This time on Salesforce Trails and Trials, hosts Jon Cline and Erik Yewell share their own on-the-job stories of one small thing that can cause big problems. Plus, the Google Translate app in action, a Father’s Day history lesson, and good ways to use downtime.
Jon Cline has been working in IT since 1998 and is a very curious person. Erik has been in IT for 23 years and done just about everything you can imagine. They share their wins and worse so you can learn with them.
Erik traveled to Mexico and learned the Google Translate app can easily translate signs and labels, making it a lot easier to make lunch at the Walmart deli counter. Meanwhile Jon learned about a proactive validation checker in Salesforce Flow. Jon also learned about the history of Oxnard and two Jewish brothers, Henry and Achille Levy, who supported agricultural businesses in the late 1800s.
For this episode’s one small thing that can have big consequences, Jon reflects on a lesson from early in his career when he took something off a boss’ desk to help a customer and unintentionally violated some boundaries. There are a lot of lessons to learn early in a career, and helping someone navigate that transition is important. Erik shares a lesson from his consulting career about giving a client the right answer vs. helping them understand how to get to the right answer. Helping someone through the difficult work of making a decision can be a lot more valuable than just offering the answer.
Bonus: What’s a Good Way to Use Downtime?
As people are going on vacation again and things slow down, what’s a way to maximize down time. You can know more than most people by simply reading Salesforce documentation and working through Trailhead. If you’re advanced, go earn a superbadge. You can make the most of that knowledge by joining some kind of social group, such as your local Salesforce user group.
Outside of Salesforce, go find a Toastmasters group and learn to be a better speaker.
Another approach is to use that downtime to be introspective about where you’re at. We’re so busy these days, it’s easy to confuse activity with progress. So have lunch with yourself or drive home with no radio, no podcast, no distraction and use that solo time to reflect.
Extras:
- Tools of the trade: A screen capture tool called OBS for presentations and broadcasting and Shift, a tool that allows you to log in to multiple services with different accounts and shift back and forth without logging in and out repeatedly.
- COVID-19: Despite the rise of the Delta variant, some things have returned to normal, and Erik is excited about reconnecting with people again and having “new content” for our lives, but also struggling as the obligations also return to normal.
- Accounting: A Curiosity Stream video about European history and how the invention of double entry accounting changed the world gave Jon the insights to inspire a college student majoring in accounting.