Vipul Goel - Ohanachai of Salesforce community from New Delhi

This blog is part of a blog series to highlight Salesforce Community Champion, from user group leaders, developer group leaders, and members from around the world #Ohana

In this blog, I would like to introduce one of the community champion from New Delhi - India, he is active in Noida Developer Group, Chandigarh Developer Group, and India Dreamin '17. also heading Ohanachai a virtual coffee session with Amy Oplinger.

Hello Vipul, tell me about yourself, which Salesforce group you lead, and how many co-leaders in your Developer Group?
I'm associated with Salesforce for more than 4 years now. I'm Senior associate now & holding 2 certifications, much more lined up this year. I'm also leading Salesforce Chandigarh Developer Group with Paarth Jolly & Madan Khichi as well as a helping hand to Salesforce Indian Community driven event "INDIA DREAMIN" and Moreover, I'm collaborating with Amy Oplinger to have virtual coffee sessions with Salesforce Ohana Family.

I was the most de-motivated & discourages person and never thought about my career to follow this #salesforce route with a big success.


Share us your journey and growth with Salesforce Chandigarh Salesforce Developer Group?
Still, I remember the day when I attended the first Salesforce Noida Developer Group Meetup with Zachary Jeans in June 2016. I was new to this Salesforce Community and got the guidance from Vinay Chaturvedi, Madan Khichi, and Atul Gupta. Due to this Salesforce Ohana family collaboration, now our group has been grown up to more than 200 members. 

Then I have a lot of key discussions with Madan Khichi about the handling, responsibilities of Developer Group.

Responsibilities of handling Salesforce Developer Group:
1. It's a tough job to manage all the things simultaneously.
2. Events, Salesforce Success community collaboration, Handling all the Developers & admins to collaborate with each other, knowledge sharing sessions, Salesforce awareness.
3. It looks very simple from outside but behind the scene, there are many things we need to manage.


What do you love being a group leader?
I love people motivating, inspiring and discussing the Salesforce new features which kick off me to work hard myself for the new features and spread over to the community.

NOTE: Sharing is caring, so giving back to the community.


Tell us one thing you want to share with Salesforce community.
Moreover, today I want to discuss the career growth of students who are involved in Salesforce, and who are keen to know about Salesforce.

Whosoever wants to think about their career in Salesforce, It's better to do certification of their own before getting into the job.
Because this helps you in getting the job little easier because you should be knowing the Salesforce infrastructure before getting to the Salesforce career.

Mainly in India with a lot of population and software engineers, people find it difficult to get into the job. It's just a way around so that they can give a try to get the job this way and build their career.  

All credit goes to my brother who helps me in every way. Moreover, I've surprise for Salesforce Community that I do have a TWIN brother "Vineet Goel" and he loves blogging about Salesforce: https://vineetgoelcloudblog.wordpress.com/

Simplysfdc comment: Thanks Vipul for sharing your Salesforce journey with us, good to see your career, skill, and leadership growth for Salesforce community and ecosystem.  

Amit Chaudhary - Farmington Hills (Michigan) Salesforce Developer Group

This blog is part of a blog series to highlight Salesforce Community Champion, from user group leaders, developer group leaders, and members from around the world #Ohana

Introducing Amit Chaudhary, he is a regular blogger, active in Salesforce developer forum, and the leader for Salesforce Farmington Hills - Michigan  Developer Group leader.

Hello Amit, tell us something about yourself? Which Developer Group you lead, and how many co-leaders in your group? are you the group founder?
My name is Amit Chaudhary and I am working as Salesforce Developer in IBM. I am active on Developer Forum from a couple of years with more than 35K points, and I am a regular blogger at http://amitsalesforce.blogspot.com. 

I have created a free product, "Code Coverage Report" which is available for free download at AppExchange.

Currently, I am running "Farmington Hills Salesforce Developer group" alone. I started this group with Brad but after our first meetup he moved to New York. 


How do you become Developer Group leader?
I have shifted from India to the US in July 2016. Then I found we have a new developer group here in Farmington Hills and they we were looking for there first Meetup. I joined the group as co-organizer and help them for first Meetup.


How long have been your Developer Group established?
We are going to complete 1 year in this August 2017.


How often your group meetup?
Once in a month. We are also doing "Salesforce Apex Hours" online event where anyone can join us online.


