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Second Verse, Same as the First…the Best of 2012

Jan 012013

Hello all,

As I look at my blog, I realize how extremely bad I have been at posting to this site on a regular basis. I see that after Dreamforce life once again went crazy, and this site suffered first. I always make the same resolution every year – I resolve to see January 1 of the next year – but I will aim to post at least twice a month here…

And the first post for this year will be a look back at music. While life is busy, there is always room for music. Here is my top ten songs from the year that was 2012!

10. Jack White – Sixteen Saltines: So, he’s gone solo now, and the music is just too fun not to listen to. Bonus points for anyone who can tell me what the frak this song or video is about, other than copious amounts of drugs and alcohol…

9. Of Monsters and Men – Mountain Sound: Last year it was Mumford and Sons who brought over a folksy kind of vibe we all seemed to like (although their sophomore album did not remotely come close to making me want to buy it). This year it is Iceland’s Of Monsters and Men that makes me dance!

8. Dada Life – Kick Out The Epic Motherf*cker: If this song doesn’t make you stand up and want to jump and dance, you need to check for a pulse or ensure that your broken bones blocking you from dancing heal soon. BANANA!

7. Metric – Youth Without Youth: Canadian rockers Metric released a new album, Synthetica, and while not their best album in my eyes, the first single was awesome. That and Emily Haines becomes hotter with each passing day.

6. The Lumineers – Hey Ho: More from the folk rock fun vault, Denver trio The Lumineers got everything right with this song. Simple, short and sweet…and it sticks in your head.

5. Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis: Thrift Shop: Yup, it’s a guilty pleasure song. But it gets stuck in your head something fierce. And I want that jacket. I really want that jacket!

4. Black Keys – Lonely Boy: This was really hard to put down, cause I really don’t like most things that come out of Dan Auerbach’s mouth when he speaks publicly. But this song was just sheer awesome, and the video was brilliant!

3. Deadmau5 featuring Gerard Way – Professional Griefers: So, Deadmau5 has made more news this year for his choice of wife (the notorious Kat Von D) but also released an awesome album, and this video. The whole album is great, by the way! And Professor Meowingtons is on Twitter!

2. Billy Talent – Viking Death March: Politically charged would be an understatement with this song. But I agree with it whole heartedly. The song is rocking as well!

1. The Shins – Simple Song: Everything about this song makes me quiver. My favourite song of the year!

So, there it is…here’s to looking forward to some amazing music in 2013!

When Dreamforce Overwhelms, or Help, I’m Alive….

Salesforce No Responses »

Aug 302012

Well, the countdown is officially on – Dreamforce ’12 is in it’s final motions…as I write this the counter tells me it is just 18 days away. And if you are like me, you are getting giddy with anticipation. This year looks to be a blazing amazing time, with the Keynote, Jeff Immelt, Gen. Colin Powell, Angela Ahrendts (whom I am absolutely glad she is back – she was a wonderful speaker at Dreamforce ’11), Tony Robbins, Sir Richard Branson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and hundreds of breakout sessions, along with a tonne of networking (and I would be loathe to forget the after party networking!). By the way, if you are going to Dreamforce, and would love to meet, feel free to follow me in the Dreamforce org and send me a message!

From salesforce.com Flikr site

However, if you have never been to San Francisco or Dreamforce before, I will tell you right now that the craziness of Dreamforce can be scary and overwhelming. The area where the Moscone Center is in San Francisco is right downtown in between Union Square, the Financial District and SoMA sections of the city. Add in the thousands of people that are walking from various hotels to Moscone and if you are not used to the hustle and bustle of a large city (think Times Square, New York City) it can be overwhelming. So, what do you do if you find yourself ready to flip out? First and foremost, a tip: you will notice many people walking around San Francisco with lanyards, ninety percent of which have very happy, cordial faces (and the other ten percent likely have coffee cups in front of their tired faces!). If you at any time feel lost, scared, overwhelmed or otherwise needing assistance, ASK! One of the things I love about Dreamforce is the high level of civility, friendliness and compassion each and every attendee has. As a point, I and many others I know spend plenty of time walking Howard, 4th and Mission Streets looking for people who have the Dreamforce bag or lanyard and have a look of fear and trepidation look, to see if I can help them get to where they want to go.

