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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Is Too Much Community a Bad Thing? (I think NOT!)

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There’s some buzz out there in the Salesforce social circles about something called Midwest Dreamin’ 2014.  What is that, you ask?  I’ll tell you.

The recipe to make Midwest Dreamin’ 2014 is a well-kept secret, but the descerning palate can detect a few things:

  1. The best of a user group meeting
  2. A little Dreamforce flair
  3. A little food
  4. Some socializing
  5. A great venue with awesome surroundings

Yes…I know, that really doesn’t tell you much of anything, but this entire post was meant to tease you, to spark your curiosity, to make you want to learn more.  Sorry…you will have to wait for another post.

Interested in sponsorship opportunities for Midwest Dreamin’ 2014?  Send an email to midwest.dreamin.2014@gmail.com and we will make sure you get all the details once we have them!

One last teaser:  Midwest Dreamin’ 2014, Coming to Chicago, Summer, 2014.

Join the group on the Salesforce Success Community and keep up with the buzz!

https://success.salesforce.com/_ui/core/chatter/groups/GroupProfilePage?g=0F9300000001rd6

 

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

A Dreamforce Newbie Survival Kit

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A survival kit for a Dreamforce Newbie

Dreamforce. It is very appropriately named.

Thousands of people dream about attending, and once they get there, they feel this inexplicable force that keeps drawing them back year after year. 2013 will be my third year attending Dreamforce, and if I have my way, it will continue to be an annual pilgrimage.

Here are a few tips that I think all first-time Dreamforce attendees should know:

1. Leave the laptop at home, or if you must bring it to San Francisco, leave it secured in the safe at your hotel room. You will quickly find that it becomes very heavy to carry around with you all day. Opt for a tablet if you have one or even just your smartphone if you are comfortable taking notes on a small device. One side note, I’ve never owned or used one of the newer “Ultrabook” style of laptops, so my recommendation is based on a traditional laptop weighing in at around 7 pounds. If I had an “Ultrabook” I’d probably carry that instead of my iPad simply because of the ease of use due to the full featured keyboard.

2. Wear comfortable shoes. You will walk more than you think. A lot of the sessions are held in Moscone Center, which is actually three different buildings each with at least two floors of convention space. After the first day at my first Dreamforce, I installed a pedometer app on my smartphone to see how much walking I was doing. I discovered that I was walking an average of about 5 miles per day, with the bulk of that travel being between sessions and wandering the Expo floor, since I did not return to my hotel during the middle of the day.

3. Wear layered clothing or bring a light jacket. San Francisco has beautiful weather nearly all year. It never really gets terribly hot or very cold, but with the proximity to the ocean the chances for a breeze are pretty good, and once the sun goes down, the air could get a little chilly.

4. Network, a.k.a., talk to people. Don’t be scared. Talk to everyone you can. The person on your right when waiting in line to go into a session; the person sitting to your left once you get inside a session. When you go to breakfast or lunch (both included in your conference registration) pick a table with a few people and see if they will let you join them. Out of the 45,000 + people at Dreamforce 2011, I managed to sit down for lunch at a table with one of my brother-in-law’s co-workers. (Cue the Walt Disney music: It’s a small world after all!) If you are shy, take the high-tech approach to networking. Bring a surge strip with you and hang out at a charging station between sessions – one surge strip could mean five instant connections.

5. Dreamforce isn’t just an 8am to 5pm event. Sure that’s when all the keynotes and breakout sessions occur, but there are also many opportunities for networking before and after those hours thanks to many partners sponsoring evening parties. Also be sure to check the Dreamforce App for groups like “DF13 Newbie Reunion Breakfast” (Shameless plug…that’s a group that I am organizing)

6. Dreamforce doesn’t just happen in San Francisco. Attend a Customer Company Tour in your area. Look for an event near you at http://www.salesforce.com/events/ . Join a user group in your area and attend the meetings regularly. You can find the user groups at: https://success.salesforce.com/userGroups . The Salesforce.com Community is an awesome way to expand your knowledge, increase the resources you can count on to help solve problems. You might even land a new job thanks to the power of the community. (I did – email me at eric.dreshfield@gmail.com or tweet me http://www.twitter.com/ericdresh if you want to hear more about that!)

7. Dreamforce isn’t just a week during the year. Thanks to the Dreamforce App it’s a perpetual event. Get active on the Chatter! Share your struggles and your successes. Get connected with people who you will meet BEFORE you get to Dreamforce and make friends that will last a lifetime!

So why do so many people attend Dreamforce year after year? In a word, because it is AWESOME!

The MVP Summit is over…so, now what’s next?

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The first ever MVP Summit has come to a close and several of the MVPs have posted blogs with their recaps. They all have different views and emphasis, but there was one common theme being written about. I know most of you are now expecting me to invoke Safe Harbor or Non-Disclosure Agreements here and tell you that I can’t give you anymore details about the discussions at the Summit, so I won’t. There’s no need to keep confidential how the MVPs feel, where their passions lie, or what they expect for the future. That was the common theme between all the posts…passion and future expectations.