How big is your user group member, and the number of members attend for the meetup in average?
Currently, we are more than 388 members. As we are also doing online event "Salesforce Apex Hours". In online event average, 100+ person is joining us from all over the world.


What have you learned as a group leader?
I have learned how to plan and promote events and Lots of learning involved, organizing skills, managing skills or public speaking skills. And Most Important is giving back to the community


What do you love being Developer Group leader?
Knowledge sharing, fun activities, and networking


What do the challenges become Developer Group leader and how to overcome it?
As I told, I joined the group just after coming to the US. So I struggle a lot to find a place for meetup (new country, unknown place and without any vehicle). Initially, we did some meetup in Starbucks, I used to walk 3-4 miles to reach Starbucks.


What do you think the "uniqueness" about your Developer Group compare to others?
We are doing "Salesforce Apex Hours" online event, so anyone can join us online all over the world.


One last thing you would like to share with the community
I love getting to talk to the #Ohana and help others, and I will recommend everyone to join your local user group or developer group for Networking and Learning with Fun.

1. Networking: it's a great opportunity to meet other professionals in the same field and share ideas. 
2. Learning: presentations are always informative.
3. Fun: enjoy the meetup fun activity as well :) 

Simplysfdc comment: thanks for sharing Farmington Hills (Michigan) Salesforce Developer Group. I spot the photos taken from Starbucks, and love to see group meetup anywhere, that's #Ohana spirit.

Madan Khichi - Salesforce Bengaluru Developer Group

This blog is part of a blog series to highlight Salesforce Community Champion, from user group leaders, developer group leaders, and members from around the world #Ohana

From the biggest Salesforce User Group / Developer Group, I would like to introduce Madan Khichi - Salesforce Bengaluru Developer Group leaders.

Tell us about yourself, which Developer Groups you lead?
I have associated with Salesforce 5 years back. Currently, I am a Sr. Salesforce Consultant and holding 4 certifications.

I am leading:
- Bengaluru Salesforce Developer Group with Abhilash Kuntar
- Bangalore Student Salesforce Developer Group with Kishore BT 
- Chandigarh Salesforce Developer Group with Paarth Jolly and Vipul Goel
- Coimbatore Salesforce Developer Group with Sujesh Ramachandran

I am working very closely with Bengaluru Salesforce Developer Group. So, Today, I want to discuss Bengaluru Group.


Would you like to share the journey with Salesforce and User Group? and what made you would like to lead the group? 
I remember the days when I was searching the job and one of my friends told me about Salesforce meetups. First time I have attained meetup, was on October 21, 2012 and from that, I got depth knowledge of Salesforce.

One day I was discussing with my friend Anurag Malpani to be a part of developer group, by looking my interest he made me the Co-Leader of Bengaluru group and I announced my first meetup on Oct 11, 2014.


How often you plan for group meetup?
We planned to announce meetups in the interval of 2 months but looking at the interested of people till date we have announced 22 meetups in 34 months.


How long have been your group established?
Around 7 years (May 3, 2010).


How big is your user group member, meaning the number of members attend for the meetup?
This is the “World Biggest Group” with 3318 members. Every meetup we are crossing the150 attendees.


What have you learned as group leader?
There are lot more things which I have learned while leading developer group such as:
- Taking the responsibility
- Coordinating with the leaders and attendees
- Management skills and knowledge


What do you love being a group leader?
It’s lot more fun to share my experience and knowledge with others and get connected with new people.


What do the challenges as a group leader and how to overcome it?
Challenges:
As the meetups are very frequent, it’s hard to arrange speakers and relevant topics. The arrangement of place as sometimes the count of attendees are more than from expectation.

Solution:
We have prepared a Google sheet, which is attached to our meetup page. Whom so ever is interested, can fill their information with the topic. For high level meetups companies are coming to sponsor.


What do you think the "uniqueness" about your Developer Group compare to others?
We are in “India's silicon valley”, where we can get a diverse audience like dev’s, admin, consultant, and customers also.



Share us tips that make your Developer Group success
We are pushing Bengaluru Salesforce Ohana to came and present/share their knowledge.


What would like to see your groups in the future? 
Planning for a big event where thousands of people can attend and take the knowledge from speaker’s.


