This is the forty-fourth 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 four-time Salesforce Certified, Ryan Lorenzen.
What’s your job title? Salesforce Solutions Architect, PayPal. (EFD – That sounds impressive. When you get your paycheck is it deposited into a PayPal account?)
What does that mean you do? I’m the Salesforce solutions architect for PayPal’s largest business unit, Global Operations. The user base we support consists of 1300 users based in APAC, EMEA, and NA who work in sales, account management, business support, product integration, and underwriting…to name a few. I also lead a team of awesome admins based in the US, India, China, and Ireland. Everyday I get to talk to people all over the world and help design solutions for them. For a kid from Nebraska, that’s pretty cool. (EFD – That IS really cool! So there’s more than just corn in Nebraska…)
How long have you been involved with Salesforce.com (as a customer and/or an employee)? I’ve been using Salesforce for about 11 years and have been a System Admin for the past 7. Got my start as a user while working in Sales Ops. (EFD – 11 years…I bet you’ve seen a change or two-hundred!)
Bacon or sausage? I love bacon. I love black pudding more. (Blood sausage, popular in the UK/Ireland) (EFD – Uh…not sure I’d eat anything with “blood” in the name, but to each their own!)
What’s more important: Who you know, or what you know? To me, they’re equal. Those who are talented and surround themselves with the right people will be successful. (EFD – I used to think who you knew was more important than what you know, but the more I publish this post and see other people’s views, the more I tend to agree with your statement that they are equally important.)
How did our relationship start, and when? Our relationship started on Twitter, in the Summer of 2015, I think. I was sitting at 100 followers and DM’d you to ask how you managed to amass 3k followers. Since then, I’ve got your advice on other things as well, which I really appreciate. I look forward to meeting you in person someday. (EFD – And since then, you’ve increased your followers like 12-fold, and I’ve not quite doubled mine. Hmm…the student might be performing better than the teacher. I’m looking forward to an in-person meeting with you someday too!)
And now the bonus question – What’s one fact about you that few people know, that will surprise me and my blog readers? I came very close to being a Firefighter. I went to college for computer programming, but I barely graduated and failed to find a job in that field. I gave up on software and spent 2 years in my city’s Firefighter hiring process. I passed all the tests, and right before the final interview, I realized it wasn’t for me and withdrew. I’m fortunate to have found a career that I truly love, and I still get to put out lots of fires, just in a different way. (EFD – While the fires you put out now may not be life-threatening, I’m sure some of them feel just as exhilarating and stressful as fighting an actual fire might be.)
You can find Ryan on Twitter.