Which brings me to the point of this blog post – where do you go when your at Dreamforce and you need to just get away from it all, but don’t want to head to your hotel room? Well, here’s five places + 1 that you can clamour over towards to get away from the hustle and bustle….

1) Yerba Buena Gardens: While the Gardens have become busier and busier each year, it is still a place where there is a quieter feel to it (last year you got to relax along to some music thrown out by some of the partner luncheons going on). The gardens is located just behind Moscone North – quickest way to get there is up the stairs on the west side of Moscone North.

2) Alcove between Moscone North and Novellus Theatre: Also right by the Moscone Center is a walkway that runs between Howard and Mission in between Moscone North and the Novellus Theatre. While you can still here the hustle and bustle of the roads, it is a walkway that is not often used and as such can be a little bit of fresh air during the conference. To get there, just turn west along Mission and you’ll see it just past the Moscone North building.

3) Children’s Creativity Carousel: Located on the other side of the street by Moscone South and the Children’s Creativity Carousel. When you’re walking towards the Moscone North/South for keynotes or sessions you’ll see it up on the hill. What some don’t know is that there is a small park located right beside the carousel with some trees and a children’s playground. During the day it CAN get busy with children (not always), but if you don’t mind the sound of playing children (I have two hooligans, so it is actually a welcomed sound to me) it is a great place just to get away from 50,000 people for a moment.

4) Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Market Street and 4th: San Francisco has many, MANY coffee houses….I do believe that there is a Starbucks within spitting distance no matter where you go downtown! However, the line ups and crowds, especially at the Starbucks Marriott Marquis, or 4th Street are CRAZY. Just on the other side of the Marquis (across from another usually packed Starbucks…see what I mean?) is the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Co, which I find to be pleasantly busy – no huge lineups, and they aren’t pounding the latest song from Michael Kiwanuka or Jack White (two of the favourites right now at my local Starbucks). It’s pretty decent coffee, with a pretty laid back atmosphere. If the inside is too busy, there is another walkway just west of the shoppe which will, if you follow it south, take you right back to Yerba Buena Gardens and the stairs you walked up to get there from hideout number 1!

5) Lapu-Laput Street Gardens: This is a find that I made three years ago, and was happy that I did. Although it is a little further than the first three, it is a nice play to just relax for 15 minutes or more. Nestled in beside condos and an office building is a small garden on Lapu-Lapu Street, that I can guarantee will have very few people around. Lapu-Lapu is a side road of a side road off of Folsom, so there is little traffic. And the only people I have ever ran into there were people who were tending to the garden itself. I ended up speaking with one lady who loved her flowers and just chatted for a good twenty minutes once. I would recommend this place if you find yourself really needing to get away but not wanting to hide in your hotel room. To get there, walk south on 4th Street. Just past Folsom, you’ll see Pacific Bicycles on your left side of the road. Cut down the road beside the store, and when you get to the right turn, you’ll see the garden on your left.

So, there you have it – 5 places to hopefully grab a moment of zen within short walking distance of the Moscone Centre if you need to just unwind. I truly hope you don’t need it too much, but it’s always great to diffuse after the hustle and bustle. For those who are returnees to Dreamforce, any ones I missed? I’d love to hear of them!

See you in 18 days!

TimeSaver # 9 – Expanding the Body of an email with an HTML using Letterhead Template

Salesforce, Time Savers No Responses »

Mar 232012

So, I thought I’d pass along this hint for Salesforce – I am not sure if it saves you time if you just live with the issue, but it certainly saves you time if you wanted to send templated emails without needing to know HTML! Of course, many use email templates during their day to day use. However, the HTML body size is locked to 550 pixels when you’ve set up a template using the HTML (using Letterhead). This works fine if you create your letterhead to fit to 550 pixels or less. What happens if you have a letterhead where the footer is longer than the body size though? Your email ends up looking cut, and not quite great looking.

The text does not stretch to the full space of the header...

So, how can we get around this? With four quick steps, you can actually stretch the HTML size within this template.

1) Create an image: With this step, you can use your favourite online image editor – I personally use Online Image Editor. If you use this site, simply use the Create Canvas section to create a new image. The width should be the same width as your header or footer (in this instance it is 700 pixels), and the width you can make as 5 pixels. And finally, ensure that the colour matches the background colour of your email template (the body section of the email template). Click the Create Canvas button, and then save your custom made image (don’t worry – you can’t see it that well, especially if it is white!) to your local computer.

