March Monthly Retro with Mike and Gillian

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’ve got the Monthly Retro for March. Not only that, but we’re putting the dynamic duo back together as Gillian is back!

Join us as we talk about all the great Salesforce content from March and everything we have to look forward to at TrailblazerDX.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation from our Monthly Retro.

Blog highlights from March

We’re really excited about Slack, and Gillian is excited about J.’s post about creating custom emojis for Slack. Why not make it more fun? She also recommends taking a look at the new compilation of Flow videos, now updated with the latest and greatest.

• Make Your Mark with Custom Emoji in Slack
• New and Updated Flow Resources to Make Your Life Easier

Video highlights from March

Gillian is a fan of LeeAnne’s and Kara Callaway’s video about how to build a great technical demo. The amount of technical expertise and know-how in one room when these two women get together is something you just can’t miss.

• Expert Corner: Build a Great Technical Demo with Kara Callaway

Podcast highlights from March

As more and more Admins find themselves in charge of multi-cloud orgs, make sure you check out our episode with Kate Elliot about her journey and the best practices you need to know.

• On Multi-Cloud Administration with Kate Elliott

Get Ready for TrailblazerDX

April 27th and 28th, we’re getting thousands of our closest friends together in Moscone West to do our first in-person event in a long time. Make sure you register now and listen to the podcast to hear about all the things you won’t want to miss.

• TrailblazerDX ’22 for Admins

Podcast swag

• Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store

Learn more

• Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode:

Social

• Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns 
• Gillian: @GillianKBruce
• Mike: @MikeGerholdt

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Full show transcript

Mike Gerholdt: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins Podcast in the third monthly retro for 2022. Hopefully, everything is turning up green for you. I'm your host, Mike Gerholdt. And in this episode, we'll review the top product, community and careers content for the month of March. And to help me do that, I'm joined by a very familiar voice. Is that Gillian Bruce?

Gillian Bruce: Well, hello, Mike. Hello. I am so happy to be back. It's been a while.

Mike Gerholdt: Welcome back to the pod, Gillian.

Gillian Bruce: Thank you. I am very, very happy to be back. I missed the podcast. I listened, but I missed being on the podcast.

Mike Gerholdt: And everybody missed you.

Gillian Bruce: Aw, that's sweet. Well, I'm back. And now you're not going to be able to get rid of me ever again.

Mike Gerholdt: Well, that's the plan. Get ready for a whole bunch of Gillian episodes.

Gillian Bruce: It's coming. It's happening. I've got them all stored up. It's been a while.

Mike Gerholdt: I can already see Twitter being happy, "Yay, Gillian's back." So Gillian, it's our retro episode, a perfect time for you to come back and kind of look back at some of the stuff that we did in March and anything that stood out for you that we really feel our admin should pay attention to. And then of course, we'll give a sneak peek of that one cool thing that we're doing in April. So stay tuned for that.

Gillian Bruce: Yeah, Mike, I have to say that coming back into the fold of everything, my goodness, there's a lot of content for admins out there. And so I'm very happy that my first podcast back is to recap some of the latest, goodest, and greatest things. Is goodest as a word? I don't know. I think I just made it up.

Mike Gerholdt: It is now.

Gillian Bruce: Just for this month, there's a ton to talk about.

Mike Gerholdt: We've been busy typing, we're burning up keyboards.

Gillian Bruce: Well, speaking of keyboards, the one post that I really enjoyed was one of my easy getting back into the fold of things was Jay's post on how to make a custom emoji in Slack. Because Slack, let me tell you, the amount of email I have is near zero. So I am Slack all the things and those custom emojis just make it even more fun and engaging. So I enjoyed that post very much.

Mike Gerholdt: I think it's really cool. And I'd be curious, so you should tweet at us and let us know, what is the funnest, coolest emoji you've seen in your Slack feed for your organization? Because I totally think the amount of fun custom emoji level in your organization Slack really speaks to the culture.

