#AwesomeAdmins, this is our time to shine.

Things are changing very quickly. The way we are doing business is changing literally by the day at this stage. I've been thinking about what to write about - a guide to working remotely, a list of favourite songs and tv shows, but as I thought about it more, and about how I've been able to change things at my company in just over a week, it finally came to me.

Awesome Admins everywhere, it is our time to shine. Even if you don't work remotely, and even if you don't have job functionality outside being a Salesforce Admin, you have the power to be to help your users and your company as we begin to navigate our "new normal".

Last year I was lucky enough to attend London's Calling and saw a presentation from the wonderful Lizz Hellinga about how Admin's are Critical Change Agents, and it really stuck with me. With the current climate, the time has come for us to step up.

I checked in with Lizz to hear how she's dealing with things at the moment, and here's what she shared - "Admins are at the heart of helping companies adjust as they understand the data structure and can pull data together quickly to help businesses act. I've had to work closely with end users to get data updated to meet the daily demand as the situation unfolds. I even had an open office hours for one client to help the end users update data for leadership."

As Admins, we're old hats at managing updates, new release features and new apps, and now is the time to transfer over that knowledge and to offer some guidance. For me, becoming an Admin has been so much more than a journey of learning how to utilise Salesforce for my company. It's come with many learning and collaborating opportunities that in turn have helped me shape this for my company.

Working in Financial Services, my users are generally late adopters, so when the time came for us all to work remotely, I was able to push through some implementations that I had been running pilot projects of. Programs like Zoom and Teams that might sound necessary, but the evolution of my use of both of them is from my use of Salesforce and the learning opportunities presented along the way.

But of course, aside from branching out, there's plenty of ways to help out from within the platform too - can you help create an app that helps your business adapt? or along the line of what Lizz said, can you stay on top of things from a reporting standpoint and help leaders better understand their constantly changing data? or my personal favourite, run an open office hours to help your users? 

Additionally, Salesforce is helping you make things a little easier on your users, by offering quip free until September. So Admins - now is the time to check in with your users and see if there are ways you can help them adapt to the change in the way we're doing business. We're all in this together, and now is your time to shine and use those skills that Lizz talked about in her presentation to offer guidance for your users even in a small way. 

Lizz and I at London's Calling 2019.

Bonus Community side project...

Being very involved in the Salesforce Community is something I'm quite proud of, and so when I saw someone post on social media about a fun little way to help my community, I decided to take it on for myself. A friend received a note in his mailbox asking him to join a facebook group of neighbours to help each other our in this weird time of need. I decided to do the same, and so hubby and I went around our neighbourhood last night putting notes in mailboxes, and the group is now successfully up and running! Turns out it's actually turned into a bit of a movement.

Stay safe out there!

PS tune into London's Calling today for some amazing virtual content!

Also check our Lizz Hellinga's company, Montage Learning.

Soundtrack

Night Begins to Shine - B.E.R.

(one of the greatest fake songs of all time)