2) Store your image in the Documents folder: Now, in Salesforce you are going to go into the Documents folder, and store the image you just made as a file. Store it in a shared folder, and ensure it is marked off as an externally available image.

3) Edit your Email template: Now, for the final step. Go into the email template you made, and go to the bottom of the HTML body area (the area where your email body is written). Click the image button on your HTML toolbar. Add the image you just created to the end of your email template (in this case, I called the file white space filler).

So, now you’ve stretched your email body so that it is the same length as the header you utilized was.

Now, while there is some steps involved with this ‘timesaver’, it does allow you to reuse the filler image you have added in future templates, and of course lets you utilize the ease of the HTML (using Letterhead) template type, instead of having to use the Custom HTML template type, in which you need to know how to write HTML code. Hope this helps some of you out there!

I Watched A Change In You, Like You Never Had Wings…

Uncategorized No Responses »

Mar 012012

So today is March 1st – and for me it is starting off as a lion. A smaller post today, as the past month has been a whirlwind of activities, meetings and announcements. Today the xLerate I started up four years ago with a small amount of savings and a dream is now being put out to pasture, as we have merged with the company Force By Design, based out of San Francisco. Force By Design was started by a good friend of mine (and now colleague) Micaiah Filkins around the same time as xLerate. They have made one hell of a splash, becoming a well known and respected partner in the Salesforce community, and highly respected for their work efforts.

This is a good thing all around me thinks. It’s a win for Force By Design, expanding from their offices in San Francisco and Lansing, Michigan to an highly undiscovered market – Canada. It’s a win for clients of xLerate – not much really changes for them, except maybe for seeing my face a little less in the coming months, and seeing other resources. And it’s a win for me personally – it allows me to move my career to the next step. And I still keep and use my entrepreneurial spirit and drive in tact; it may not be my own baby that I watched grow up, more like the couple that my baby grew into.

But, more soon – it’s a busy week! Oh…my new title is “Managing Director – Canadian Operations”. More to come in the near future….

New Release Feature: How You Could Use Cross Object Workflows

Salesforce 2 Responses »

Feb 172012

So, ~~Winter~~ Spring ’12 is out and one of the new features released is Cross Object Workflow. This has been a long time idea on the IdeaExchange, and put a big old smile one my face. With this release you are able to perform cross-object field updates on:

Custom Object to Custom Object (children of the custom object to the master of the relationship)
Custom Object to Standard Object (children of the custom object to the standard object)
Some Standard Object to Standard Object, being:

Case Comments Updating Cases
Email Updating Case
Opportunity Product Updating Opportunities
Opportunity Updating Accounts

Now, there is one main standard to standard object missing, and that is Cases Updating Accounts, but I hope that this will be something that comes in a future release (and is likely more complex due to cases being connected to contacts as well). However, with what has been released, your life just got a little easier thanks to Salesforce.

An easy (and broad) example would be the Account type field. In my experience, this field is planned for and has high expectations at the beginning of a company’s use with Salesforce, but usually falls flat, as many don’t update this field. Why? Well, after an opportunity is won, an account with the type of Prospect should be moved to Customer. However, this is on a different record, and after you’ve closed the Opportunity happily, many don’t go to the Account, and edit the field. But, with cross-object workflow, this can be done automatically. How to do this?

1. Create a new workflow rule. Set evaluation to ‘When a record is created, or when a record is edited and did not previously meet the rule criteria’, and your Rule Criteria should be Opportunity: Stage EQUALS Closed Won AND Account: Type EQUALS Prospect(and any other Account types that you may use to denote a non-customer).

2. For the Action, create a Field Update. The Field to Update is Account:Type, and the new field value is Customer (or whatever you deem your current clients to be).

3. Activate the Cross Object workflow rule, and voila! You’re good to go!

Now, as I said, that is a very simple example, but it could be very powerful for you. Now you can create a list view and now that if a customer is listed as a customer, they have been set due to the fact that you and your company has closed an opportunity! So, how will use cross object workflows? Let me know any cool and nifty ways you’ll be using them!

