My posting habits have been a bit bad lately, because things have been BUSY. I’m currently working on a Lightning Components tutorial that several great members of the community are reviewing, but in the meantime I want to give a little personal update.
Just six days in, July is already a VERY good month to me. I’ve passed my Summer 15 release tests, meaning I get to stay a certified Administrator and Force.com Developer. If you’re certified, don’t forget to take yours!
Additionally, I recently got an email from the rockstar community manager Alicia Schmidt. The Salesforce Foundation decided to feature me as one of three Hub Heroes for July. I feel honored to be listed next to Kieren Jameson, a blogging inspiration, and Margaret Fako. If you read the post and wondered about my two truths and a lie, the lie was about my grill. It didn’t take two friends, and no car was involved. I live without a vehicle here in Seattle, so we assembled the grill at the hardware store, and I rolled it a mile and a quarter to my backyard. I looked like an absolute fool wheeling my grill down 12th Ave, but the results have been GREAT!
But the best news is yet to come. This week marks my final week as External Relations Manager at Intiman Theatre. I started at Intiman as box office manager, and after a few months became an #AccidentalAdmin and started my Salesforce journey. I feel eternally grateful for the team at Intiman that gave me the resources to learn SFDC and the encouragement to make a better CRM solution for us. I’m so thankful for Brian at the Pricing Institute who taught me and Intiman the power of data-driven business decisions and how to identify and report on the data that we wanted. I’m amazed at the support I got from PatronTechnology as I asked them alternating dumb and ridiculous questions about their platform and Salesforce. I’m so proud of the folks in the Seattle PatronManager User Group and the Seattle Nonprofit Salesforce User Group for encouraging me to be the best admin I can be.
Immediately following my final week at Intiman, I’m going on to do something totally new. I’ll be joining the team at Bigger Boat Consulting, starting my career with non-profits that need to take control of their data. I’m so excited by the enthusiasm of that team and their approach to helping clients find success. There will be a steep learning curve as I become a consultant: I only started on this platform in seriousness about a year ago, I’ve never been a professional technologist, and I’ve only worked in arts organizations since undergraduate. But it just goes to show the power of this community, helping an #AccidentalAdmin to become a #VeryIntentionalConsultant.
In addition to all the people I thanked above, I just want to give as much gratitude as possible to the people who mentored me through my first year on Salesforce, through this career change, and will continue to be friends and resources in the coming years. Brad, Beth, Caroline, Thomas, Terry, David, Katy, Michelle, I can’t wait to keep solving problems with you on the Hub.