MVP Ninja Series

I work with companies across the UK providing expert advice and helping them get the best out of their Salesforce or AWS investment. I have also launched aforce.guru recently providing online Salesforce training, I’m also a Trustee of a charity theatre company Baseless Fabric Theatre (www.baselessfabric.co.uk). If you wanted a “role” I would say Technical Architect.

Having the same ideals to help and support the Salesforce Community. Being in a fantastic group of people that think the same way as you do but also that everyone comes to the table with their own expertise, so if I ever need help in (eg) Marketing Cloud I know MVP Chris Zullo is the Marketing Guru and is always there to give some advice. But also the MVP Summit has been really fun to get to meet all the MVPs from across the globe (I also did a video on the 2015 summit, because hey, why not!).

First off no-one can be a “Salesforce expert”. It doesn’t exist. Salesforce is too big to be an expert in the whole platform, Pardot, Marketing Cloud, IoT cloud etc etc… it’s impossible now. Things have shifted now where you are getting experts in particular areas of Salesforce and the Salesforce certifications are showing that.

I follow all the Salesforce MVP blogs. I love to read when posts come out by MVP Andrew Fawcett, I can say that he is the expert of developing on the Salesforce core platform and has just released his 2nd revision to his force.com architecture book!

I’m getting more involved in Serverless technologies recently and the AForce.guru platform runs on a totally serverless platform. I’m heading over to Austin, Texas for Serverless.conf a conference dedicated on Serverless technologies that I’m helping out at. With Salesforce moving their core platform onto AWS I think we’re going to be seeing some big shifts in the platform over the coming years and in the IT industry as a whole as things shift to this new Serverless world. Keeping ahead of technology changes is always a challenge but I have a constant need to learn new things 🙂

I grew up in theatre and a lot of my friends are involved in the film and theatre worlds. As I freelanced in IT it was easy for me to take a bit of time off to help out on film sets. So I would get last minute calls to come and help out. So I’ve been screamed at by Gordon Ramsey on a Walkers Crisps advert and been in  films including Love Actually, Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Life & Death of Peter sellers and a number of other TV films/dramas. Harry Potter was great fun! Just seeing the scale of set and how they managed 100s of people on set was quite incredible, and also got to meet a load of great people. I worked with the Second Unit doing visual effects, so (eg) when you see Harry getting the Marauders Map for the first time you see a shot of what looks like Fred Weasley handing him the map, but this shot was done by the Second Unit as it’s a waste of time for Daniel Radcliffe to do it as all you would see is his hands being handed the map. So this work would get handed off to the Second Unit and you see my hands instead. Also the First Unit shots where Dan may have got even slightly injured, broken fingernail etc 🙂 as having him off set even for a day could costs a lot of money!

I think it was my very first Dreamforce and my very first event. Some of the Salesforce Community had hired a caravan and were traveling across the US to Dreamforce arriving at about 7am the morning before Dreamforce it was called RoadToDF in 2011. So I was up to greet them as they arrived. This was the first time I’d physically met up with the Salesforce community, it really sticks in my mind.

Myself, Jodi, Simon & I think Kerry was there as well were sitting at a bar before Dreamforce ‘15 and we thought let’s make a one day event in London that the whole Salesforce community could come to and learn from each other. We wanted to learn the cool things that the gurus in the field were working on. We’ve run it twice now and we’ve sold out weeks before the event. You can learn more about how we setup the event here. I created a video from our first London’s Calling which gives you an idea of what we got up to 🙂

For next year … well that would be telling 🙂

I have always kept my creative and geek sides of me separate but in the last couple of years I’ve started to dabble in mixing the two. But my views have changed over the years and I’ve come to realise how not being creative can impact you in being a great developer.

Last year for the theatre company I created some mobile apps for a show which lip-synced recorded audio to actors speaking (quite an undertaking!) but good fun (find out more: http://www.baselessfabric.co.uk/previous-productions/a-secret-life/). I’ve also started in doing more creative Salesforce videos on my YouTube Channel, the latest one was interviewing Mike Rosenbaum (in charge of Sales, Service & Lightning at Salesforce!).. Ok still salesforcey 🙂

I’m a trained/certified Snowboard Instructor (jumped out of helicopters at the top of mountains in the middle of nowhere). I was one of a group of us that were nominated for a BAFTA for our work on (http://www.madeinme.com/the-land-of-me/). I’m a Advanced PADI Open Water scuba diver.

I lived in New Zealand for 2 years. Co-Organiser of the Developer, Admin & Business user groups in London. Also if you want a 20% discount on my online Salesforce Certified Administrator eLearning course. Only $40, for a limited time only!

Don’t forget to check my Youtube Channel