One last thing you would like to share with the community
It’s a great platform where everyone can share their knowledge and ideas. Salesforce Ohana is always there to give hands for the growth and always appreciate the efforts which we are putting. 

Simplysfdc comment: I am very impressed with your dedication to the community. Is being a Developer Group leader your hobby? All the best with Bengaluru Calling and hope it makes a great impact and benefits for the community!!

Andy Lengyel, Ema Ariciu, Anca Gusetoiu - Bucharest Salesforce Developers Group

This blog is part of a blog series to highlight Salesforce Community Champion, from user group leaders, developer group leaders, and members from around the world #Ohana

From Bucharest, Romania, I would like to introduce Andy Lengyel - Bucharest Salesforce Developers Group leaders.

Andy Lengyel: first of all, I want to introduce Ema Ariciu and Anca Gusetoiu, my the co-leaders of Bucharest Salesforce Developers Group. Both Ema and Anca prepared this.

Ema Ariciu

Anca Gusetoiu

Q: Tell us about yourself, which Developer Group you lead, and how many co-leaders in your Developers Group?
A: My name is Ema Ariciu, Salesforce.com consultant and together with my friend and former colleague, Anca Gusetoiu, we are co-organizers of the Bucharest Salesforce Developers Group. 

However, this is an open group and each member contributes to its growth and development. We currently have a few senior members (among them, Andy Lengyel) who help us shape the following meetups, in order to increase collaboration and facilitate knowledge sharing. 

The idea behind creating this group was a natural step for us, because of the need to have a community of Salesforce enthusiasts who can share knowledge and ideas in a friendly environment. Therefore, because this Salesforce community was not present in Bucharest in an organized way, we decided to build it.


Q: How often you plan for group meetup?
A: We plan our meetups monthly.


Q: How long have been your group established?
A: We founded the Bucharest Salesforce Developers Group in October 2016, immediately after our return from Dreamforce. We met a lot of people there who were part of similar communities and we learned about this Salesforce program. We had our first meetup in November.


Q: How big is your user group member, and the average of attendee for the meetup?
A: The meetup group holds 108 members. However, the attendance per meetup is at 15-20 people. Usually, there are about 5 people who attend all meetups, while the others “rotate”.


Q: What have you learned as group leader?
A: They key takeaway of the first meet-up was that, as leaders of the group, we will have to be more than the people who started the “conversation”. 
We will have to keep that “conversation” live, listen to the group’s interests and do our best to address them. It is challenging to get people to initiate a discussion, but once the right discussion starts, everyone is open to share their experience, ask questions and provide answers. 
Finding the right speakers and the right topics is key to keep a group like this engaged.


Q: What do you love being Developer Group leader?
A: We want to facilitate people’s access to information, to knowledge, to other people with common interests and we love to see them responding to that. We are still small, but for sure this will grow, because the people who joined the group are people who want to make a difference and who are open to share and connect.


Q: What do the challenges become DG leader and how to overcome it?
A: The greatest challenges we are facing, as organizers, is to find a diverse range of speakers to present during these meetups. We are yet at the beginning, so we are still trying to find the best format, so we can already see that things are progressing, but it is sometimes difficult to convince people (especially developers) to present. 

As I said, we can already see progress and more people open to sharing their personal experience, but there is still some work to do on this part.

As a way to overcome this challenge, we are constantly communicating with the group (mostly using social media) so we can get their insights on what they would like to learn about in the following sessions, what they would like to focus on in the context of this community, and then find the right people to present on that topic. We found that in some cases people are afraid they are not experienced enough to share their knowledge, but when they learn the group’s requirements, they realize they can shed light on that subject.


Q: What do you think the "uniqueness" about your DG compare to others?
A: I don’t know if this qualifies as “uniqueness”, but for sure I would highlight the fact that we are a very young community (young in terms of Salesforce experience), with people who are enthusiastic about Salesforce.com and are all connected by the desire to grow (both from a personal perspective, and from a community perspective).


Q: Share us tips that make your DG success
A: We keep the conversation always open - whatever topic, whatever the experience, anyone can share their input and will be listened to - and we shape the meetings based on the member's’ feedback. 

Also, we try to keep the group engaged through communication via social media (LinkedIn and Facebook). After we noticed Meetup does not offer the right framework to reach the members at the right time, we added Facebook into the mix (based on one of the member’s suggestion), which allows us to communicate at the right time, to all people and ensure the message is received. 

