Category Archives: Salesforce

You Can’t Spell Dreamforce Without Six Cs

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Yes, I know, there’s really only one C in Dreamforce, but I titled this post that way to make a point. Technically, to make six points, that all add up to why I attend Dreamforce every year.

1. Content – Awesome keynotes; training opportunities galore; find a solution to a nagging problem; discover how to improve your professional and/or personal life

2. Community – Networking opportunities like you’ve never experienced; reunite with long-lost colleagues; make new friends (find a new career opportunity, if you want one); the Dev Zone – hack away at that new app you’ve been thinking about and get advice from experts; the Success Community Zone – hang out with the MVPs and join a User Group so you can keep the Dreamforce feeling alive all year long!

3. Cloud Expo – The Cloud Expo includes the Salesforce Campground, which is your one-stop shop to get your hands on all the Salesforce products and solutions…interact first hand with the products and hear success stories shared by customers. The Cloud Expo also is where you can interact directly with the event sponsors to See live demos and meet face-to-face with over 350 cloud companies featuring 1,000+ solutions.

4. Cheers – Enjoy the awesome musical talents of Bruno Mars in concert, FREE with your Dreamforce Conference Pass! Also enjoy a wide variety of social gatherings to give you even more networking time with colleagues.

5. Cash – Who doesn’t like money? You can gain some ROI for your company and maybe win some cool prizes too!

6. Charity – Helping others who really need a hand always feels good! Give some of your time to help support the Salesforce Foundation’s efforts to help homeless children have sweeter dreams by packing a few bags for Project Night Night. Watch the Dreamforce schedule for details on when & where the pack out will take place.

Register today at Dreamforce.com, then get active on the Success Community to get in on the full experience.

I’ll see you at Dreamforce!

Quotes from Around the Salesforce Community – Star Wars Week

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I sure hope I do not have to explain the date in the title of this post…I have a feeling that many people, whether they’ve see a Star Wars movie or not, would know what that means, thanks to social media.

And now, a quick two memorable quotes of the week!

Love the “Power of One” technique for tricking reports into counting records they way you want? You might like this too… This Is Mine – TJ Stevens

If this doesn’t make your toes tingle, I don’t know what will: http://youtu.be/SSS0MQPwM4Y – Marissa Kraines

Memorable Quotes from Around the Salesforce community for the week of April 27, 2014

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Here’s a few of my favorite quote spotted in and around the Salesforce community this week. Tweet yours to me or post to the Success Community using #MQOTW-SFDC and maybe you’ll get a mention in a future post!

And now my favorites for the week:

Just registered for my 4th Dreamforce, really excited. Does anybody know when is the call for papers? I would really love to speak at this years event! – Sacha Villeneuve

Matt, When you can carve out some time I would like to talk to you about restarting the Roanoke/Lynchburg User Group. – Jim Gentile (Editor’s note:  Yeah, Matt…when can you make some time for Jim?  We need more active user groups!  Jim – while you are waiting on Matt, check out this session from Dreamforce 2013: How to Make Salesforce.com User Groups a Hit!)

Kidding, You guys know we don’t give hints! – Julie Liegl (Editor’s note: Julie is the Dreamforce Chair, and this was in response to SEVERAL people trying to find out who the band will be at this year’s Gala.)

I just saw that we have MORE Veterans that are certified admins/developers with Salesforce thanks to the#Veterans2Work program!! Please think of these Vets when you are hiring at your companies! Many of them have resumes that are impressive beyond their time in service! – Natasha Walker (Editor’s note: for more details see the Salesforce.com blog post From Service to Salesforce: Veterans Take on New Tech Skills and Veterans2Work.org)

 

Top 10 Reasons to Attend Dreamforce 2014

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Here’s my top 10 reasons why you should attend Dreamforce updated for 2014:

10: Networking…its a fabulous place to meet like-minded people. Don’t be scared, introduce yourself! You could very well be talking to your next coworker or manager, or even discover a solution to a challenge you have been facing!

