Adventures in Salesforcing.

Life has been crazy lately, so it has meant blog writing has fallen by the wayside a little bit. I've been doing a lot of soul searching and contemplating lately... and then on one particular day I was listening to an episode of the Salesforce Admin podcast , which featured an interview with Emma B-F on owning your role. This had been a particularly rough day, so when Bossed Up Bootcamp was mentioned, and I visited the website, I knew this was what I was looking for: As luck would have it, the next session was only 5 weeks away, and in Washington DC, so within a few days, I had everything booked. It was even more exciting when fellow WIT User Group leader and Salesforce sister, Leandria Streeter was announced as a speaker. DC is only 1 hour and 15 minutes of airtime from Toronto, so I could very easily hop on a plane after work the night before. So off I went - Appygail Bobcat and myself to the United States capital. One of my favourite things to do when I tr...

As luck would have it, this year's Galentine's Day is falling on WIT Wednesday, so I thought I'd take a brief moment to say thank you to all the awesome women in my life. Founded by the one and only Leslie Knope, Galentine's Day is about ladies celebrating ladies, and we all need a bit more Shine Theory in our lives! This past year and a half (ish) has provided me with opportunities to connect with so many amazing women, who have all inspired me in some form or another, so this is going to sound a little bit like a love letter, but if not on Galentine's Day, then when!? I know I'm the master of my own destiny, but I am grateful to each and every person that I've had an interaction with since the start of my Salesforce journey. To all the wonderful women, lovely ladies, fierce females and smashing sisters in my life - I'm thankful for each and every one of you. From the greater Ohana who lift me up every day, to the women in my WIT group, to the ama...

From Admin to Admin - Administration to Administrator. I'm going to post on this topic a few times going forward, as I'm a big advocate for those in Administration roles moving into the role of Salesforce Administrator - primarily because, that's my story. As some of you may already know, I was recently promoted to the role of "Technology and Project Manager", but to be honest, is it really a promotion if you're already doing the work anyway!? So while I've been thinking about what that title means, and how I've ended up here, I wanted to share part of my journey, and specifically the impact Salesforce has had on my career so far. Even though I am still part of the Administration team, since we started using Salesforce I've moved up in the ranks, beginning at "Executive Assistant & IT Coordinator" to when we implemented in late 2017, to just "IT Coordinator" once we were using it regularly in 2018, and now that I ha...

Throughout my Salesforce journey so far, I have met so many amazing Women in Technology pretty much every where I've been. When I first started dipping my toe in the water of the Ohana, I discovered the Two WIT podcast, and worked my way through their back catalogue over a few weeks. It was during this time that I added something to the long term goal section of my Salesforce notebook - "guest on the Two WIT podcast". It also happens that the next entry on my long term goals list was for "Ontario Dreamin", and this was a few months before I found out there were others with the same goal. Wonderful WIT, Misty Jones had told me I should get in contact with local Toronto MVP Geoff Flynn, and coincidentally we ended up with the same Trailblazer Community booth shift at Toronto World Tour last year. A few weeks later, I received an email from Sarah Deutsch Thornton saying that Geoff suggested she get in touch with me to talk about a Canadian Dreamin event. W...

So I'm going to be completely honest... I didn't do a whole lot over the holidays... but it was just what I needed! Even though I feel like I say this every, 2018 was a crazy year... and I was grateful for the week and a half to recharge.  I spent some time studying, and was considering sitting the Platform App Builder exam before the end of the year, but after chatting it through with my perpetually supportive husband, I decided to push it back to 2019. I'm not quite where I'd like to be for some of the topics, and why rush? I've been in the eco system for a but over a year, and I already have one cert.  Sometimes we have to make decide whether to push ourselves, or whether to recharge... and I chose to recharge... and I have absolutely no regrets.  I had my birthday and participated in a range of self care from getting a massage, to getting my nails done, as well as two Superhero movies and Thai food! So now it's officially 2019, a new da...

New York is less than an hour of airtime from Toronto, so I really should visit more often. New York world tour seemed like the perfect opportunity to scratch my travel itch, see some friends, and do some learning, so away I went! I met up with my roomie, Bhavana, and after lunch and a walk back to our hotel, we decided to go for a visit to the Empire State Building. There were surprisingly no lines, and we were up the top in only 10 minutes! It's quite a view from up there - we found the Salesforce tower of course. hello Salesforce tower! From there we headed downtown to Silverline CRM for the pre-world tour New York Community group meeting. As if this day weren't already so wonderful, I was greeted at the door with the biggest possible hug from Sandi Nuss Zellner - leader of the New York Administrators group. Sandi, Bhavana and I This right here - this is why I love the Salesforce community. Seeing by people from literally all over the world, and coming ...

