This is the thirty-ninth 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 triple certified, leader of the Pune, India, User Group, Parth Vasani.

What’s your job title? Salesforce Developer / Consultant, Eternus Solutions Pvt Ltd. (EFD – Eternus Solutions got its start in India in 2010, and has been experiencing great growth since then. They have enjoyed success helping clients in a wide variety of industries, both for-profit and not-for-profit, and they established a United States presence in 2016. To learn more, visit their site. That’s what I did!)

What does that mean you do? I’m involved in mainly all things development, but there are times when I do admin stuff as well, overall I make clients happy and and help them understand the possibilities of the platform. Apart from the usual work, I deliver Salesforce passionately and strongly believe in giving back to the Salesforce community. I have trained and mentored more than 600 students and 800 end users. I am happy to share that some of them have been working on Salesforce platform now and certified admin and developers. I am a big fan of answers community and quite active on it. I lead the Salesforce User Group in Pune (India) and have 180+ community members with 80 (on an average) attendance and have been doing this for about a year. I also lead Pune Marketing Cloud User Group which is the first Marketing Cloud user group in India, and should be having its first meeting soon. Apart from User Groups , also lead Pune Salesforce Students Developer Group and Surat Salesforce Developer Group. (EFD – You are one busy man! Kudos to you for all you do to mentor future Salesforce Community leaders. #ForewardLookingStatement #MyOpinion – I wouldn’t be too surprised to see you making the ranks of Salesforce MVP in the future.)

How long have you been involved with Salesforce.com (as a customer and/or an employee)? I started working on the platform in 2012 while I was in college. Salesforce was introduced to me by one of the genuine and well known personalities in the Pune IT industry. He advised me to explore Salesforce and my first reaction was “Wow! You just need a computer and an internet connection to start with”.  Salesforce has been a really great company and a platform to work with. There was a time when I only saw all darkness after completing my college, it was only because of the Salesforce that I landed with my first job. From that very day, I decided to contribute selflessly to students, and end users (also known as the community) to switch them to Salesforce , train them and certify them. I hope to be able to continue to transform lives so that they can serve the same community. (EFD – Yes! Another life transformed by the power of the Salesforce Platform. And another person dedicated to giving back to others. That’s what it’s all about – helping others!)

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

What’s more important: Who you know, or what you know? Its all about collaboration, but both of them are important. Who you know, because the power of the community is stronger than anything. Its like you build the network and connect with others to help the community to figure out what to do and then its all about giving back and helping others find their success. On the other side, you need to be up-to-date with your knowledge and I have learned a lot from the community and learn everyday. If you don’t know, you need to learn, only then you can help the community and this is how “What you know” is also important. (EFD – When I first started this blog series, my opinion [there’s that word again!] was very strongly “Who you know” is way more important, but as I feature more and more people, and hear their views, I’m thinking now that they are nearly equal in importance.)

How did our relationship start, and when? My first exposure to you was via Twitter. I asked for your help and you responded immediately. Also we are connected through the User Group Leader community which itself is a vibrant community. I hope we can meet in person one day soon. (EFD – Twitter…oh yes. The “great connector.” I take pride in trying to respond personally, and quickly to anyone who reaches out to me, asking for help. As for one day meeting in person…I’m sure that will happen at some point. I’ll be at Dreamforce 2016…2017…2018…2019…I think you get my point.)

And now the bonus question – What’s one fact about you that few people know, that will surprise me and my blog readers? I Love Music and am a Violinist! Still learning it but playing it on low notes suites me best now.  (EFD – A budding musician…very nice. I started on the piano when I was about 8 years old, moved onto clarinet and saxophone through out my middle school and high school days. Making music is challenging and great fun. I’ve always heard the violin is NOT easy to play. Good luck with that.)

You can find Parth on Twitter.