You Tell Me It’s The Institution….The flaw in our fabric right now

Personal No Responses »

Dec 302011

So, today I happened to make mention of a peeve of mine – businesses that use Twitter not to engage or be personal with the masses, but who use it as a way to throw out the latest sale, offering, or blank “Come visit us ’cause we’re awesome” tweet. Of course, after quickly typing it, is it really their fault? Or has the current environment for business locked them into such a practice? What do I mean? Well, I will use CRM to explain my thoughts…

It’s a known fact that CRM implementations have a failure rate of around 50% for the past decade. It’s also a common belief that a CRM system requires three main components for both use and success; people, process and technology. What are these elements required in detail?

People: These are the users, the you and me of the system, right from data entry people to CEO’s…from implementation project managers to the day to day implementation managers. And over the years, the people model has changed quite a bit. Sure, we are all still human (mostly…), with a brain and a heart and such. But the baseline of employees has changed substantially in the past decades. How so? Well, just watch an episode of Mad Men to see the difference. Employees aren’t mindless drones doing whatever the ‘man’ asks….well, at least at the successful companies. The employee, and their thoughts, desires and needs are an integral part of the model now. But, more importantly, the people are much more saavy and understanding now as well. I truly believe that most people understand (even if they don’t feel respected or appreciated) how their piece fits into the corporate puzzle, and how it makes a difference.
Technology: This is, of course, the application used with CRM. Has technology changed over the past few decades? Let me think on that question while I write this on my iPad from a Starbucks while streaming music from a station I like in Oslo and reading tweets letting me know what is happening in San Francisco, Budapest or Syria. Uh – yeah, the technology changes so quickly that you’re old hat after three tweets and a like on Facebook.
Process: Ah the business process. Wikipedia defines business process as a “is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product (serve a particular goal) for a particular customer or customers.” And we all know that the millions of business books available at Amazon or Indigo every single year tell us how much business has changed in the past one, two or three hundred years, right? WRONG! Those best practices and processes and philosophies we have that run our enterprises have not changed since Adam Smith wrote Capitalism. We can spin doctor it, or have Malcolm Gladwell et al write a new face or point of view on our capitalistic foundation, but it is still the same old foundation.

And here is where the issue is. We, as a collective race of humans have changed, and continue to change each and every moment of every single day. And technology is evolving at an astronomical pace. Yet, we still base our companies around functional practices that have been used since the industrial revolution, measure the success of a company (and many have stocks and RSP’s that measure their personal financial success) around their stock price, and still monitor and regulate our enterprise with laws either written in the era of our great-grandfathers or through people who are seemingly as old as our great-grandfathers. We have locked ourselves to mold our lives and our processes and our self around an economic theory that is centuries old and currently faltering.

So, can I blame companies who use Twitter to send out a blank advert like they’ve hit the marketing lottery for free advertising? Not when the foundation of the economic system we try and work with is stuck in that era. Does something have to give? Good lord, yes – but how we do it without deconstructing the very essence of our lives is yet unknown.

Our Common Goal Was Waiting For The World To End….The Best of 2011 List

Music 2 Responses »

Dec 302011

So, I’ve been blogging for a few years now and every year I’ve put out a best of list IMO for the music of the year. And, to be honest, I almost forgot until a kind old soul I just don’t talk to enough reminded me that he was waiting to see what I thought the best songs were this year. It was a nice way to end such a pathetic year for me…xLerate and work has been fine, but those who know me understand that this year was one I wish to wrap up, bury and never relive for a long, long time. However, the friendship and love of those around me and within my community (both locally and in Salesforceland), the love of my family (especially Steph!) and a perverse hope and belief that the kickback effect will occur in 2012 helped me get me through.

But, enough whining! Let’s get this going… the songs that have rattled around me noggin’ for the year!

10. Grouplove – Colours: One of the joys of having XM Radio is that you get to hear a many a song you won’t hear on Ottawa radio, for a myriad of (CRTC) reasons. Grouplove is one of those bands that I wish Live 88.5 could play, but they just haven’t had them on the playlist as of yet.

9. Death Cab For Cutie – You Are A Tourist: So, DCFC was the band that was to close up Bluesfest…that was until the stage collapsed (the first in a series of horrible collapses…luckily no one in Ottawa was killed). They still haven’t found their way back for the Codes and Keys tour, and have given up hope that I’ll see them this tour. The first single had an awesome, Cure-esque bass line, great lyrics (even with some sadder lyrics, which are not easily found on this album), and an amazing video that was cut in one take!