9: Exercise…with all the sessions and activities spread out over Moscone’s 3 buildings as well as a half a dozen or so hotels in the area, you might end up dropping a few pounds from all the walking you’ll do. (Be sure to wear comfortable shoes!)

8: Knowledge…Keynote sessions, hands-on training sessions, breakout sessions…who knows what all you could learn! Even without knowing who the keynote or breakout session speakers are, or who the special guests during Marc Benioff’s keynote will be, I’m 100% certain I will learn a lot!

7: Awesome…yes, be prepared to hear that word quite a lot. Many will describe the event as Awesome or Outstanding.

6: Get Social…That’s right, Dreamforce isn’t really just an 8 to 5 event. Social gatherings, dinners, parties and even concerts await the adventurous soul. In fact, you can keep the Dreamforce feeling alive all year by joining your local user group…find them here!

5: Charity…Don’t just take things away from Dreamforce, give things away!  Give back some of your time to help out  great causes. Look for the Salesforce Foundation volunteer events and GIVE!

4: Save some money…register fast and get a lower price, and very likely a better choice of closer and/or more affordable accommodations. To register, visit the Dreamforce tab on the Success Community! Register Here!

3: Partners…be sure to carve out time to visit the Cloud Expos. Many AppExchange partners will be there to give you live demos, great reasons why you need to extend your salesforce org outside the box, and pick up some cool swag along the way. You can also connect with Salesforce experts, interact firsthand with Salesforce products, and hear success stories shared by customers at the Salesforce Campground.

2: Rub elbows with the elite…the MVPs and User Group Leaders. Those people are almost overly passionate about the Salesforce ecosystem, but guess what? They are people too, and love helping others gain knowledge and overcome challenges!

And my number 1 reason to attend Dreamforce this year:

1: Community…What’s that? It’s the culmination of all of the other top items rolled into one neat little package. It’s that intangible benefit you get from being part of a group that is well over one million strong. It’s that awesome feeling you get when racing between sessions with over 100,000 of your closest friends  It is Salesforce…it is Dreamforce. And its AWESOME!!!

Memorable Quotes From Around the Salesforce Community

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Here’s this weeks memory makers:

It works! It works! Oh this is awesome! I was trying to to find a way to send links for S1 dashboards via email – especially while I am creating them on demand for exec meetings or for district managers. No more explaining…just instant access! Yay! – Jennifer Wobser

Home sick, but I still have everything I need in the palm of my hand #nolaptopneeded – Launa Saunders

Well criminy bananas…sometimes “simple” is the least “simple” of all – Jen Nelson

If you’re feeling a little frisky you could spice the report up with a few custom summary formulas to show their Win Rate % and Close Rate % so you can see stuff like: ‘User A had 10 Opportunities that were supposed to close THIS month, they Won 30% (3), Lost 20% (2), and 50% (5) are still open’ – Steve Molis (SteveMo)

** San Diego User Group Milestone! ** We just had 13 new members join our group, bringing us to over 700 members! – Rhonda Ross

 

Memorable Quotes from the Salesforce Community

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In the spirit of the Dreamforce “Tweets of the Week” blog posts, I bring you some of my favorite, recent memorable quotes from in and around the Salesforce Community.

“Can you post a mock-up of what you want? With reports and dashboards, Ansel Adams is more helpful than Earnest Hemingway” – SteveMo

 

“There will be no me, without SFDC” –  Adam Jeffries

 

“I am excited about the updated Flows coming too! Have you seen some of the examples that have been posted in the Feed here? I am astounded at every turn with the new ways that we have found to leverage Flows…so amazing!” – Jen Nelson

 

“SteveMo – How do I do this?” – seriously, who HASN’T asked that?

 

“A little humor…unfortunately those of us in the “cloud” business compete against those who insist on moving “rocks” all day.” – Michael Traw

 

 

Lookout Chicago – Midwest Dreamin’ 2014 is Headed Your Way!

