11 January 2022 - Review of the Year 2021

It's that time of year again when I take a look back over another year and reflect. Overall, 2021 was a positive year, especially compared to 2020. I think my mindset has also changed and I now celebrate the small wins. 

At the start of the year I had some time and so I decided to give back and volunteer with my local health service. The pandemic was still raging high and our health service was feeling rather battered (as it is now, as I type) so I put on my big girl pants and helped out at my local hospital, visiting Covid wards and 'normal wards' to give wellbeing support to the worn-out frontline staff. I later also volunteered at local vaccination centres helping thousands get their jab. The atmosphere in both locations were poles apart; from exhaustion and fear in the hospital to hope and excitement in the vaccination centres. 

After a rather poor response to the pandemic by the English Government, their action on vaccinating the population did give rise to hope and the prospect of a return to some normality. Indeed, I certainly celebrated the re-opening of pubs in April where punters could have the pleasure of sitting outside in awful weather, wrapped up to the hilt, just to neck a beer with a few friends, but that's us, barmy Brits!

Meanwhile in the land of LAUG (London Admins group) we continued our virtual monthly gatherings to keep our member's spirits up and to share the love and knowledge of all things Salesforce. We added new regular features such as Cool Tools and Back to Basics and kicked off the meetings with some 80/90's adapted retro gameshow games to get our audience in the mood for some fun and the potential of winning some Swag prizes too. 

In August, after 18 months of virtual meetings, while the weather was reasonable, and the Covid numbers low, we took the plunge to meet again - in real life, thanks to OwnBackup for hosting. It was joyous to have an in-person event again and see all those lovely faces in 3D. Organising virtual events has become, dare I say, quite easy to do - just pick a date, find a speaker with content and promote. Returning to in-person events brought back the additional work of venue, sponsor, catering, facilities, with the extra bonus of having to negotiate new Covid rules of engagement. To make our attendees feel more secure about being in presence of others we came up with a sticker policy: 

Red: I was never a hugger, I'm not starting now

Amber: I'll initiate any hugs

Green: Hugs all round!

Black: Get a room!

Suffice to say, there were some takers of the black stickers...

In October we celebrated our 7th birthday and were hosted in style at ThirdEye Consultancy's rather lovely offices with on tap beer and prosecco. They also treated us to amazing cakes which were very welcome as our cake game had been lacking over the past year. 

In addition to our birthday celebrations we remembered Laura Walker with our 'Laura's Champion' Award, this year going very deservedly to Todd Halfpenny for all his contributions to the Salesforce Community, including being a London Developer's Group Leader, co-organiser of London's Calling and the Founder of Shirtforce.org. 

For December, as the Covid numbers started to rise, and with a new variant in town, Omicron, we were brave again and came together with the Developer and Women in Tech groups to host the yearly Megameet, this time at the Publicis Sapient offices. With nearly 90 attendees it was a fabulous festive gathering and for some, their only Christmas social event. As is now tradition, we were entertained by each group's Review of the Year, followed by Peter Chittum's 'most challenging' Quiz. Cake game was again on form, thanks to Validity. 

2021 continued to hamper large events and this was certainly true for the Salesforce Community. This either meant postponing again for another year or delivering in a virtual format. For London's Calling, we took the early decision to produce a fully virtual event, using the experience we had gained from the previous year. London's Calling TV returned. With all the speaker content pre-recorded it allowed me the opportunity to present a talk that I had submitted and had accepted by the judging panel, this time titled; Top 10 Project Risks and How to Mitigate Them. The conference day was another success, so thank you to everyone who was part of it. Here's to 2022's event and the prospect of being back in-person. London's Calling

In July, I and a few select others were invited to spend the afternoon at the Salesforce Success Anywhere Tour in London. It was our first (and only) foray into Salesforce live events for the year, having had the prospect of Dreamforce London fizzle quietly away into the ether as Covid numbers started to climb with the new Delta variant. Dreamforce did happen in-person as promised but only for the few lucky US residents. The rest of us had to contend with another virtual event offering. 

Regular readers of my blog may have noticed that my entries dried up somewhat mid year. This was because my writing output took on a different direction and finally, after a long time in the making, my course titled, Delivering Successful Salesforce Projects was released on Udemy. Thank you to everyone who has bought it and has given very appreciative feedback. If you're interested, then you can find it here: https://www.udemy.com/course/delivering-successful-salesforce-projects/referralCode=9C51D85A927E242F6D50

The rest of 2021 was peppered with other community contributions. I organised the 4th annual London Admins Mentorship scheme with another 20 pairings. I am always keen to see how the connections go. As a mentor myself, I do feel the value of giving my experience and insight to others and seeing how they move forward with it. In the past I have helped Mentees find jobs, advise on people management and help with their career paths.

I contributed to other Community groups with presentations, namely for North New Jersey Admins on 'Everything I wish I knew about CPQ' and 'From Accidental Admin to CTO' for the Philippines User Group. 

I also produced content in the form of a podcast with Pei Mun Lim, live YouTube interview and follow-up video with Skuid, hosted a round table for Ada's List, delivered thought leadership audio clips for Elements Cloud's new App and a top 5 video for the 100 Days of Trailhead team.  And then there was more writing in the form of blogs and commentary for Revolent Group, Mason Frank News and Salesforce Ben. 

If that wasn't enough, I was a member of the Salesforce Credential Security Council and Community Group Leaders Advisory Board too.

What can I say? I said yes to everything last year. As a renewed Salesforce MVP I wanted to continue to give back, just as I had started 2021. I consider myself lucky. I have maintained my health, which isn't a given nowadays, even if it has been slightly tainted by champagne and cake consumption but we all have our methods to ride out this pandemic. 

What will 2022 bring? Well I've kicked off early with another certification in the bag, this time User Experience Designer. I would have liked to have sneaked it into 2021 but it seemed that everyone else had the same idea as me and booked up all proctored exam slots. 

Other that that, continuing to celebrate the small wins, enjoying simple pleasures and looking ahead to hopefully traveling outside of the UK and seeing people again in 3D.  I'll be wearing a green sticker.