I’m feeling a lot of love for Toronto right about now… so it’s fitting that this is the week I got my “YYZ ” tattoo the companion to my "SYD" tattoo (representing my two homes). Last night the Toronto trailblazer community events joined forces for a holiday party… and we ended up with double the number of attendees we were expecting! I honestly felt like I was going to cry! Let’s back it up a bit… I took over as leader of the Toronto Women in Tech group after being inspired by Bhavana Singh and Allison Park at TrailheaDX, but it wasn’t until I’d met some other amazing WIT leaders at WITness Sucess that I realized the Toronto Trailblazer Community had a long way to go. It was pointed out that Toronto is one biggest cities in North America, and the Admin and Develioer groups we were only getting around 30 perople max, per meeting. It was at WITness that I decided I was going to make it my mission to grow the commumity, as I have been fortunate to connect with the onlin...

So, as much as we may like to try and think otherwise, Dreamforce 2018 is officially over... but that doesn't mean that we can't relive the experience with one of the most exciting periods on the Salesforce Community calendar - Global Gathering season! I attending my first Global Gathering earlier in the year for TrailheaDX, which was hosted by the Toronto Developer Group. Not only did this happen to be my first time attending a User Group meeting it was my first time speaking too, as I delivered some of the content from TDX! But I digress. When I became leader of the Toronto Women In Tech group, I made it a point of connecting with all the other leaders of the various Toronto groups, and forming a network to support each other, so when Global Gatherings for Dreamforce were announced, we all banded together for the first every combined event! Our event was a combined effort of the Women in Tech, Administrator, B2C, Non-Profit and Developer groups, with the Algonqui...

Earlier in the year when I started my #AwesomeAdmin journey, I set some goals: My year 1 @salesforce goals as a new @salesforceadmns ! - listen to as many podcasts/webinars as possible ( @gilliankbruce @TwoWITpodcast ) 🎧 - get certified 👩🏻‍🏫 - hit @trailhead ranger status 👮🏻‍♀️ - get to @Dreamforce ! ☁️ — Zarina Varley Scott (Zaz) (@zazamataz) April 6, 2018 I certainly have been listening to as many podcasts and webinars as I can, I got certified on May 1, and I hit Ranger status on July 1. I'm happy to say that attending Dreamforce is the last thing off my list, and that it was this tweet that really helped me get there. The wonderful Admin Evangelist, Gillian Bruce, responded asking how she could help me achieve my goals, which lead to meeting other members of the Admin team for world tour in Toronto, which lead to the idea for Empower your Admin and Supercharge your Business. If you'd had told me when I sent out this tweet on April 6 that not onl...

Are you attending my session,  Empower your Admin and Supercharge your Business ? Welcome to this week's Adventures in Salesforcing, or rather, E Komo Mai! I've only been active in the community since Trailheadx in March, but that is in huge part thanks to Misty Jones and Monica Sandberg, who make it their mission to welcome new members to the Ohana, or as they like to say "E Komo Mai", which means "welcome" or "come on in" in Hawaiian. Misty and Monica have been performing welcoming duties since they joined the community in 2012 and 2011 respectively. When they attended their first Dreamforces, they knew no one and nothing about what they were getting themselves in to - it can be easy to feel alone amongst a sea of 170,000+ people when you're by yourself. Since then, they've set out to make sure that no one has to go through it alone. They both know the importance of being integrated into the Ohana as soon as you can as a means ...

For my first post-introduction post, it is only appropriate that it be about one of the most awesome weekend's I've had in a longtime - WITness Success . Held this year in Denver, WITness Success is a Salesforce Community event specifically curated for Women in Tech (and allies) by Women in Tech. The event is only in its second year, but came highly recommended to me by some fellow WITs at Trailheadx earlier in the year. As soon as I heard about it, I decided on the spot that I needed to attend. As luck would have it, I also won the raffle in the lead up to the event for early registrants, and was lucky enough to receive a room upgrade! Before the event even began, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with some wonderful people in the form of a Baseball game, Daydreamin at 5280, and a couple of group meals. If there's one thing I'm starting to learn, it's how important it is to socialise with the Salesforce Ohana, to share experiences and to learn ...

So I was on the train the other day, and it finally dawned on me that I should start blogging again... especially now that I have something I can wax lyrical on for hours. Who would have thought a former publicist would actually miss writing? I started thinking about what an adventure this is turning out to be... and so my natural progression was to one of my favourite 80s movies (even though I only watched it for the first time this year)... Adventures in Babysitting. I plan on being very active in the community, so I figured it might be good to document my journey along the way. So here's a little bit about me - born and raised in Sydney, Australia, I moved to Toronto, Canada in 2011. In 2017 my company decided to move CRMs over to Salesforce, and just like that I became an accidental admin. I'm the leader of the Toronto Women In Tech user group, a certified admin, a Trailhead Ranger and enjoy playing the trumpet and comic book culture when I'm not Salesforci...