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Perhaps by now you’ve heard of a little event being planned for July 10th at Chicago’s Navy Pier…it’s a little thing called Midwest Dreamin’ 2014. The organizers of Midwest Dreamin’ 2014 somehow managed to convince Peter Coffee to come to Chicago and take the lead as the opening Keynote speaker.

Who is Peter Coffee?

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Seriously? If you have to ask that question, one might wonder how long you have been a salesforce.com user, developer, administrator or fan. Just in case you did just crawl out from under a rock, or recently converted from some other CRM system, I’ll fill you in. Peter Coffee is the Vice President of Strategic Research at Salesforce.com, but to those of us in the Salesforce.com community, we think of him as so much more than that. He’s the voice of Dreamforce, the pre-Keynote entertainment, the Master of Ceremony at the worlds largest technology conference. He is the show, before the show. He sets the stage at Dreamforce and gets the crowd all pumped up to see Marc Benioff talk about all the exciting things that Salesforce.com is working on, and all the awesome good things the Salesforce Foundation is helping to accomplish thanks to the 1-1-1 model – One percent of your time, one percent of your profits and one percent of your products being donated to great causes in order to help make the world a better place for all of us.

Breakout Sessions
I think it’s always interesting and entertaining to listen to Peter Coffee speak, but where the rubber meets the road is what really helps businesses and nonprofits alike. That’s why people attend events like Dreamforce and Midwest Dreamin’. Breakout sessions are the skid marks of learning. They don’t get made from quick stops or from taking turns too fast. They come from the rapid acceleration of business growth, from increased innovation and new ways of taking care of customers. Midwest Dreamin’ is currently taking applications for speakers. We are looking for people with a great story of pain and challenge that was overcome through the use of Salesforce.com. We are looking for great community members to share their story of success so that others may have that “Aha!” moment…that brief moment in time when they realize that they are not alone, that they are not paving a new and different path. That moment when they discover a way to solve an issue that has been preventing them from moving forward.

Time is Money
How valuable is your time? Consider not only your salary, but the time you spend with family and friends, the time you spend helping others through volunteering or just by being a good neighbor. Attending Midwest Dreamin’ 2014, can actually save you both time and money. Sure, there’s a hard cost to attending…travel expenses and the registration fee, but the knowledge you will gain and the value of those new ideas that will start floating around in your head will certainly exceed those hard costs and help you find more time in your day by allowing you to streamline processes.

The Proof is in the Pudding
I know what you are thinking now….how can I get in on this? What do I need to do to get a piece of this action? That’s the easiest part! Visit Midwest Dreamin’ and look for the “Register Now” link. Yes…it really is that simple!

What’s that? You want to help?
Are you with a partner and wanting to help get your company’s message out to the hundreds of attendees coming to Midwest Dreamin’? We’ve got plenty of sponsorship opportunities still available. For details, visit Sponsorship Options

Oh…you like to talk in front of a crowd, do you?
We’ve got opportunities for that too! We are accepting applications to speak at Midwest Dreamin’. Submit you case study, best practice discussion or story of how you overcame a challenge to achieve success to Call for Stories

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I Might Be Hangout Impaired…or What’s This Thing Called “Community” all about?

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Dreamforce ended about two months ago, and I just discovered something. It’s good to be able to stay in touch with friends via social media, but it’s even better to do so through live, streaming conversation and video. I recently spent about 45 minutes hanging out on Google with Zachary Jeans.

The First Thing I Learned
My first takeaway from my conversation with Zachary, actually happened before the conversation even started. I discovered that I don’t really know how to fire up a Google Hangout. Of course, I’m a “tech-child” of the 70s & 80s, and if my memory works, our creed was to simply try things to see if they work, and hope we break anything while we were in the “error” stage of “trial and error.” We felt that reading the manual (or help screens) was for wimps, and if we actually did some reading there was no way we’d admit to it, short of penalty of death.