Gillian Bruce: It does. For example, so I am coming back after going on parental leave, which is an amazing experience. But I got to actually go into update my status and I found a flashing GIF emoji that just says I'm back and it's rainbow flashing colors. And I'm just like, "Oh, this is perfect." It's loud in your face, "Hi, don't forget about me. I'm here now."

Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. Yeah. I know almost all my messages have to have some sort of emoji in them, right?

Gillian Bruce: Oh, yeah. You've got to make it fun. Who wants to just read a whole bunch of text?

Mike Gerholdt: I'm sure somebody does. Not me. What about on the video front? Did you find any videos? I refer to you because all of the content I've seen probably. It's good to get your fresh take on it.

Gillian Bruce: Yeah. So there's one video in particular that I was so excited to see, and really it's because it's two just really incredible, technical women sharing how they are such amazing technical, wonderful people and how they share that and basically made a career out of it. I'm talking about the Expert Corner that LeeAnne did with Kara Callaway. So Kara Callaway is a legend at Salesforce. She literally has helped design and execute some of the biggest demos you've ever seen on any main stage or main presentation. She's an excellent resource and she's awesome. So if you have not had a chance to check out that video, it's a way that you can think about putting together your technical demonstrations. So whether you're talking about presenting to your executives or your end users, or trying to share an idea. It's a great Expert Corner. I highly recommend you check it out. It's a great conversation. Just as much Kara as you can consume, I highly recommend it.

Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. If you think about it, when you were last at a Salesforce event or even watching a Salesforce event online, part of it is what you hear, but most of it is what you see. And it's no different when you're an admin presenting to a room full of executives or a room full of users. Part of it's like what you say, "Oh, they're kind of with you." But then you turn the screen on and then you walk them through the demo and the demo sells it, right? Think of it like when you buy a car. It's part reading the brochure, but the other part's driving the car.

Gillian Bruce: Well, yeah. You really have to see it to believe it. Especially, I'm more of a visual learner, I need to really see the thing before I actually kind of get it. And demos are a very powerful tool for that. And as admins, hey, the more help you can get to improve your demo skills, it will pay off greatly as you continue to progress your career and whatever else you do. So check that video out. The other video related thing this month that I wanted to highlight was that there was a blog post that I think Derry did about how there's all these updated videos for Flow. So Flow is amazing. We have Jen Lee now on the team, who is giving us some incredible Flow content. And there's a sneak peek of it. There's more amazing stuff coming on the way from Jen about Flow. But it's great because there are all these just simple videos to get you going on Flow that are now updated with the latest and greatest. So another good video resource or videos resource for you to check out.

Mike Gerholdt: Yeah, it's a lot and it's so neat. Speaking of a lot, I love the pod that Jay did with Kate Elliot on multi-cloud administration. I hate to say that we don't pay enough attention to it, but sometimes in our universe you can think of this perfect single instance that solves everything. When in reality, admins manage multiple instances or multiple clouds as well.

Gillian Bruce: Well, yeah. Our platform just keeps growing and growing. And I think a lot of admins are finding themselves in a position where, "Okay, I have Salesforce that works for this part of the business." Oh, maybe there was an acquisition, so you're bringing in another additional Salesforce instance or you're wanting to expand into another cloud. There are all different types of business units you want to bring the magic of Salesforce to. A multi-cloud admin is a very prevalent thing these days, I believe. I think a lot of admins are finding themselves in that seat. So it was really great to hear how Kate thinks about that and does that in her journey.

Mike Gerholdt: Very much so. Now, speaking of journey, it's like we didn't lose-

Gillian Bruce: Don't stop believing.

Mike Gerholdt: ... a beat because that's a perfect little segue to talk about our journey to this big event that we're doing in April.

Gillian Bruce: Event in April? Hey Mike, you're hosting a welcome back party for me? Thank you.

Mike Gerholdt: Yes, yes. We decided to get a few thousand of our closest friends together at Moscone West, just for you Gillian.

Gillian Bruce: I so appreciate it. I have missed people so much.