8. Pack AD – Sirens: A great Canadian duo that got some airplay on I believe every single show that played on the CW, or whatever that station with Gossip Vampire Cirle, 90210 show. Great rocking song!

7. Foo Fighters – Back and Forth: Dave Grohl seemed to be everywhere in the last few years…and Wasting Light is a great way to come back with the Foos. Six grammy nominations for this album…I won’t hold that against the band, are all culminated to me in the song Back and Forth. A mix of old Foos and new, this is the one song to me that could fit on The Color and the Shape as easily as it did on Wasting. The video that won the This Video Sucks contest should be used as the official video as well!

6. Skrillex – Kill Everybody: Skrillex absolutely blew apart Bluesfest with a chain-smoking awesome set that I honestly don’t think anyone expected. Hopefully the powers that be (yes, that’s you Mark Monohan) bring some more electro acts to Bluesfest (and if you put them all on one night, and put them on the front stage, that’d be awesome too…could you imagine if Girl Talk had been before Skrillex???).

5. Joy Formidable – Whirring: What is it about the UK pumping out amazing bands that only get 3 seconds of air? The weird fact about this band? They have had 2 top 40 hits on the US and CA Alternative charts, but have yet to get on the UK charts…

4. 311 – Sunset in July: 311 is one of the most under-appreciated bands in my opinion…kind of like Sloan in Canada. This song was the summer song of the year!

3. LMFAO – Sexy and I Know It: Did you really think this wouldn’t make the list? Yes, it’s ridiculous, and if you haven’t seen the video, you know you have to (and what rock have you lived under???). They’re having fun with it, and living it up…you gotta give them points for that.

2. Karen O, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – The Immigrant Song: OK, so I may lose points from some of you, but I am not that big on Zeppelin. Whether it be mass burnout from hearing it on Chez/Bear radio stations every 15 minutes, but I just am not that big. They have a place in rock history, but King Crimson had more to do with the music of today that I listen to…however, this redux, done for the Americanification of the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, has gotten played over and over and over in my head ever since being in the trailer six months ago.

1. Cage The Elephant – Shake Me Down: This song came out in January, and was played nightly in my head while visiting my mum until her passing in March. I hope my mother left this life in this way mentally. And even on a cloudy day, I keep my eyes fixed on the sun.

So, there it is – my list. As always, feel free to suggest any songs I have forgotten, or should mention! And here’s to a kick-ass 2012!

Timesaver #8 – Calculating Business Days

Salesforce, Time Savers 1 Response »

Nov 112011

Hey all,

So, on Twitter this week Jon Adams from Florida asked a question using the #askforce hash – “Is there a way to replicate the WORKDAY function in Excel in SFDC?”. My first response was to send him as link to an answer on the Salesforce Community page which laid out how to calculate the number of business days between two date fields. It’s a great formula to have in your back pocket, but it wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. What if you had a Start Date, and knew that you wanted something to run for 26 business days which populated via a number field?

So, later that evening, I sat down to see what I could come up with. The idea actually would save me a lot of time in the professional services field. If someone from xLerate was going to be on a project for 13 days (business days), I wouldn’t have to play the calendar finger dance we do when we are attempting to figure this out.

To do this, I went on a custom object called Projects (you could easily use any native object you wanted as well…). There is a field called Start Date, which I have used for the beginning date that we are attempting to calculate from. There is also a field called “Number of Business Days” which has an API name of BizDays. This is the number of business days you wish to count up to.

Next you will need to create a formula date field, which I have called End Date. The formula would be as follows:

CASE(
MOD(Start_Date__c – DATE(1900, 1, 7), 7),
0, (Start_Date__c) + BizDays__c + FLOOR((BizDays__c-1)/5)*2,
1, (Start_Date__c) + BizDays__c + FLOOR((BizDays__c)/5)*2,
2, (Start_Date__c) + BizDays__c + FLOOR((BizDays__c+1)/5)*2,
3, (Start_Date__c) + BizDays__c + FLOOR((BizDays__c+2)/5)*2,
4, (Start_Date__c) + BizDays__c + FLOOR((BizDays__c+3)/5)*2,
5, (Start_Date__c) + BizDays__c + CEILING((BizDays__c)/5)*2,
6, (Start_Date__c) – IF(BizDays__c>0,1,0) + BizDays__c + CEILING((BizDays__c)/5)*2,
null)

From this, the End Date will be calculated to the amount of business days (Mondays through to Fridays) stated in the field Business Days using the Start Date.

