Diary of a Saasy Girl

Since late March 2020, we in the UK have been learning to live with a new normal. Our lives, along with everyone else's in the world, had to adapt rather dramatically to a different set of social, economic, environmental and political rules.  For those in business, sweeping changes had to be implemented almost overnight to accommodate these new rules. Suddenly, those who could were asked to work from home so to avoid using any public transport or risk infecting other colleagues with the virus. For many, the action to work from home also lead to other aspects being affected too, and for the positive. Companies quickly reviewed and adapted their existing processes so that a remote workforce could continue to be productive. What was once considered a 'must-do' step was conceded. Digital work arounds were embraced. Departments were given tools to collaborate and from that came a 'can do' attitude from employees to make do with what they had, and with a dose of patience ...

Let's face it, we are currently witnessing many leadership traits that aren't meeting the mark of what we would describe as a good leader. If you take the political arena as one example then you will have a smorgasbord of poor standards to select from. Here's just a few words to describe some of the traits we are seeing from, can you believe, voted in leaders.  It doesn't bode well and it makes you wonder on who you should look to when trying to shape you own skill base to be a good leader. You could suggest to look at some of these political leaders and choose to act in the exact opposite way as a basic guidance.  There are, fortunately some leaders in our world who are demonstrating strong leadership traits and seem to be steering their countries through this current crisis with better success rates. Take for instance, Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand Prime Minister. Her skills are based in good communication and expressing empathy with her people. Throughout this cris...

Within the Salesforce London Admins Community Group we have organised a Mentorship program for the past 2 years. This past year we had over 40 Mentees paired up with Mentors with a view to personal development progress.  So, what's it like being a participant and what do you get from such a program? Well, I decided to find out and asked the Mentees and Mentors to complete a questionnaire for their feedback.  Let's start with the admin side of a pairing. It's the responsibility of the Mentor and Mentee to work together and define the following items when they are first matched: The goal of the pairing The topic areas to focus on The frequency of contact The method(s) of communication and meeting The responsibility of each person on completion of tasks The goal could be connected to wider topic areas that the Mentee was looking for help with. The topic areas were the prime matching criteria with their Mentor. For example, help with moving their Org into Lightning Experience o...

Recently TrailheaDX came to our screens to deliver a load of content rich presentations for the Admins, Developers and Architects of the Salesforce world. The day prior, TrailheaDX provided a careers fair for job seekers hoping to enter into this market and to others wanting to grow into new roles.  I offered my services to help with the career fair. As a previous manager and recruiting employer I have reviewed many CV's and conducted countless interviews with budding candidates. I thought it my duty to offer my advice to those in need.  I volunteered to conduct interviews to a selection of candidates. While I only had a short space of time with each person I was able to give some top tips to them. I thought I might be able to reach a wider audience if I wrote some of these tips here.  Many of the candidates that I interviewed on the day had 'real' interviews with prospective employers later, and their session with me helped them to focus on elements to br...

A few Friday's ago I sat a Salesforce certification. It has taken me about 7 years to subject myself to do this again.  2013 was the last time I sat any online proctored exam for a Salesforce certification. In that year I passed 2 consultancy exams, Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. Back then, there weren't many exams for a professional to take. It was limited to the Admin and Developer streams, the consultant exams and then the CTA route.  While the exam paths are broadly the same the number of exams that someone can now take are greatly increased and as Salesforce builds on its portfolio it too is adding to the certification potential. If you're serious about Salesforce then you promote your experience with a certification to match. So why the long stretch between exams you might ask? Well, the simple answer is, exams make me nervous. I'm not a natural brainiac. I have to study, I have to understand what it is that is being said to me. I'm not just someone who ...

28 February: The last time I felt normal and free to live my life when I went on holiday to Finland to go ice driving.  7 March: The last time I was surrounded by a group of people who were not my close family and gave them hugs at a leaving party in a London pub. 10 March: The first time I felt really paranoid about a slightest cough or sneeze by a fellow commuter. 14 March: The last time I went to a pub for a drink and then to a restaurant for dinner out. 15 March: The first time the battery in one of the cars died as we hadn't driven for a few weeks and needing help from our neighbours to jump start it. 16 March: The last time I put on a dress, commuted on a train and tube and spent the day in an office working. 17 March: The first time the neighbourly WhatsApp group shared pictures of empty shelves in the local supermarket as people panic purchased items. All talk on the group was where people could get provisions. 20 March: The last time I travelled into cen...

Ten days ago we delivered the 5th edition of London's Calling, a Salesforce Community Conference. I'm normally quicker to release post event write-ups but this year's took its toll on me, on all of us.  As organisers we came back together last August to start planning the 2020 event. It was to be our 5th year and we needed to show some maturity in how we went about delivering. We started by looking at ourselves, how we worked as a team together and this helped to define an Organiser's Charter. The purpose of the Charter was to outline how we engaged with each other in terms of respect, communication, and time and how we would deliver the end product. We all signed up to the Charter.  The next big milestone was venue. 4 years with Skills Matter had been a firm base to develop the event but we had now outgrown them. We needed extra capacity for attendees, and even with the threat of Brexit and impending doom on the UK economy (remember those heady days) we took a ...