Mike Gerholdt: You should.

Gillian Bruce: I'm really excited to just get in there and see people and hug people and see below the shoulder level that you see on Hangouts and Zoom calls. So this is making me very excited. What is this party all about? I know it can't just be about me.

Mike Gerholdt: Well, we kicked around some names. The welcome back Gillian party was one of them.

Gillian Bruce: Not bad.

Mike Gerholdt: But no, it just didn't feel Salesforcey, so we decided to go with Trailblazer DX.

Gillian Bruce: Oh, I like it.

Mike Gerholdt: Yes. And the DX stands for welcome back, Gillian.

Gillian Bruce: Clearly, clearly. It's one of the best acronyms we have at Salesforce.

Mike Gerholdt: Right, exactly. Yeah. So April 27th and 28th, if you haven't already registered, you should. And you should register because I'm putting a link to all of the amazing... Not even all. Scratching the surface on the content that we have for admins at Trailblazer DX.

Gillian Bruce: It's a lot. I can't even tell you. I'm so happy that we're doing an in-person event again. Now, if you can't join us, you are welcome to join the broadcast. We will definitely be able to broadcast quite a bit of the content. But if you can join us in person, come on, come play with us in San Francisco.

Mike Gerholdt: Make it happen. Yeah. I was just there. Oh, it's great. And the food, there's so many places to eat in San Francisco.

Gillian Bruce: And you know what? We are one of the safest cities. Throughout this whole last two years, we've had very, very great leadership in the city to keep everybody safe and everybody adhering to the science and making sure that we're doing what we need to do to have the least impact from the pandemic. And we've done really well. And it's really fun because the city's coming alive again, and we're all starting to reconnect. And so you should come and be a part of it.

Mike Gerholdt: Meet your fellow Trailblazers.

Gillian Bruce: Yeah.

Mike Gerholdt: See things in person.

Gillian Bruce: Yeah.

Mike Gerholdt: It's exciting. I went to a movie a couple weeks ago.

Gillian Bruce: Oh, what'd you see?

Mike Gerholdt: The Batman.

Gillian Bruce: Oh, did you like it?

Mike Gerholdt: Of course. Oh, my God. It's wonderful. Not as wonderful as Trailblazer DX though. That sounds forced.

Gillian Bruce: Well, that's an in-person experience versus an in-movie. It's more than that.

Mike Gerholdt: Batman's very much an in-person experience. Let me tell you. It very much is. Very, very much.

Gillian Bruce: Okay. But Mike, you mentioned we have a bunch of specific sessions and content for admins. Can you tell us a little bit more?

Mike Gerholdt: I do. I'll call out some big stuff that I think is obviously worth going. There's obviously going to be a big keynote and a true to the core session. So for veteran listeners of the podcast, those of you that have been around for the last nine years, you know that the true to the core is where you get to ask product experts questions about roadmap stuff. And I think that's really neat. We also have some great breakout sessions. So if you know people like Jeanne Velonis is working on a session she's going to do about study tips for Salesforce credentials. Ooh.

Gillian Bruce: Ooh. That sounds like a very handy session.

Mike Gerholdt: I know. That feels cool. Cheryl Feldman is heavily involved in a lot of the TDX content. She is an admin best practices for user management. There's also a record access roadmap that Larry Tung is hosting. I think that's going to be really cool. We're also doing something where, as of right now, we're calling it Campfire sessions. And they're kind of unique sessions where... Gillian, do you remember that first Trail? At the time we called it Trailhead DX? Where was it? It was across the street from The Warfield. What was that place called, do you remember?

Gillian Bruce: Oh gosh, I forget the name of it. But yeah, it-

Mike Gerholdt: I know.

Gillian Bruce: ... was this kind of tiny, little, tech warehousey kind of space.

Mike Gerholdt: It's exactly how to describe it. But anyway, downstairs, we had these little fake fire pits. I'm not explaining it correctly.

Gillian Bruce: No, they were fake fires pits.