It also helped us increase the contribution of the members, as they are all added as Group admins and can invite more and more people to join.


Q: What would like to see your group in the future? 
A: First of all, we would like to see the group getting mature and expanding - to have the current members get more involved and to raise the awareness and attract new members. Moreover, we would like to diversify the information shared and increase the engagement.  

Also, following a recent brainstorming session with some of the senior members of the group about how to attract also the younger generations (students in Romania are not familiar or exposed usually to Salesforce), we are thinking about reaching out to students that can become interested in developing Salesforce skills in the future.


Q: One last thing you would like to share with the community
A: Some of us were working together before this community was created, some of us have never met each other before. This is why it is great that we have this opportunity to learn and grow together. It is a great feeling to meet people that you have a lot to learn from and it is also a great feeling to be able to give back. 

We could summarize our group with the famous Humphrey Bogart quote “this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”.

Simplysfdc comment: great story Andy, Ema and Anca. Indeed, I love the quote this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, that's #Ohana.

Daniel Peter - Bay Area Salesforce Developer Group

This blog is part of a blog series to highlight Salesforce Community Champion, from user group leaders, developer group leaders, and members from around the world #Ohana

From San Francisco Bay Area, Daniel Peter - Salesforce MVP, and Bay Area Salesforce Developer Group leader would like to share with us how Salesforce Developer Group in Bay Area is doing!

Hi Dan, tell me about yourself, which Developer Group you lead, and are they any co-leaders in your group?

My Name is Daniel Peter. I’m a Salesforce MVP with 22 Salesforce Certifications. I’m a Lead Applications Engineer at Kenandy. 

Currently, I’m running Bay Area Salesforce Developer Group group solo, with the help of amazing Salesforce people like April Nassi, Jessica Langston, Regina Walton, and Mallory Leggere.


How do you become Developer Group leader? would you share your journey when starting your the group?? 
I started the North Bay DG in Sonoma County, CA in 2013 since I was living in Sebastopol at the time. This was a really cool group with some interesting industries (like the wine industry) that use Salesforce. I passed the torch on this group to Jason Curtis when I moved closer to San Francisco in 2014.  

In 2015 the Bay Area Salesforce Developer Group in San Francisco was in need of a new leadership.  David Schach was running the group at the time, and he took a job at Salesforce, so he could no longer run the group. This has happened more than once with that group!

Shannon Hale and I both heard about the group needing new leadership, so we took it on as co-leaders. I really loved this group and would drive an hour to attend sometimes before I was living in the area, so I was excited to contribute to it.  Eventually, Shannon had to step down as her company had her traveling out of the Bay Area quite a bit.


How often your group meetup?

The last Wednesday of each month.

How long have been your group established?
I believe this was the first DG ever established, and I think it predates the formal DG program as we know it now.  It goes back to 2010 on meetup.com. The early meetups were held at the Salesforce office in San Mateo. This even meetup traveled around to other locations like New York and San Jose because it was the only meetup at the time.  


How big is your user group member, and how many members attended the meetup in average?
There are 2,774 members of the group.  A typical meetup will get 75-300 RSVPs and about 50% of the RSVPs actually show up.  Since it is a free event, there is a high drop-off rate. Fortunately, we plan for this, so we typically end up with a full house.

In a nutshell, we get about 100 showing up.  Here is a graph our growth over time.  The blue arrow is when Shannon and I rebooted the group:




What have you learned as a group leader?
I’ve learned that our group members are incredibly talented, and I love having them present topics. It always amazes me. I have learned how to plan and promote events. I have improved my public speaking skills. I have learned that there is tremendous value in getting developers together “just to hang out”. You never know what conversations will flow.


What do you love being a group leader?
I love the networking it brings. I have met so many people leading the Bay Area Salesforce Developer Group. I love being able to create something that gives value to others. When they thank me for a successful meetup, it feels great to have been a part of it!


What do the challenges become a group leader and how to overcome it?
It is always a challenge coordinating everything. I’m a developer, not an event planner! Getting the speakers and the dates to line up, and having enough lead time to promote is always a challenge.
The best way to overcome this is to brainstorm with others for ideas well in advance and try to get a big roadmap built out, even if it is rough.


