Salesforce Admins Podcast
Mentorship Central with James Goerke

Heading into 2017, it’s very important that we start connecting our community together.

Today on the ButtonClick Admin podcast, we’re speaking to James Goerke about his experience in mentorship. James has been working with Salesforce since 2008 and has tons of knowledge spanning various industries, customers of different sizes, and ways to build on the platform. Recently, James built and launched Mentorship Central on the Success Community.

More about James’ session: Join us as James shares his valuable insights on mentorship and the impetus behind creating Mentorship Central. We’ll learn about the benefits of mentoring and what admins can do maximize the mentor/mentee relationship.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with James Goerke.

Do your market research first.

“There are a lot of people who aren’t near a user group. So, where do they go? They’re on their own if they have a deep question or are seeking a mentor/mentee relationship,” says James. Mentorship Central was spawned from a desire to create a space that matches the right mentor to the right mentee.

But as James likes to point out, “Before you start doing anything, do some market research and see if anyone actually cares. Does your audience want this?”

The response from the community was overwhelmingly positive. “This was a gap in the Salesforce community where we realized we could give back,” says James.

Mentorship is the next step.

At a certain point in your Salesforce journey, you’re going to hit a roadblock. Sometimes a one-off post in the right community can help you overcome these roadblocks. Other times, you need more. “At a certain point in your journey you’re going to need some coaching, a plan, and someone to keep you accountable,” says James.

This is where mentorship comes in. “You’ll need someone who’s been there or is willing to spend the extra time to build a relationship with you,” says James.

Trust your intuition.

At what point should an admin seek a mentor in their career? “It’s like love. You won’t know it until you’re there. You’ll know when you need a mentor,” says James.

Whether you’re trying to figure out your path or you need to fill a particular learning gap, a mentor can help you figure out where to go next.

Speak up.

“In actuality, it’s not a top-down mentor to mentee approach; it’s actually the other way. The mentee drives the relationship and what they need,” says James.

Want to get the most out of the relationship with your mentor? Speak up.

“If you don’t ask for something, you’re never going to get it. You need to communicate what you absolutely need and don’t be shy in doing that,” says John.

For more insights, make sure to follow James on Twitter (@jamesgoerke).

Links:

#ButtonClickGuest

We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. using the hashtag #ButtonClickGuest to help us get more AwesomeAdmins on the podcast.

We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It’s super easy to do, and it really helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.

 

 

 

 

Direct download: Ep._313_with_James_Goerke.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:21am PDT

This week on the podcast we are speaking to newly minted product manager Vladimir Gerasimov about Global picklists and some of the exciting things we can expect in 2017.

A former software engineer at Microsoft, Vlad is now the product manager of Global picklists at Salesforce. He understands the ubiquity of picklists at Salesforce, and as a new product manager, he’s looking forward to using community feedback to create the best possible solutions for admins.

More about Vlad’s session: Join us as Vlad gives us an inside look into the development of Global picklists and how his team is working to help people with the transition and merge process. We’ll also walk through picklist best practices, learn about the benefits of Restrictive picklists and hear about how Vlad’s team are using community idea exchange points to create some of the exciting updates that are set to roll out for Spring 2017.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Vladimir Gerasimov.

It takes a village.

Over 45,000 idea exchange points went into the creation of Global picklists. As Vladimir shares, “it’s amazing how you can get feedback from the community on what they want and incorporate it into your own map.”

“In every state, we have a great community of administrators and developers. As a product manager my goal is to reach out to them when I need their feedback,” says Vladimir.

Merging into the future.

Global picklists allow you to use one value set across multiple fields. This is obviously an incredibly valuable feature for new Salesforce users, but what if you’re a seasoned admin and you already have picklists in your org? Vlad and his team are currently working on solutions for people who want to transition and merge those picklists into Global picklists.

