16th Sep 2021 | Uncategorised
£100 for a ponytail?
That seems a lot and begs the question… to get one or to get rid of one?
Well, it turns out that my friends were of a divided opinion. I had offered my COVID ponytail as a way of raising money for Winston’s Wish. (If you still need to give, bit.ly/JDfirewalk)
Some refused to give because they love the ponytail.
However, one anonymous donor saw the giving hovering just above £300. They knew that the ponytail would go at £400.
So they donated £100.
The sad news is that the ponytail will be going in the week after the firewall.
Despite the anonymity of the donation, the hero could not contain himself, so I know who it was. #
I say ‘sad’, because not going to the barber’s has been a joy. On the other hand, as another friend said, ‘sorry about that John, but let’s be honest – we’ve done you a favour there’
So, as part of the intrepid firewalk I will be saying farewell to my ponytail.
If you were one of my friends who wanted to see me keep my ponytail… that milestone has been passed. I just ask that you give anyway 😉 bit.ly/JDfirewalk
If you are not my friend, but would like to give help to grieving children, you still know what to do. Be a hero(ine)!
#TeamWinston #WinstonsWish
2nd Sep 2021 | Business Ownership, Consultancy, Email, General Information, Salesforce
It is always a great joy to hear Amanda Beard-Neilson speak. Amanda is organizer of one of the best Salesforce conferences in London. OK, I think the best.
I have always found her an inspiration.
Here she is on project management – something she absolutely aces!
Amanda’s article
Did I mention that she also has a great sense of humour?
25th Aug 2021 | Charity, General Information
I have many clients who are charities.
I love working with charities as the world is a better place at the end of the day than it was at the beginning.
To that end, I am doing a bit of fund-raising for a charity.
I have chosen one which is not a client, as I didn’t want to pick a favourite among my lovely, lovely clients.
Here is the link to give through Just Giving.
https://bit.ly/JDfirewalk
A little about Winston’s Wish
I know what it is to lose someone as an adult. I cannot imagine what it is like to lose a parent while still a child.
To have the remaining parent coping on their own.
Perhaps the wage earner has gone.
The adults are valiantly trying to keep everything together.
The person I loved is gone.
I am lost.
I am bewildered.
Winston’s Wish are there to support children at this devastating time.
My firewalk is just to raise awareness… all the money will go to the to help the children they support.
If you can give any money, not only will you be holding my feet to the fire, you will also be supporting a blessed cause.
18th Aug 2021 | Uncategorised
Life used to be so easy in the old world (10 years ago). A client wanted you and they rang up. If you were not available, they went through to VoiceMail or got an engaged tone. If they emailed you, then you replied to them in a reasonable time. About the worst that happened was someone ringing on your mobile while you were on a landline call. All was good.
Now, you can be on a Zoom call and your phone rings… what do you do? Do you break the meeting to answer the call, or just let the call go through to VoiceMail? Answering while on the Zoom call just seems rude, unless it is super-important.
In a worse case scenario, you can have ‘live calls’ on telephone/FaceTime, WhatsApp, Zoom, Google Meetings, Video conference, Google Hangouts. At the same time, you can have messages coming in from SMS (text), WhatsApp, FaceTime messenger, Signal, Telegram, Slack, Chatter and email.
How do you keep track of all of those?
It is a challenge and I don’t think there is a simple solution.
For a start, so that our clients get their help requests dealt with in a reasonable time, we get people to email our special support email address. As our team expands, this allows other people to monitor this. An email sent to an individual can easily get lost.
Most of our ‘live calls’ are booked. In other words, if you want to speak with someone you have to book a timeslot. I don’t like the formality of this, as it detracts from the spontaneity of fixing a problem on the spot. However, it is frustrating for clients if we don’t answer the phone… but we cannot if we are simultaneously on a Zoom call.
Fortunately, we operate in a ‘distributed’ fashion… so you cannot hear other Zoom calls going on in our office. However, that is a big problem for many companies. While you are on a Zoom call, the person you are talking to can overhear other Zoom calls in your office. It is not just annoying, but could reveal sensitive information. Perhaps we will have to move away from open plan offices! (Hurray – biggest barrier to work that I know of.)
So our solution is: email in for help requests.
Book calls to avoid disappointment. We will still answer if we can!
By limiting things in this way, we hope to offer the best possible service. We are open to suggestions!
However, I am fed up with putting down one caller in order to answer another call and finding out it is another scammer!
But there is more…
To help improve our service, we will be rolling out a Salesforce Experience portal. This will enable our clients to log and track the progress of their support queries and projects.
Let us know about suggestions for improvements.
12th Aug 2021 | Event Bridge, Salesforce
How do you learn best?
There used to be a trope that some people were visual learners, some people learned best by hearing, some people learned best by reading, while others were kinaesthetic – they learned best by doing. While that seemed like a sensible set of categories, modern psychology has entirely debunked the theory!
It turns out that we all learn best from a mixture of learning styles.
So here are some resources…
It has long been known that Salesforce has an amazing set of resources available. They are called ‘Trailhead’. Even better they are free of charge for anyone. If you want to learn how to write a report, or train yourself up as a Systems Admin, all the resources are there. There are even ‘soft skills’ such as change management and the like.
https://trailhead.salesforce.com/
It really is great and you get (virtual) badges.
People are social – learn with others
Even with all these resources, the majority of people that I speak with do not get to use them. Why? Well, most people don’t like studying on their own. They like to do things together. They like to ask questions of an instructor.
It is for this reason that I started ‘Lunch and Learn’. It is a high-quality, 45 minute time for you to ‘sharpen the saw’. In other words get your skills up-to-date, so that you can get the things you need to do done more easily.
I have put a price on the training… £5. However, if you read this article you can get the September training for only £0. That’s right, for free!
Even better, the code to get the free tickets is easy to remember: salesforce
Just go to the Cloud Genius website: https://cloud-genius.com and on the booking form click ‘Enter promo code’ and use the code above.
See you then! Next course is on 16 Sept 2021.