Fields from the formula

A caveat though – each country has separate and distinct holidays, so no holidays are added in this formula. I am sure this could be calculated using a custom object and Apex, but for clicks not code administrators, this should assist.

How could I see this being used? Well, from a PS standpoint, it would be great for working out an end date of a project knowing the number of days that someone was to be working. Or what if you wanted to know the date where you should be finishing an opportunity stage (above and beyond a Close date – say you wanted an opportunity to be closed if it took more than 30 business days to get to a 50% probability or above.

Hopefully you find this of assistance – if you think of other ways this could be use, let me know!

Know that I’m gonna be your dangerous side effect …

Salesforce, Time Savers 4 Responses »

Nov 092011

So, this past week, salesforce.com released a new feature within their core application called “Social Contacts”. Those who happened to attend or watch Dreamforce this year know that the Social Enterprise and the social contacts function got some major airplay during the Keynote speech by salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff (if you watch again, you can actually see me three different times in the first part of the keynote – I know because my kids counted…).

What is Social Contacts? Social Contacts “lets you view your contacts’ social network profiles directly in Salesforce. This social information gives you a better perspective on your customers’ needs and issues—information you can use to build deeper relationships and increase business connections” (from salesforce.com help page). In other words, when you turn this function on, you have quick and easy access to the public profile that your contact within Salesforce has allowed. What networks are available? To begin with, Salesforce has (for free) a Twitter and a Facebook link, and for a fee (this is actually LinkedIn’s AppExchange application and not an add-on fee from salesforce.com) you can utilize LinkedIn.

So, what happens after your administrator enables Social Contacts (for those who have an org that wasn’t created after October 7th, 2011)? First, you will notice that your contact page changes slightly. Up by the name is a new placeholder box for an image, much like we have become used to with Chatter (for those who don’t wish to add pictures in your org, I refer to you as the greyskins, in honour of Whitley Streiber). We also have three social network icons of which we have all become accustomed to.
Clicking on these icons brings you to a tab page where you can choose the person’s Facebook or Twitter profile, and after this see their latest tweets, their public Facebook profile, and have a quick link to open their actual Twitter or Facebook pages in a new tab (please note: I have not paid for the LinkedIn app, so I cannot comment on this portion). And, you can decide to add their Twitter or Facebook profile picture to their Salesforce contact. And that’s it. Yes, there is no integration, or pulling information (technically, Salesforce is using public API from Twitter and Facebook, so pulling information from these social networks would not be possible at this time, and to be honest, I think two way integration would end up costing), but it is a time saver.
How, you ask? Well, consider these points:

Prior to Social Contacts, if I was on a contact’s detail page within Salesforce, and wondered what was up with them via Facebook or Twitter, I would have had to open a new window and go to Facebook, or flip over to my TweetDeck and search for the user (or open their URL). Now, I have one-click access to their recent Twitter stream (which is how I find myself talking to people more and more) AND can reply, view their Facebook profile, and open with one click (and in a new window). Now, I’m not sure about you all, but the moment I open either Facebook or Twitter, this massive, time sucking vortex is opened and the fifteen minutes I lost just moments ago can prove it. This is a massive time saver for me, as I can check when a contact last tweeted, and send them a reply to their last tweet, or open straight to their Facebook and reply and write on their Wall (now salesforce.com needs to close my Facebook window once I click the Submit button! LOL).
I love the simple addition of the Facebook or Twitter profile picture. I am a very visual person, and seeing something that reminds me of the actual contact (whether it be a nice picture like others have, or some weird kaleidoscope picture like I currently have) allows me to quickly remember who the person is I am currently viewing within Salesforce.
Especially with the Twitter aspect, being able to see and reply to a contact’s latest tweet, whether it be 10 seconds ago or 10 hours ago could be huge for someone maintaining a relationship with Salesforce contacts. Let’s put aside the fact that we all work trying to be successful, whether it be selling widgets, services, knowledge or advice. This is 2011, and the Mad Men ideal of a split between business and homestead is dead. You follow these people on Twitter or Facebook, so unless you have a completely separate corporate account (an idea I am both am philosophically against, and loathe like the plague), your contacts know that outside of work you may have a life (in my case, I am sure that any business contacts or colleagues who follow me on Twitter know of my love of my family, hockey, live music, and my mistrust of the current Conservative government of Canada along with my love of all things Salesforce). So, be a human. Reply with a personal remark to their child’s picture, or their latest tech gadget, or their tweet of an article. Make that conversation, strike up a personal report with the clients you deal with. Personally, your circle of friends and acquaintances grows, and professionally, people are more likely to remember you because you’ve made that personal connection.