Mike Gerholdt: This sounds like a war room. It's not that. But we had these little campfires and you sit around the campfire. And so we're bringing that essence back again, a little bit bigger. I think I heard like 20 or 30 people campfires. And Jay Steadman, who you've heard on the podcast, is doing a lot of the management for the admin campfire stuff. But there's some really great content that they are putting together, like build stakeholder trust through governance. There's going to be one on the configuration kits that they launched earlier this year. So you can sit around and talk about those.

Gillian Bruce: Which are amazing. Yeah.

Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. Oh Gillian, you're doing a theater session on the new skills stuff.

Gillian Bruce: I am. This is going to be, I think our official kickoff and launch of these amazing... All this content that we've been working on for the last year. Well, the team has been working on in my absence as well. And putting together a lot of great, useful things for both people looking for Salesforce admin jobs and people looking to hire Salesforce admins. And so we have boiled it down to 14 key skills. We're going to have a whole bunch of amazing content and resources that we are releasing at Trailhead DX. I'm sorry, Trailblazer DX.

Mike Gerholdt: That's okay. I made the same mistake.

Gillian Bruce: Trying to get with the times here. So you are definitely going to want to, if you can, join the theater session. And if nothing else, pay attention to Salesforce admins on Twitter and pay attention to our website because we have all of that content that we are going to make available at Trailhead... At trailblazer DX and beyond. So yes, that's what we're going to be talking about in my session.

Mike Gerholdt: That'll be cool. We also have a meet the admin relations team campfire. So we're going to sit around a campfire and you can chat with us.

Gillian Bruce: Ask us all the questions.

Mike Gerholdt: Ask us all kinds of questions.

Gillian Bruce: Yeah. I think one of the cool things about this Trailblazer DX, this event, is it's not the grand scale of a dream force or something that you may have remembered in the before times. So it is a chance to really get access to people like the product managers and the evangelists and the different leaders within the Salesforce ecosystem that'll be there. So you can actually ask questions and have conversations. And this campfire format is really great because it's a little more intimate. It's not just a huge keynote room, which we will still have for our main show and some other bigger presentations. But this is a great opportunity to really connect and get more deeper knowledge about the products and get insights into where things are going and connect with others. I miss that. I'm so excited to connect with others.

Mike Gerholdt: I know. It's kind of interesting because I think back to, Gillian, you and I worked the first at time Trailhead DX, now Trailblazer DX, but-

Gillian Bruce: We were working the booth.

Mike Gerholdt: We were stuck at a workflow process. No, process builder booth.

Gillian Bruce: That's right.

Mike Gerholdt: Stuck. I mean we worked, we stood and smiled at a lot of people at a process builder booth because process builder was new then. I mean the event was super small, but I felt like the people level that year, or actually the following year, was it 2016? We kind of got it right when we got in Moscone West. And I think this is going to harken back to that. The right number of people so that you don't feel crowded and you can walk around and kind of experience that Salesforce magic again. I'm looking forward to it.

Gillian Bruce: Yeah. It's going to be really amazing. So again, please join us if you can, in San Francisco, April 27th to 28th. It's going to be amazing, if you can't make it, don't worry. We will still have great content available to you during the live broadcast and then some content available after. But if you can make it in person, please come see us. Please come see us.

Mike Gerholdt: Yep. And we'll probably do in April wrap up about TDX.

Gillian Bruce: I would guess. So it's kind of a big deal during April. So that's kind of what we're working on.

Mike Gerholdt: Could be a theme. Could be a theme. Anyway, if you want to learn more about all things we just talked about in today's episode, please go to admin.salesforce.com to find so many links and so many more resources. But specifically, the ones we mentioned today. You can also stay up to date with us on social for all things admins. We are @Salesforceadmins. No i on Twitter. I am on Twitter @Mike Gerholdt. And Gillian is on Twitter as well @GillianKBruce. So with that, stay safe, stay awesome. And stay tuned for the next episode. We'll see you at Trailblazer DX.