildfire about what was going on downstairs.  As I was gathering my things to head back upstairs, I realized how big the group had gotten in the room; it more than doubled in size for the next two facilitators, Ohad Idan and Carlos Frias.  I decided to stay because I thought there might be even more interesting discussion, because Ohad and Carlos both act as both admins and developers at their respective companies.  I have always enjoyed hearing their perspective on things, so I knew this was going to be a great session. 

The second session started similarly with brief introductions, then everyone just jumped right into it.  The first question was around Documents vs. Content.  Various people in the room, including myself, were able to answer questions on Libraries, some best practices on Libraries and some benefits of Content.  Then, someone in the room made a comment about the session in general, “I can’t say the word workflow at my company, because I’m the only one who understands what that word means.  I love that I can come here and talk to others who know what that means and can talk about challenges, ask questions, and see what others are doing.”  This started to lead the discussion around the path of community, not just community, but The Salesforce community and how great it is.  Carlos pulled up the New York User Group page on the Success Community and showed everyone how to access it.   People in the room started to share their stories of how much the community has helped them over the years.  Carlos and Ohad started to go through the different tabs on the community.  When they got to the Ideas tab, more discussion started to happen on why you should vote on ideas.  Ohad pointed out that they now put in the release notes all of the ideas that were delivered in that release.  I talked about how one of my ideas was delivered in this release, and how many Ideas points Salesforce Product Managers released this past release.  I also talked about the power of the community, and how if outside of these meetings if anyone needs advice just post on the New York User Group Page.  Once they got to the Answers tab, some of the attendees started to recount Steve Mo answering their question.  There was a lot of community love in the room. 

One of the other major topics discussed was Chatter, on successful rollout and adoptions. There was one name that must have come up about five times during this discussion, and that name is Becky Webster.  There were several of us talking about some of her great blog posts as well as her Dreamforce presentations from last year. We plan to post them on the New York User Group page so everyone can watch because they are so helpful. 

After the community discussion, the second session wrapped up with questions around communication and training to users and some best practices.  There were so many great suggestions in the room for the newbie admin.  In my opinion, this is why these sessions were so successful. You had people from all types of companies, in various roles, helping each other be successful. 

Allister McKenzie and Vikram Kamra, who both have a wealth of Salesforce knowledge and experience, facilitated the third session.  It was actually Vikram’s first user group in NYC, but even though he didn’t know anyone, he was completely willing to help as many people as possible and share more than a decade worth of Salesforce knowledge.  I figured I had stayed for the first two sessions, why not stay for all three? I’m so glad I did.  The third session went through even more detail on Chatter, including some of the benefits and how to convince your manager to let you roll it out.  There were so many great suggestions around this.  We also talked about the different types of Sandboxes, what a Sandbox is, and how you should use it.  I talked about how our developers use the different types of sandboxes for our development process.  I also encouraged everyone in the room, after they make sure they are on the success community, to go to developer.salesforce.com and sign up for a developer org. It’s free and you can play with all sorts of stuff. 

In the morning, I had set a goal for myself that I wanted to try and help five admins at the user group.  Together, we helped around 40 admins of all levels.  We received extremely positive feedback about these sessions, and Kendra has now made this a staple for the NYC User Group!  I am so happy to have been a part of this.

I will never forget when I first attended the NYC User Group and how happy I was to get help with my formulas.  If it weren’t for those people, I may not have the career I have today.  I’m hoping that at least one person has the same feeling and maybe at the next meeting they will help facilitate a session and pay it forward.  After reading this, I’m hoping now you will see why this was my favorite day of my vacation so far.  To me, this isn’t work, this is fun. 

As always, thank you for reading.

Cheryl

P.S. – if you haven’t attended your local user group, definitely do so, you can see a list of all user groups here.

Do Experienced Salesforce.com Admins Need A Certification?

Making the decision to get certified

As some of you know I have been a Salesforce Admin/BA for nearly 10 years, but I was never certified. It's not that I didn’t want to, it's just that I never made time for it. A few community friends of mine, as well as post from Button Click Admin, convinced me I should do it for a whole myriad of reasons. I started on this venture because I honestly got sick of people saying, “You’re so good I can’t believe you’re not certified, just do it you’ll pass.“

When I made my decision that I was going to get certified, I set a goal to be certified by July 31, 2014. I highly recommend putting a goal with an actual date around it otherwise you'll never take the plunge. You'll just keep saying next month or next year, which is basically what I did. I honestly made the decision because I was sick of people nagging me.

