IT work can be isolating, and the growing work-from-home movement hinders collaboration even more. Salesforce and other technology platform user groups offer community, collaboration, and ideation for professionals and enthusiasts alike.
Like minds needing connection breed user group communities
As your career advances along niche trajectories like Salesforce administration or architecture, your hyper-specialized skillset tends to dilute your colleague pool. There may not be many professionals who can relate to alleviating that specifically problematic line of code or who can converse about new cloud architecture ideas. Thankfully, there are user groups.
"User groups allow technical professionals to share deficiencies, pro tips, and revolutionary ideas with one another in a setting of like-minded individuals," says Liana Trigg, Peergenics Salesforce Sales Director.
One of the largest user group bases in the world is that of Salesforce, the world’s number-one customer relationship management (CRM) platform. With the Salesforce World Tour scheduled for December 8th in New York City’s Javits Center, there’s no better time to get involved in a Salesforce ecosystem. Before we get into the benefits of joining a Salesforce user group, let’s get a clear definition of what a user group is.
What is a user group?
The concept of a user group in the field of technology dates back to the 1950s when early tech professionals established communities comprised of computer mainframe visionaries. IT professionals and enthusiasts gathered to share strategies, network within their field, determine best practices, share common issues, and more. And thus, the IT user group was born to advance technology and the careers of those pushing it by building community.
Who runs Salesforce user groups?
Salesforce offers its “Trailhead” service for the “Salesforce Trailblazers Community” to connect with one of 1,300 groups across 90 countries coordinated and run by Salesforce volunteers for users and professionals. User groups also consist of marketers, embedded analytics developers, and any other community of Salesforce professionals you can think of. These groups employ various levels of moderation by Salesforce employees depending on how leadership-driven or collective-driven a group elects to be.
The benefits of joining a Salesforce user group
We’ve already noted the primary benefit of joining a Salesforce user group in that it mitigates isolation amongst Salesforce professionals. Here are just a few of many other benefits of attending a Salesforce user group.
Networking opportunities – The commonality of a Salesforce user group is that attendees and administrators are enthusiastic about Salesforce in some way, shape, or form. After that, the group becomes eclectic often including a wide range of experience levels, functionalities, feature usages, and more. Seasoned Salesforce alumni can coach and mentor younger enthusiasts while neophytes can connect with Salesforce experts to broaden their career horizons.
Understand and workshop common difficulties – Odds are that many developers will come across the same problem when configuring Salesforce’s High Velocity Sales package or that many accounting professionals have the same issues interpreting dashboards in Salesforce’s Tableau Services for finances. Salesforce user groups spark conversation and problem-solving among professionals experiencing the same issues that lead to usage breakthroughs.
Users pave invaluable pathways to better CX for Salesforce services – Salesforce can collate the opinions and critiques of group attendees to understand what products are thriving and which fall short. These pseudo-test groups give valuable insight into how Salesforce can tweak its products to improve functionalities for all.
The flexibility of attendance – While there are some user groups that meet strictly in person, like the Bristol, UK FxFW group who meet up at their local pub, flexibility to join most of these groups remotely allows users not located in a group’s geography or to whom Covid poses a greater risk to get in on the action virtually.
An ecosystem for expansion
The growth of Salesforce user groups over the years has eliminated hurdles to entry for enthusiasts and professionals of all levels. The diverse, inclusive communities promote groups of all shapes and sizes. It’s essential to note how impactful Salesforce Women in Tech (WIT) user groups have been in empowering women to develop and flourish in the Salesforce ecosystem. From administrators to database engineers, Salesforce user groups offer troubleshooting and training for all among other benefits to those willing to take the leap.
Partner with Peergenics to meet all your Salesforce needs
From Salesforce implementation and configuration to expert sourcing and staffing, the Salesforce gurus at Peergenics have the skills and experience to maximize the capabilities of your Salesforce products and staff. Peergenics is a proud Ridge Partner (Silver Status) of Salesforce and continually provides its clients with the best new offerings on the market. Connect with Peergenics today to streamline your Salesforce operations!