(Editor’s note: The previous statement is not an admission of guilt, expressed or implied, however, this statement just might be a little bit sarcastic.)

The Second Thing I Learned
My second takeaway from my conversation with Zachary (which actually did happen during the conversation,) is that faith can move mountains. (Ok, I already knew this, but talking with Zachary reaffirmed it.) Back in June, 2012, Zachary decided to follow a dream and founded a company centered around his passion for social media. At the end of August, 2012, he made the decision to give up his career driving trucks across the country to devote all his efforts to his new company. He struggled for a while, as many start-up companies do, but he had a few things going for him that have gotten him to the point he’s at now…a successful businessman, supporting his family while doing what he loves. He had (and still has) the following things working In his favor: 1. the support of his wife and son; 2. A strong faith that The Lord won’t give him more than he can handle; and 3. A strong network of supporters and friends, some of whom he only knows through social media, and others he has met personally, and all contribute in some way to the success he is now enjoying.

The Third Thing I Learned
My third takeaway from my conversation with Zachary, was another reaffirmation of something I already knew, but it is so huge that it merits pointing out because many people still don’t get it. What’s “it”? It’s the secret sauce, it’s what floats people’s boats. It’s It’s what turns people’s cranks. It is why some people get out of bed every morning and continue to suffer through another day on the job that they may not enjoy. It is also why some people feel like they don’t work at all, even though they are on the job, hard at work, for 50 to 75 hours a week (or more.)

“It” is “Community.”

Community

What’s Community?
Community – a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

Community – without it, I wouldn’t know a lot of the great people I know today. I wouldn’t know the “Answers Champion”, the master of the “Safe Habbah” statement, the one and only Steve Molis. I wouldn’t know the ButtonClickAdmin, Mike Gerholdt and his trusty sidekick, Jared Miller.

Community – without it, I wouldn’t know some of the best User Group leaders on the planet. I wouldn’t know the CRM Doctor, Rhonda Ross. I wouldn’t know the awesome leaders of two of the largest Salesforce user groups, Leyna Hoffer and Denise Carbone. I wouldn’t know the world traveling, master at starting new user groups, Joshua Hoskins. I wouldn’t know one of the latest additions to the ranks of the Salesforce MVPs, Sarah Duetsch, whose inspiring story of community and the drive to get certified brought us all to tears as Dreamforce 2012 started. And if it weren’t for community, I wouldn’t know Cher Feldman, whose recent blog post told the story of a great career transformation, powered by the force.com platform: (insert link to Cher’s blog post)

Community – if it weren’t for community, I wouldn’t know the great Community Managers of the world: Erica Kuhl, Matt Brown, Samanthia Achuff, Eanna Cunnane, or April Nassi.

Community – without it, I wouldn’t enjoy going to work every day. I work with a great group of people, who, whether they realize it or not, are a community too.

Community – without it, I wouldn’t be who I am today, and to all of you in my Community, thanks for everything you do. It is greatly appreciated!

That’s the Power of Love…I mean the Community!

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To quote the book “212 – the extra degree” by Sam Parker: “At 211, water is hot, at 212, it boils. And with boiling water, comes steam. And steam can power a locomotive. One extra degree makes all the difference.”

To quote Brendan Conroy, Certified Salesforce Administrator and Salesforce MVP:  “The Community is that extra degree. The effort and expertise from Community members genuinely makes miracles happen.” You can find Brendan on Twitter and the Salesforce Success Community.

It’s really odd how sometimes things go full circle. I got the idea for this post in late September, 2013, and was reminded of it again while enjoying the opening a keynote at Dreamforce in November, 2013, when Marc Benioff introduced a special guest – Huey Lewis and the News, who wowed the crowd with “The Power Of Love”

It wasn’t accompanied by the video from the movie “Back to the Future”, but after attending Dreamforce, and seeing how much emphasis Salesforce has placed on API and Mobile, it seemed appropriate for me to use that clip. With all the massive changes that have been baked into Salesforce.com over the past years, Salesforce Releases – 2011-Now, it’s really great to realize just how much Salesforce.com cares about what their customers want and need.

