This is the thirty-sixth post in my blog series in which I feature people I know from the community: Salesforce employees, MVPs, User Group Leaders, Partners, and honestly, anyone who I’m connected with who is willing to share with me the answers to five simple questions. I hoping that this blog series will help everyone out in the community get better connected to others who are either like them, can help them, are nothing like them, can’t help them, or are simply people they haven’t met yet! After all, a stranger is simply a friend you don’t know yet.

For me, one of the greatest strengths of the Salesforce Ecosystem is its people and the connections that are shared.

So, if you are brave enough, even if you’ve never met me in person, fill out this form and I’ll feature you in an upcoming post. (In case I have confused anyone, the questions on the form about our relationship refers to you, the reader, and me, the author, Eric Dreshfield, and not the featured person in this post.) Just beware, by completing the form, you are giving me permission to use that information in a future post, as well as allowing me to interject some of my own thoughts into your responses!

And now I introduce the three-time Salesforce Certified and amazing Answers guru, Pritam Shekhawat.

What’s your job title? Salesforce Consultant/Developer, Hytech Professional (EFD – Ahhh…the multiple hats. I think most of us in the Salesforce Ecosystem wear many hats. )

What does that mean you do? I am involved in analysis and review of business related process and requirements gathering, and finally to develop the application logic (Coding and Development) according to the business need, specifications and standards. On a daily basis I participate in project team meetings, sharing ideas and views with peers. Apart from my daily work, I am an active and a consistent contributor to the Salesforce Community. I am a big fan of Answers Community where I have been answering for almost 2 years, I recently achieved a very exciting landmark when I touched a total count of 5000 answers in the answer community. My count is over 5300 answers now and I am inspired to never stop contributing. I also write blogs, mainly focused on Lightning. (EFD – Congrats on the 5,300+ answers!  That’s about 1,000 times the number of answers I have provided.)

How long have you been involved with Salesforce.com (as a customer and/or an employee)? I started working on Salesforce platform in the year 2014 after completing my graduation and the very same day my career in Salesforce got kicked off. The more I got into Salesforce the more I fell in love with it, though I am a B-tech(Electronics) Background graduate, and for the same reason I always felt scared of the software industry in the starting phase of my career, But I took the right guidance from great Salesforce guys who literally inspired me that much, that I finally decided to make a mark into the heart of Salesforce guys with my contributions for the community. So for me, the definition of Salesforce rather than Just a Technology, Will be : “Technology run by the community, for the community & of the community!!!” (EFD – Started on the platform in 2014..that’s a decent amount of time, in Salesforce years!)

Bacon or sausage? Can’t I have both? Don’t make me decide!

What’s more important: Who you know, or what you know? For me both are important because in the early phase of my career I didn’t know anyone who could groom me, so for me it was a “What I know” kind of a situation. Then I realized that making connections and interacting with the community is equally important and will surely help me not only grow technically but will keep me updated about what’s happening in the Salesforce world. Within a few months I realized, my knowledge and skills tremendously got so rich that I decided to share my learning with the community and this has been the reason for large count of answers which I have on the answer community. I believe networking play very useful and powerful role towards your personal and professional career. I have learned a lot from people both inside and outside the community who have always motivated and appreciated me. (EFD – As much as I tout the “It’s WHO you know”, I do realize there is some component of “what you know” that’s important too.)

How did our relationship start, and when? I remember that in one of our user group events organized by Noida Salesforce User Group under the direction of Vinay Chaturvedi, when you were a surprise presenter in the Meetup and joined us online via Skype. You shared a lot of information on the Salesforce Community that motivated me to offer my best to the Community. Then I discovered your blog and our relationship clicked. I began to read all your tweets and everything you shared to try to figure out the mystery of how you are so active! Believe me your community activity and devotion is worthy of an OSCAR! (EFD – The mystery of how I’m so active…I can solve that!  I don’t sleep. Ok, that’s a lie. I do sleep, but not much. I recall running some stats on my Twitter activity a few months back and discovered there wasn’t an hour during the day or night that I haven’t been tweeting, and just for the record, all the tweets I do that are not related to my role at Apttus are live tweeted. For the work tweets, I do use Buffer, though.)

And now the bonus question – What’s one fact about you that few people know, that will surprise me and my blog readers? I am a self-taught Salesforce Admin and Salesforce Developer. From the start of my career, I was working without any management or mentor support. Whatever I learned in Salesforce, so far, is from our AWESOME Salesforce community. To be honest, I am from non-programming background so before graduation, I always thought that it would be nearly impossible for me to work in a Software industry as I was short of skills, but the community (EFD – Self-taught…my personal opinion is that the people who are self-taught tend to more engaged in the community .)

You can find Pritam on Twitter.