Tell us what is unique about your group

We are located at Salesforce HQ!  This means we have easy access to many Salesforce employees as guest speakers. This makes for great content.  We are also the oldest, and one of the largest groups. However many other groups have grown to be our size now, so size is no longer that unique.

Share us tips that make your group success
We follow a pretty regular formula, that seems to work great: 
30 mins of networking, with food and drink, 15 mins announcements/news/jobs, 90 mins of content. Networking and taper off at the end. And of course, some short breaks sprinkled in for grabbing a drink or hitting the restroom.  

In addition, you need to strike a balance between surveying the group for topics, but also pushing them topics they might not have thought of.  Some of the best topics are ones you didn’t realize you wanted to know until you heard about them.


What would like to see your group in the future? 
I think once a year or so it is nice to tackle a social issue or soft skills area instead of just talking code every time. Last month we had a Women in Tech meetup which brought a huge number of new women attendees into the group. Coding is important, but it’s not the only topic important to Salesforce Developers.

I’m looking forward to doing something like this in the future. Also, it would be super cool if we could have a meetup at the top of the Salesforce Tower on the Ohana floor in the future!



One last thing you would like to share with the community
Follow us on Twitter: @ForceDevMeetup
Subscribe to our youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/BayAreaSalesforceDeveloperGroup 


...and if you are ever in the San Francisco around month end, stop on by.  You can even be a guest speaker!



















Simplysfdc comment: Thanks Daniel for sharing Bay Area Salesforce Developer Group, that's awesome to be in the same city with the HQ !!

Rajiv Bhatt - Ahmedabad Salesforce Developer Group

This is a blog series to highlight Salesforce Community Champion, from user group leaders, developer group leaders, and members of the community from around the world #Ohana

This blog will share about Ahmedabad Salesforce Developer Group - Rajiv Bhatt. Rajiv is Technical Architect at the world Leader in Quote-to-Cash - APTTUS.

Tell us about yourself, which Salesforce Developer Group you lead, and how many co-leaders in your group?
I am currently working as a Technical Architect at APTTUS, and I co-lead the Ahmedabad Salesforce Developer Group along with two other co-leaders - Gaurang Bhatt and Anil Yadav.


But, I also heard that you also build Chrome extensions related to Salesforce, would you like to share a bit?
Record and Metadata Comparator: This extension lets you compare Record data values and object metadata in Salesforce and compare the differences in just four clicks! Get it from here
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/record-and-metadata-compa/laghgcpekjofijkmojnhfeiplbffaljp?hl=en

SOQL Extractor: Extract SOQL queries with their execution counts from Debug Logs of Salesforce. Helps you analyze the 'Too Many SOQLs' error. For installation instructions, users should check the instructions under "Support" tab. Get it from here
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/soql-extractor-and-analyz/deihalhihjdilndoidoclmhmgllebkfj


Can you share how do you become group co-leader? and what make you interested in accepting the role as the group co-leader? 
Last year few college students reached out to me as they were curious to know more about Salesforce and they had no idea where to get started. Trailhead came to rescue but they had a lot of follow-up questions. Around the same time, I came to know about #SalesforceSaturday from Atul Gupta. It was just a perfect click. 

A lot of my peers and Salesforce devs from other organizations agreed to volunteer and we planned to meetup every Saturday and do trailhead modules together. We wanted to reach out to as many people as we could so we created a meetup group and started sharing information on social media. These #SalesforceSaturday sessions were not just for students but for anyone who wanted to get started with their career on Salesforce or wanted to learn more about Salesforce. 

Our first meetup was in April '16 and then we did around 10 #SalesforceSaturday sessions until August'16 to complete the Admin trail. The group went on to have 500+ members however the sessions came to a halt as colleges started again and the students could no longer make it coz of their exam and other busy schedules. 

Thanks to Kiran and Gaurang for recognizing our community efforts around the same time and they appointed me as one of the co-organizers for Ahmedabad DG to take the community ahead. 

Unfortunately I was on back to back business trips after that so I could actually start contributing to community efforts only since Jan '17. 

Btw, I am now looking forward to collaborating with student leaders from different colleges who can be the co-organizer of that group and make it an official "Student Salesforce Developer group". We can provide them the required guidance and mentor-ship and this way they also get to inculcate leadership and other skills during the course of their education. It would be a win-win for everyone!