It’s a return to the grass-roots…it’s back to basics. It’s True To The Core! It’s … Wait for it … It’s

Back to the future!

Its Midwest Dreamin’ 2014, coming to Chicago, Summer, 2014.

What’s Midwest Dreamin’ 2014?

It’s the best of user groups combined with a Dreamforce-like atmosphere (with only 250 of your closest friends.)
Stay tuned for more details and how you can register to attend.

Interested in helping to sponsor Midwest Dreamin’ 2014? Send an email to: midwest.dreamin.2014@gmail.com

Safe Harbor

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Inspiration.

So I’m on an airplane, again, and another inspiration seems to have struck me, just as the seat in front of me struck my knees when the passenger up there decided to recline.

Actually, inspiration struck me a couple days ago when one of those emails that most people would call spam hit my inbox. This one was from a university advertising an all new, totally online Masters degree program in Data Analytics. Of course, being an analyst, my curiosity was peaked. So I did what every marketer hopes happens, I clicked to open the email. (Seriously, I didn’t even consider the fact that it could be a scam or some unsavory character phishing for my identity.) I then did what I usually do when I open this type of email, I click the link…no, this time I’m kidding. I hit up Google and did a search for the university in question. What I found was a properly accredited university offering a great, totally online program in a field that I have been wanting to learn more about for a few years now. The tag line of the message in the email about this program was “Big data, big opportunities.”

Big Data.

As someone who has considered himself a data analyst for many years, and one who feels like he has dealt with big data before, the topic still fascinates me. I’ve often told people that my job is to translate data into meaningful information, which means I am a detective, searching to find what story all the data is trying to tell. I’ve worked for a university and helped them install a new student accounting system that took the staff through a leap from a weekly updated set of microfilm, to a real-time, online system, updated instantly. Talk about a leap of faith! This ‘big’ data jump was not without it’s share of problems, and even though we successfully tested (and properly balanced) the new system, and tested the conversion routines not once, not even twice, but seven times prior to doing it in the production system, it still did not balance when we did it for real. $42 Million in accounts receivables, and we were off by $107.25. What a way to cap off several months of hard work. Complete and total failure. Great! (editors note – please be sure you have read that last sentence with the appropriate amount of sarcasm!) This failure kicked off what I thought wa showing to be the start of a long and grueling weekend of cross checking, rebalancing, auditing and caffeine, hoping to discover where the missing $107.25 wound up.

I was searching big data, but without a modern tool to query with. Much to my surprise, finding the missing money was actually quite easy. It was the last record in the file, and out of the millions of records, it was the only one that was exactly $107.25! Yes! We are balanced. TURN ON THE NEW SYSTEM AND LET’S GET ROLLING!

Oh wait a second, we found the money, but not the account it was supposed to be charged to. Too late, we are live. The Vice President (of the university) said we had better go live on time, or we had better all start looking for other employment. Feeling confident that I could solve this mystery, if given enough time, we created a new account: “Unknown Student” and began moving all unidentified dollars to that account. After much searching, and getting down to the smallest detail, we successfully identified the correct accounts for all the mystery money.

A solution.

Customer data. Call it big data, call it small data. I think it really doesn’t matter how much data there is, as long as you understand what it all means.

Here’s a great way to better your understanding of your customer data: attend Dreamforce, San Francisco, November 18-22, 2013. Register at http://www.dreamforce.com and you too can become a Customer Company.

Save $100!

Use promo code D13MVPREF to save $100 on your registration!

Get to know the Community.

Want another way to help you understand how to make the most of your customer data and your Salesforce implementation? Get connected with a local user group! Find yours at http://success.salesforce.com/usergroups