My Salesforce Story - Zoë Jong
It’s the classic story: girl meets software, girl falls in love with software, girl makes a stronger career with software.
Eons and eons ago, back when dinosaurs roamed the world in 2010, I received admin access to an existing org. Like many Salesforce admins, I had zero experience with the tool and had been asked to improve some small scale business processes within the system. To say the org I got access to was a mess would be the understatement of the year: everyone was an admin, page layouts with every single field on them, all the out of box picklists with ad hoc additions from my many admins, and no automation, validation, or customization. My spidey senses were tingling. I had all the excitement and trepidation of a declutter specialist walking into an untidy house to clean up the space to be organized, functional, and clean.
Of course, eagerness is only the starting line of a functional system, and there was no way for me to access the full power of Salesforce on my own. My AE at the time was able to offer me a Dreamforce ticket at a discount, and soon I was in San Francisco drinking information about the platform through a firehose and dancing to MC Hammer. After that, I headed into the community and found answers to all my questions, ideas to upvote, blogs to help me find my way, and I joined the local meetup, learning new tips and tricks from other Salesforce admins right in Vancouver.
I’ve grown a huge amount in that time, and Salesforce has too. With each release I’m given more power to make a difference in my company, giving wasted time back, helping us repeat and measure our successes, and helping our people prioritize and forecast better. With the community’s help, I was able to accelerate my career and get certified, and so in 2016, when I was presented with an opportunity to give back to the community, I took it and started running the Vancouver Trailblazer community. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to give back to my national community with True North Dreamin the same way I have been able to give back to my local community. I’ve always wanted to bring a Dreamin event to Canada to bring that information and support the community has always given to me in a larger forum, and the community around me and my passionate and amazing co-organizers have provided me an opportunity to contribute to that dream coming true.