Studying and Practicing for the Certification

Once my mind was made up that I was going to do this, the first thing I did was google “Salesforce Practice Certification Test.” Oh boy where do I start?  There is some bad information out there. I remember taking one practice test and the first question on the test was clearly wrong. It only got worse as the test went on.


Here is an example of that:





I gave up on finding a good practice site and joined the “NYC Cert Club” which was members of the NYC User Group working together to get certified. Unfortunately my work schedule sometimes got so crazy I wasn’t able to make these sessions. Even though the sessions were recorded it wasn’t the same and I enjoyed the discussion and interaction I had with others. It's a great tool if you can make time for it, unfortunately I ended up having a mandatory meeting at the same time as this each week so it didn’t work out for me. I do highly encourage those who can carve out the time during their day to attend these. There are also certification groups on the community you can join here (please keep in mind you will need to meet their qualifications mentioned on their page).


I started to take a different strategy. I signed up for a new developer org solely for the purpose of practicing for the admin exam. When I first started on this venture, I was using a configuration only sandbox tied to my org.  Shortly after starting to study some out of the box features, I realized this was not the best approach since my org is so highly customized. Once I setup a free developer org, I found that it was even more beneficial for me, because I was able to see what Salesforce comes with out of the box.

I wasn't prepared for what was going to happen next...

An interesting thing started to happen that I was completely unprepared for. It was an unexpected surprise. I was learning not only for the certification, but for the benefit of my company and well, my career. After I spent about 4 hours on a Sunday afternoon reading the help section and playing around in my developer org, I sent an email to my team highlighting some best practices and even about some features we could be using. I started to see the benefit of the certification right away. It wasn’t that I just needed this cool little icon on my Twitter picture, it's that I was learning about features that I wouldn’t normally look at. Features I didn’t necessarily have requirements for, but I started to figure out ways our business users could use them. 

As I mentioned above when I first started this venture it was more about getting people off my back about getting certified rather than all of the benefit that could possibly come with getting certified. I think this was because I never really saw what the big deal was about being certified. My studying became more about how I could help better our implementation rather than a status thing or proving my knowledge to someone, which is what I prefer anyway and part of what drove me to keep doing this every Sunday. I was building my own knowledge as well as building our backlog.

Finally a Great practice resource

It was about a month ago when I came across a site called Certified on Demand. I was blown away. They offer free content as well as paid content. They have their site broken out into sections of the test. I decided to pay for a membership of $40.00. The first thing I did after paying for a membership is start taking the quizzes for each section without reading through the sections to see how well I did and what I needed to work on. Turns out on most of the quizzes I was scoring 90-100%. There were a few in areas where I hadn’t used or studied yet that I needed to work on. 

When I was taking the quizzes and I got something wrong I would write down the topic(s) on a piece of paper near my desk and keep a running list. Every Sunday, I would dedicate at least one hour to knocking a few of these items off of my list. What I would do is open up my dev org, and the help, section and learn about the topic/feature and start to play with it in my dev org. I personally find that I learn better by actually setting up a feature rather than just reading or memorizing something from the help section.

Jumping in with both feet

I looked at my calendar and June was halfway over. I decided to register for my exam, I figured if I had an exact date then I would push myself harder to spend more time studying. After I knocked all of my topics of my list and went through each one in my dev org it was the weekend before my certification. I decided to take the full practice test on Certified on Demand. You know what, all of the hard work paid off, first time around I got all but two correct! I looked at the two questions I got wrong and studied up and took it again Monday evening and got all but one correct. I started to google for more practice tests to cram the night before. I found some answers to practice questions on Shell Black’s website and got all of the questions correct! I finally felt ready. I was going to do this. I was going to pass my certification with flying colors on my first try.

