Oh, Salesforce Ohana! What an accomplishment – there are over 1,000 Trailblazer Community Groups! Let’s celebrate with a look back at what the Community has meant to this Accidental.
How Did I Get Started in the Community Groups?
Kristi – Trailblazer since 2012
Trailblazer Community Groups: Pittsburgh Non-Profit (co-leader & co-founder), Women in Tech (co-leader), Pittsburgh Administrators, Pittsburgh Developer (just occassionally though), and few unofficial Trailblazer groups like RAD women and Amplify.
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When I first started my Salesforce journey, it was the definition of accidental. We were going to use Salesforce come hell or high water. And that’s pretty much what happened. I became the Salesforce lead days before we went live when my co-worker was accepted another job. I had been involved, but not nearly enough in the entire project. I was only available in one area and suddenly was onboarding our who organization. I was pretty close to alone in this process. We had a consulting company “helping us” and we’ll leave it at that. We were also working with a couple of other non-profits to make a go of it but we were all in the same place of being newbies. There was no Trailhead yet so everything I learned, I learned by doing it wrong first, finding it on Google, or, rarely, lucking into a valid solution. I found a developer group on Meetup but it didn’t seem to meet much. So I continued to go it alone.
Until one fateful night when there the Salesforcce Foundation (yup… Foundation not .org) had an event. It was a turning point. Even though Tom and I had worked together indirectly for a few years through our respective non-profits, this was the night when the stars aligned. We left that evening with plans to start Pittsburgh’s non-profit user group. That was 2015. The group has grown and helped many new admins through through their first months of the journey; helped a few admins avoid those same mistakes we had both made; helped numerous accidentals grow their careers; and enjoyed a few drinks together. Here’s to the journey from accidental to Trailblazer. And here’s to 1000 community groups around the world helping others on their path to Trailblazer!
How to Get Involved
The easy part is finding the groups that you identify with and committing to going to an event. You can do that in just a few clicks at https://trailblazercommunitygroups.com/. After that, it’s on you to show up and enjoy. So get out there, Ohana, and be part of something bigger. You won’t be disappointed.