“We understand there’s a high-demand for this and we’re trying to solve it by providing the best possible solutions to administrator’s problems,” Vladimir says. This means working on ways to merge picklists and provide some level of automation for customers.

Manage your values more efficiently with Restrictive picklists.

We’ve all downloaded a .CSV file only to realize it contains outdated values. “Restrictive picklists (which are rolling out alongside Global picklists) prohibit you from doing that. You cannot have a value in your records that does not exist on the picklist itself,” says Vladimir.

As he points out, with Restrictive picklists, the performance of a page will no longer be affected by inactive values. “Whether it’s a regular or Global picklist, you’ll now be able to see a list of inactive values,” shares Vladimir.

Exciting news for 2017.

Some of the exciting features to roll out this Spring include improvements for record types and picklist integration. As Vlad shares, “this is also coming from the idea exchange. Soon you’ll be able to add a picklist value to use for full integration purposes between external applications and Salesforce.”

For more insights, make sure to follow Vladimir on Twitter (@vladimge).

#ButtonClickGuest

We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. using the hashtag #ButtonClickGuest to help us get more AwesomeAdmins on the podcast.

We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It’s super easy to do, and it really helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.

Direct download: Ep._307_with_Vladimir_Gerasimov.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:47pm PDT

This week on the podcast we are speaking to David Liu about learning code as an admin. You might remember David from his intensely popular Dreamforce session, Admins: You Can Code Too.

David is such a success story­—not only because he’s an admin that learned to code, but because he’s also teaching admins how to code and inspiring them in the process. David is a Salesforce MVP, a self-proclaimed “accidental admin” who worked his way up to his position as Technical Architect at Google.

More about David’s session: Join us as David shares his coding tips and delves deep into what he calls his magic formula. We’ll also walk through the highlights of his Dreamforce session, including how he didn’t even show a single line of code. The goal of his session was to inspire people to learn.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with David Liu.

 

David Liu’s magic formula.

It all comes down to perseverance. As David puts it, “I’m not the smartest person, but I never give up.” If you’re looking to succeed, David has what he calls his 38% rule. “If you improve yourself and your knowledge by 1% every day, by the end of the year you’ll be 38% smarter than when you began,” he says.

“You can do a lot more than you give yourself credit for,” says David. But you have to be persistent and do it every day for 5 minutes.

Learning to code is daunting, to say the least. A huge part of teaching admins to code is helping them get over that initial fear, says David. As he points out, “there are so many people who have taught themselves to code. That’s incredibly inspiring for anyone who wants to follow the same path.”

Be a jack of all trades.

Success comes from being well-rounded. As David shares, “I know a little bit of everything.” From being able to speak about admin and coding technology to presenting on Salesforce and being able to interact with executives, David says, “I think that’s something that’s at a premium in the Salesforce industry. Being a jack of all trades is more useful than someone who might be the best Salesforce developer in the world.”

Skills that you’ve acquired in other industries are an asset. David who has a marketing degree says, “my marketing skills help me in my daily job responsibilities.”

Great admins make good developers.

Not everyone is looking to code 40 hours a week. In fact, the majority of David’s students are people who want to have coding in their skill-set so they can talk to developers and manage projects more efficiently. As David puts it, “you have to be a great admin to be a good developer. I don’t think there’s any way around that.”

David suggests starting with the basics. As he points out, there are so many Pure Apex resources that are really good. “Learn Pure Apex and learn Java on the side. That’s the way to go nowadays.”

Lightning for everyone.

What is David most excited about? “I’m excited to see where Lightning goes, what updates come out and how people innovate with Lightning,” he says. As David shares, “at our organization, in 2017 we’re going to have Lightning for every single user on every single page.” Exciting, indeed.

Links

#ButtonClickGuest

 

We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. using the hashtag #ButtonClickGuest to help us get more AwesomeAdmins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It’s super easy to do, and it really helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.

 

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Direct download: Ep._306_with_David_Liu.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:15pm PDT

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