Answering the original question

I am happy to say that as of July 1, 2014 I’m officially a certified salesforce.com admin. I don’t know if it makes me any better at my job, but I definitely learned a lot through this experience. So, do experienced or veteran admins need a certification? Absolutely. You may know everything about your org/implementation but there maybe features that you haven't touched that could be helpful to your organization. It's not just about your org it's about the platform as a whole. When you become certified you become more than just an expert at your company, but an expert on the overall platform. I used to never see the big deal, now I do. I know there are probably about a dozen people reading this rolling their eyes, yelling, "We told you so!" So to those dozen people, thank you for nagging me.

I would like to end this post by encouraging all “veteran admins” who haven’t been certified yet to do so. I guarantee that you will increase your knowledge about Salesforce beyond your org. Go for it. I did and don’t regret it one single bit.

As always, thanks for reading.
Cheryl

PS - If you think Salesforce should come out with a good practice test with questions and answers vote for my idea here.

How PEMDAS Can Help Salesforce Admins

I was recently contacted by a friend from the New York City User Group.  She was having trouble getting a validation rule to work correctly, she wasn't getting a syntax error, but the rule wasn’t firing at the correct time.  She asked if I had a few minutes to help her through this so she could get this new validation in production for their users.  I got on the phone with my friend and she emailed me their formula, which looked something like this:

 AND( Approval__c = false, 
Test_Price_1__c > Test_Price_2__c +Test_Price_3__c *.3)

 After speaking with my friend it turned out what she was trying to do was have a validation that a record couldn't be saved if it wasn’t submitted for approval and the first price field was greater than 30% of the sum of the second and third price fields. She couldn’t figure out what was wrong, she was able to save the validation rule so it wasn’t a syntax error. 

 What I ended up doing is quickly re-creating the fields in a developer org I have setup so I could play with the rule. She told me that when she was testing she was using 500 in the first price field and 400 and 500 in the 2nd and 3rd price fields respectively.  In her head she was thinking the result should be 270 (30% of 900), so she should not have been able to save.  

 After reviewing the calculation I realized what salesforce was actually calculating was 30% of 500 + 400 which equals 550 so that’s why was able to save her test record.  

 After she told me all of this I blurted out one word to her “PEMDAS”!  I heard a “huh?” on the other line of the phone. I started to explain to her the Acronym for the order of operations of Math and what her validation rule was actually calculating.

  I went through that Parentheses will be calculated first, Exponents second, then multiplication and division, then finally adding and subtracting.  Even though we were just on the phone I felt like I heard the light bulb go off in her head.  She said she understood what I meant and realized the problem wasn’t in her syntax but in her math.  She applied PEMDAS and re-wrote the validation like this:

 AND( Approval__c = false, 
Test_Price_1__c > (Test_Price_2__c +Test_Price_3__c) *.3)

 I was really happy that I was able to help my friend with her validation rule and pass on a great lesson from one of my favorite teachers of all time. 

After helping my friend I posted a facebook status sharing my re-found love of the PEMDAS Acronym.  “Mrs. Baker would be proud (my 7th grade math teacher). I still use PEMDAS to this day when writing Salesforce formulas. And you should too!”  

 It was through this post that I had a bunch of friends I went to Junior High with comment and share they all still use PEMDAS in their everyday lives too!  I also had some friends from the Salesforce world ask about PEMDAS which is what inspired this blog post.  If you would like to read more about PEMDAS or math in general check out this article from the Math is Fun website.  

 I would like to dedicate this post to my 7th grade math teacher, Mrs. Baker.  PEMDAS is just one of the many lessons that Mrs. Baker taught me. Mrs. Baker was all about making sure she fostered the love of math in both girls and boys.  She even had an afterschool program she ran called “Girls Count” which was open to girls of all grades in our Junior High.  Looking back I thought this was just a fun thing to do afters school that would help me in math and make friends. I didn’t realize that some of the lessons she taught us about believing in ourselves, going after our dreams and showing us that we could be just as good at math and science as boys would still be useful over 20 years later.  

 I hope this post helps some of you out there in Salesforce land and that you’ll think of PEMDAS the next time you write a formula or validation rule in Salesforce.

 As always thank you for reading.

 Cheryl

Let’s Have An Adminathon!