Is it perfect? No. And understandable so. This is a first pass at this with Salesforce, and their utilization has been limited by the public API limitations of both Facebook and Twitter. Do I foresee an evolution of this product? Definitely. It may come at a price to Salesforce users (lest we forget that Facebook and Twitter are companies, and are in the business to make money), but we don’t know that for sure. However, given how salesforce.com has evolved products previously (do you remember the day when customization meant making a custom object, then we could use S-Controls, followed by Apex and Visualforce and now Heroku?), part of the application’s allure is seeing how the evolution of a feature will occur. It truly is the dangerous side of Salesforce – waiting with baited breath for the next release and the newest updates!

So, have you turned on Social Contacts yet? Let me know if you agree with me or not!

Hello out there, we’re on the air, it’s ‘Hockey Night’ tonight…

Personal, Salesforce No Responses »

Nov 042011

So, those who know me know that my love of what I do for a living is superseded likely only by my love of hockey (of course my wife and kids come first for everything….). I played hockey for a very long time, until I couldn’t anymore, and now I spend a many a night listening and watching hockey, and spend a good part of the weekends coaching my son’s team. And, yes, I am a Leafs fan living in Ottawa, but that’s for another post on another day…

This year (via Twitter) a bunch of us kool-aid kids of Salesforce decided that we should start a hockey pool. Of course, this is typical for any Canadian hockey lover, but how would we manage it? There are tonnes of cheap alternatives, but then I got to thinking – why not use Salesforce? So, that is exactly what I did. And believe it or not, it really only took a night of planning and a half a day of configuration to get the base done. What did I do?

Created lead and account fields with each of the choices a person could make (we created a box pool, where you chose 18 skaters…15 forwards and 3 defencemen and 3 goaltenders)
Created a custom object called Players, which listed all the players, along with major stats (GP, G, A, Pts, W, L and GAA and Save Percentage….I should state I was a goalie so I like goalie stats!)
Created a custom object called Player Selections, which allow a team (placed in as an account) to be associated to their choices). Cross-object formula fields allow me to pull the information from each player to each team that chose them.
A bunch of reports and dashboards to let people know where they stand on any given day.
Chatter used as a conversation piece (or to trash talk the living hell out of anyone cheering for a team that is not Blue and White in colour! LOL)

So, why did I do this? Many MANY apps exist on the net to do this, officepools.com, Yahoo sports, and ESPN/TSN are just three that popped in my head. To be honest, I did it for a few reasons. One – I live in salesforce.com’s applications and actually love what I do. The idea of logging into a separate app in salesforce to update a hockey pool is not a bad idea for me – I’ve created little apps for my son to keep track of his beyblades, organize the hot lunch and milk programs at my kids’ school or manage a highland dance competition, so tracking a hockey pool wasn’t a far stretch. Second, I hope that when 14 free seconds of time come up sometime between now and June (when hockey ends) I could use this to play and learn a bit more about Apex triggers and Visualforce. Right now, that’s not happening (which is ok, as I manually update the stats every morning or second morning … I am a hockey fiend so the 15 minutes isn’t too bad), but I am hoping that soon I will be able to play more.

It’s been fun, and will keep you up to date with any progress – I’d like to add some triggers to automate score updating (right now I update all the scores, then use LexiLoader to update all the player selections to 0 so a formula runs), and start to create a VF page that is accessible online so people who are in the pool (and those just interested in seeing the ridiculousness of it all) have an easy place to go – right now we just log into the salesforce org, but it’d be great just to have an URL where you could quickly look at the dashboards, or how each team is doing! I think it’s a really cool showing of how CRM apps can help people out who really don’t have C’s (not your typical sales company) quickly and efficiently. You tell me though…

Everyone enjoy their weekend, and Go Leafs Go! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go add in Kessel’s points to the CloudPool!

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