3 Lessons for a Salesforce Admin

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Mike GerholdtFrom now on I’m going to refer to SXSW as “Nerd Spring Break”. This year was filled with great conversations, a ton of learning, and enlightenment. As a blogger and podcaster there were a ton of people to connect with and as a Salesforce Admin there were many lessons to learn and new technology advancements to consider. I would encourage any Salesforce Admin to make the trip at least once in your life- even if your company won’t pay for it. It will be money well spent. With that said here are the major lessons I learned this year that I believe are valuable to you as a Salesforce Admin to know as well.

Don’t always be a taker

Time is your most precious asset. Everything we do revolves around saving time. Using Uber to get a cab is better because it saves us time chasing one down. We check in our Facebook because emailing our friends would be a waste of time. But time comes with a price- it’s limited. And everyone wants to take your time. They take your time by asking you to solve their problem, or asking you to review their app. All they do is take away from you. And maybe this applies to you as well.

So what have you given back?

Have you answered as many questions as you have asked?
Have you reviewed other apps for as many times you asked yours to be reviewed?
Stop being frustrated at what Salesforce can’t do and be amazed at what you can achieve.

You are 100% in control of what this ecosystem becomes, if all we do is take from the ecosystem it will become one of takers. If we don’t give back the ecosystem will only be takers and complainers.

Everything will be a platform

The internet of things is here to stay. It’s not a fad and it will affect your job in the next two years.

Ford Motor Company is reimagining itself as a software development company. This is a brilliant move in my opinion. They have opened up a developer incubator and are encouraging people to join the company to write the next generation of applications for their vehicles. They see vehicles as sensors to collect data. Data that can be used to give the driver a better experience. That same data can be used in the world to give municipalities the location of potholes- rather than you having to call in each pothole. Or think about the windshield wiper switch- what if that data was sent to the Weather Channel to show exactly where it was raining? Now predicting weather and rainfall will be accurate down to the block.

If everything is a platform, traditional product sales will be disrupted.

Would you drive a car for free if all of the data was made accessible to companies to predict weather conditions or driving habits? With the internet of things products won’t necessarily need to be sold, but licenses to data and subscription models can be considered as subsidies to offset the price of the product. Think for a moment how important it will be to know each and every customer in the internet of things when each product is ‘talking back’ to you at possibly 25mb/ hour.

Always be curious

I have one question for you- How do you kill a dinosaur? The answer is you don’t. Evolution does. Meaning a lack of change, a lack of curiosity will leave you stalled out.

Are you curious or do you just wait for people to give you answers? If all you do is wait for answers then you never discover anything.

Do you love being a Salesforce Admin? If you do, then spend the time to learn how to be better- don’t just wait for people to give you the answers on how to be better. If there is something that is important to you, then you owe it to yourself to spend time to learn more about it.

Curiosity always pays off. Push the limit of things and see what happens.

 

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