For the past few months I’ve had the opportunity to mentor 6 great women within the Salesforce community.  Most are what I consider a Next Generation “NextGen” Salesforce Admin.  These are your sales reps, secretaries, marketing professionals, customer service reps, power users, etc. that are passionate about the Salesforce platform but haven’t held a Salesforce Admin position yet.  These NextGen Admins want nothing more than to be a Salesforce Admin, some even hold certifications but lack work experience or maybe have some work experience but lack the certification.

As I’ve been mentoring these wonderful people and working with them to take the next step in their career, I started to see some common challenges.  They may have knowledge about the platform but aren’t exactly sure how to apply it.  Meaning how do they solve a business problem with their knowledge.  How can we take what they’ve learned studying for their certification and show them how to apply it to everyday business problems.  Admins rarely get requests of “Please create 3 roles where their records share with these 5 roles.”  Admins get a request like “Setup these 10 users that need to do x,y,z and have access to records from these people at this point in time and by the way these other 12 users need to be able to do that too but they can’t right now for some reason.”  

I’ve always said that Salesforce isn’t hard to learn its the analytical skills and business process that’s hard to learn.  So, how can we teach that to these NextGen Admins?  How can we as a community show what we’ve learned over the past x amount of years about problem solving and pass it along here.  Yes, there are some great blogs and things that talk about solving a specific business problem, but how do we give these people real life experience?  Showing the process of solving a problem and designing a solution using Salesforce.  How we troubleshoot, what to take into consideration, the types of questions to ask, how to see what’s already implemented and looking at existing data.  

A few weeks ago I was racking my brain about this.  I even went so far as to see if I could get additional interns on my team so I could bring some of these people on for a Summer so they could see what its really like and how we solve problems, communicate with users, manage expectations and requirements and all the things Salesforce Admins do.  Unfortunately we don’t have the budget for that this year, but it did make it to the ear of my VP, so maybe next year.  When I’m racking my brain about something and I just can’t figure it out, I tend to go for a walk to clear my head.  

I was standing on the corner of Wall St. and Broadway waiting for the light to change so I could cross the street, when I saw a guy wearing a Hackathon T-shirt.  It said something about a hackathon for social good and teaching others.  I remember thinking that’s cool a hackathon to help non-profits or at least that’s what it seemed like from his T-shirt.  As I was continuing my walk back to my office it hit me.  I sat down on the nearest bench and wrote this word “Adminathon” on the back of my receipt from lunch.  

When I arrived home that evening I pulled that receipt out of my pocket and started to think about the vision for an Adminathon and how I would like to see this concept setup and run.

Ideally I think it should be like a Hackathon, kind of, but no prize money.  It should be about teaching, learning and helping others.  What if we took problems from 3 non-profits (just making up a number here) where they didn’t have the money to solve.  Form 3 teams (1 team for each problem) of experienced Admins along with some NextGen Admins and solve the problem.  Walk them through exactly what we would do to troubleshoot, design and implement a solution.  Teach people while helping a non-profit.  

I originally thought Dreamforce might be a good place for this, but I think it maybe hard to accomplish. I started to think about the Salesforce1 Developer Week that recently took place. What if there was a similar Adminathon Week. What if in each major city there was something like this throughout a one or two week period each year.  Teaching Admins how to build completely declaratively solving real world problems for a real company using only Salesforce.  Also, if we do this locally it will help connect aspiring Admins to more experienced Admins for mentoring and networking for the future that are local to them.  This opportunity may lead them to a job for a company that’s hiring or a connection that may lead to a job.  The possibilities are endless.  

The reason why I think something like this would be so helpful is when I’m interviewing someone I’m not only testing their Salesforce knowledge but their problem solving and analytical skills.  I’m not necessarily always looking for the right answer in a question I ask, but interested to see how they got there.  That tells me a lot about their problem solving and analytical skills.  The key to being a great admin is to have all three of these things and I think with a combination of mentoring and something like this we can help people develop these skills.  

Now, I know what some of you are thinking how do we make this work logistically, how do we pick the Non-profits, how much time is involved and probably a whole list of questions I haven’t thought of.  These are all questions that need to be answered that I do not have the answer to.  

This is just my idea, maybe you have a better one to help the NextGen Admins.  I’m completely open to feedback and suggestions on any of my ideas.  Do you think it could work?  How would you implement it?

As always, thanks for reading, I do appreciate it.  

Cheryl