Welcome All Ragamuffins

Welcome to my new blog all about Salesforce. Allow me to introduce this new blog by telling you a little bit about what I hope to achieve with it, a little bit about who I am and my journey in the Salesforce ecosystem.
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How it All Began ...
So I'm a Salesforce Admin, initially my journey began in 2016 when I was interviewed for a job with a charity in the Gateshead area. During the course of the interview the Chief Executive asked me if I had seen the Salesforce platform at all. I had seen the platform at that point, but I had not used it at all. So I answered the question honestly and said yes.

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​I was offered that job, and on my first day in the charity, the Chief Exec told me that I was going to be taking the lead on managing the Salesforce org, and I had to build the org from scratch. Talking about it now in 2021, I refer to this as my baptism of fire. Needless to say the implementation could've gone better, but this experience would serve me well.

In 2017, I left the charity to take up a position in another charity in the Gateshead area. This time I would be taking up the reigns of managing and leading on the continued development of the Salesforce org that had already been implemented for them. This role is the role I still have today. But like many, my Salesforce journey doesn't stop there.

Beginning to Engage with the Community ...
The role I moved to in Oasis Community Housing meant that I was now a Solo Admin. In my previous role I was the lead Admin for the charity (an Accidental Admin). And with being a Solo Admin I started to find it a challenge being on my own, there were things that I was still trying to learn and figure out with just being a year into the journey. Because of this, I started looking into the community side of things. In early 2019, I applied to start a Trailblazer Community Group in the North East of England. The application was approved and I officially become a Community Group Leader. However, unfortunately before being able to put any real work in to doing a first event, I ended up in a place where my mental health was a real struggle, and as a result I ended up going to CBT and later counselling sessions. Later in the year after getting myself into a bit of a better place, I decided to gamble on myself and I applied to speak at Inspire East 2019. Honestly, I didn't think that I would be accepted, so it came as a real surprise when the session I proposed was accepted for the event. The session went well, and really helped me build my confidence about speaking on topics around the Salesforce platform. During the event I met someone from Mason Frank International who offered to help me get the group off the ground and sponsor the first event. This moves us into the next chapter of my journey in the ecosystem. This chapter is the beginning of the user group in 2020.

Launching the North East User Group
After several conversations with several people from Mason Frank, the first event for the North East User Group was held in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on Thursday 20 February 2020. The first event was an in-person one held at the Mason Frank building in Newcastle. Shortly after this event the world was turned upside through the COVID-19 global pandemic. This meant that all Trailblazer Community events were moved online.

We ran one event in May 2020 before the summer really kicked in. In the summer of 2020, the group became a co-led group alongside Luke Menzfeld. Both of us had similar visions for what we wanted to see by leading a group, both of us were officially leading an admin group and both were in the same area. So we agreed to join up and lead one group together. Since Luke and I joined together, we have 4 events on Zoom, and have been part of two events along with the different Community Groups in the North of England.

That takes me up to the current day.

So What Now ... and Why This Blog?
So as we are in the early stages of 2021. Where do I find myself now? Well, at the time of writing I am working hard on improving myself. At the back end of last year, I decided to set myself four goals for the year. Goals I thought would be achievable in the coming year.

The four goals I set were:

• Become a Ranger on Trailhead.
• Earn my first Salesforce Certification.
• Speak at a Community Group Event.
• Speak at a Community Conference.

Well, at the time of writing, three of those four goals have been achieved (or will have been achieved) before January has even ended. I have achieved Ranger status twice (once in December, and then again in January), I spoke at a Community Group Event this past Monday and will be one of many great speakers at Nonprofit Dreamin this coming week. Currently I am planning to book my first Salesforce certification in this coming week for a date in March most likely and am now working on completing the relevant Superbadges on Trailhead for the certification I will be booking myself in for.

So that's my plan so far. But what about this blog? Why even do it?

Well, my hope is that by writing this blog, I will be able to provide some content that can help others in the community. Whether that is through writing about my journey, or providing content around Salesforce products and developments I really like. I hope that the content I produce will be of benefit to at least one person in the community. If I can do that, then this endeavour is achieving what I want it to. That being to help people.

I'm not sure how often I will be able to write content, however, I will be releasing some posts this week as I will be looking to writing a preview post about Nonprofit Dreamin, as well as a post where I answer the questions that have been posed during my session at the event. From there, it really depends. I may write some general tips from my own learning, I may write pieces around aspects of Salesforce such as Dynamic Forms. Over time the variety of content will grow, and I hope that it helps the community.

So allow me to ask you to come with me on this journey, I would love to engage with you in the Salesforce Community, on LinkedIn, on Twitter. If what I write is helpful to you, please comment and let me know, if you have pointers or feedback, please comment. I'd love to connect with you, to engage with you, and hopefully help you on your journey.