This post is all about next steps. Where do we go from here. Before I move forward, however, I would like to take a brief step backwards. Imagine it is 1984. Does society look like George Orwell predicted in his book, “1984”? Fortunately, today’s society isn’t even close to being overwhelmed by totalitarianism. Think about this, though, back in 1984 how many people had a computer in their home? How many people had a telephone that they could carry with them everywhere and actually be able to make a call with it? In 1985, the United States had 340,213 cell phone subscribers, and at the end of 2012, the number of wireless subscription connections in the United States alone was up to 324.4 million! (Data source: CTIA – The Wireless Association). A lot of technology has changed in the past 30 years, and the pace of that change has been increasing exponentially in the more recent years.

Automobiles are safer and more fuel efficient. Houses are built to withstand harsh extremes in weather while keeping the occupants at their chosen comfortable temperature and conserving natural resources as well. You can cook a meal much faster than before, and you can conduct business from anywhere.

Consider your smartphone, not only can you make a telephone call to anyone in the world, while walking down the sidewalk in your neighborhood, but you can also watch a video, throw some angry birds across the sky, play a word game with people you don’t even know for halfway around the world, and run a successful business. Yes, you read that correctly. You can access everything you need to run a business, right from the palm of your hand. No software required. Login to a secure website, access the apps you need from contract proposals and quote-to-cash, from customer relationship management to customer service, from marketing automation to financial accounting.

The possibilities are endless.

Wondering where to start on this adventure? Visit Dreamforce and register for the worlds greatest technology conference. It’s jam-packed with over 1000 educational sessions that will help you improve your way of thinking, and increase the speed at which you get things done. you could learn how to create an app and make it mobile. You could see how to tap into the power of all that data you have been capturing, as well as see what your customers are saying about you on social networks. You can, in one simple word, transform your business and start a revolution, a non-violent revolution of thought. Don’t forget about promo code D13MVPREF when you register for Dreamforce to save $100.

Welcome to the new you…it’s you, transformed.

History was Made

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Captain’s log – August 29, 2013:

Nearly 90 of the just over 100 Salesforce and force.com MVPs gathered at the Omni San Francisco Hotel officially beginning with breakfast at 7am and ending about 10pm with a social gathering and dinner at The City Club of San Francisco.

In a word, the entire day was awesome. But awesome does not fully do justice to how the MVPs felt during the entire experience. It was a day filled with Safe Harbor statements, lively discussions and demos of things I wish I could tell you about. However, if I told you, I would have to kill you, since those memory erasing flashy things from the movie “Men in Black” have not yet been invented.

Flashy Thing

Suffice it to say, if the preview we MVPs saw becomes reality in future releases of salesforce.com it will only reaffirm your belief that Salesforce.com, its senior management, product managers, and development teams really do some great work striving to provide a world-class, full featured system.

Enjoy the new releases as they come out, and don’t forget to use discount code D13MVPREF when you register for Dreamforce.

Oh yeah…and big thanks to Charlie Isaacs for delaying a vacation by one day to enjoy dinner with a few MVPs. Huge thanks to Peter Coffee for, well, being Peter Coffee and sharing some wisdom as well as his viewpoints in a way only he can do.

SUPER HUGE thanks to Den Mom Erica Kuhl and Den Dad Matt Brown for not only all they did to make this event possible but also all the did by going above and beyond the call of duty for seeing that the first ever MVP summit made the word “awesome” seem to mean about the same thing as “OK” because to describe the Summit as merely awesome would be the greatest understatement of my life!

Bring on Dreamforce…it will be WayBeyondAwesome!

One last thing – the Safe Harbor statement applies here. Please do not base any decisions regarding use of salesforce.com on this post as it contains certain forward-looking statements. For a complete copy of the Safe Harbor statement please visit Safe Harbor

History in the Making

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A few thoughts occurred to me while flying to San Francisco for the Salesforce MVP Summit.

We are on the cusp of a breakthrough.

The MVP program has been around for about three years now, but up till now, the only gathering of the MVPs has been at Dreamforce when most MVPs make the annual pilgrimage. This time, all the MVPs from all over the world were specifically invited by Salesforce.com to attend the first ever MVP Summit. It’s an honor to be included in such a great crowd of people, and it’s an even bigger honor to know that Salesforce.com wants to know what we think about their products and services.

Safe Harbor.

I’m sure there will be things shared with the MVPs at the Summit that they can only discuss amongst themselves, and I’m certain that all the MVPs will honor this. Having had the privilege to see something that is being developed for a future release already, I can say it is incredibly awe inspiring when a company comes asks the users of its products for input, but to top that, to ask about something that’s not even available to the general public…Wow!

Dreamforce.
Register Now!
Don’t forget to register soon, and use promo code D13MVPREF to save $100!