How often your group meetup?
We try to meet up once or twice in a quarter. 


When is the Ahmedabad Salesforce Developer Group established?
 It was founded in September 2012 though I got involved and started contributing only since last 6 months.


How big is your user group member, and the number of members attend the meetup?
The user group is around 450 members of which at least 100 are active. We usually have around 30-50 people attending the meetups. 


What have you learned as group co-leader?
There is definitely lots of learning involved, be it organizing skills, managing skills or people skills. Through these meetups I learned that there is nothing more fulfilling then giving back to the community.


What do you love being group leaders?
The best part is getting to interact with everyone in the community and a platform to give back to the community. It offers excellent networking opportunity as group leaders are the hub connected to different spokes. We help people by connecting them with each other. 

Like few months ago few students reached out to us when they needed guidance for their final year project. We called out for few volunteers who would be interested to help them. Initially few volunteers helped them and after they got busy I took up the challenge and guided them through the entire phase. It gives a tremendous sense of achievement when we heard back that because of this project and their hands-on experience they managed to crack an interview and got a job even before their results are out. 


What do the challenges become a group leader and how to overcome it?
The biggest challenge is to get more active participation from the community to attend the meetups. We are trying our best to get good speakers with relevant content so that more people attend meetup and understand the value of attending these meetups. 

We have also planned to invite MVPs and other DUG leaders to our meetups so that they could share their experiences and motivate others. 


Tell us what is unique about your group
We have a very diverse audience - admins (aspiring to be devs), devs, entrepreneurs having industry experience of 1-10+ yrs.


Share us tips that make your group success?
We give equal opportunity to everyone to present at the meetup. Many people want to present but have no idea about the topics and need some guidance to get started. 

With little push and guidance, we try to encourage new speakers to present at the meetup. This is an excellent platform to develop personal/professional skills and everyone should get to leverage and experience it. 


What would like to see your group in the future?
Of course, growth in terms of participation in meetup group. We would also like to see more people stepping up to present at the meetups. We have plans to kickoff new batches of #SalesforceSaturday, trailheadathon or if possible even a hackathon.


One last thing you would like to share with the community
Don't wait, just get started! Many people wait to take initiatives i.e. they want to do things only after they get officially appointed as DG leader or MVP. I would say if you really want to contribute back to the community then never wait for anything. Just start contributing in a way you want and things will fall in place. #SalesforceOhana is always there to support you.

Simplysfdc comment: that is awesome to see the students in Ahmedabad are so enthusiast in learning Salesforce and how awesome Trailhead for this. I see you guys doing a very good for the community with #SalesforceSaturday, thanks again for sharing!


Good to see you in Apttus, it is a big name and great product in Salesforce ecosystem, and Apttus just sponsor our last Singapore meetup with a great speaker.

Salesforce Community Champion map, who next? Find out here...

Douglas Ayers - Salesforce Nashville Developer Group

This blog is part of a blog series to highlight Salesforce Community Champion, from user group leaders, developer group leaders, and members from around the world.


In this blog, I would like to introduce another awesome leader from Nashville, Tennessee - Douglas Ayers is Salesforce Nashville Developer Group co-leaders, and also Salesforce MVP. 

Doug, tell us about yourself, which Developer Group you lead, and any other co-leaders in your group?
Funny story, my first encounter with Salesforce was my first job out of college in 2007. Ironically, my first project was to migrate the company from Salesforce to an in-house CRM our team was building. Fast forward 5 years to 2012 and the IT regime had shifted and I then was leading the migration from in-house applications back to Force.com and “the cloud”. Since 2012, I’ve focused my career heavily on the capabilities and agility of the platform and have personally grown from being an Administrator to Developer to Architect and MVP.

I began leading the Nashville Developer Group in 2015. There are 2 co-leaders with me, Mark Morrison and Chris Kelley.


Sidetrack a bit, I heard that you recently develop open source projects related to Lightning, would you like to share what is that?
Thanks for thinking of my conversion project! Yes, to help customers migrate to Lightning Experience and adopt the new Files and Notes related lists I've developed two open-source projects aptly named "Convert Attachments to Files" and "Convert Notes to Enhanced Notes". 

I also provide managed packages for each project too for easier install, or developers can install the source code directly from GitHub if they wish to customize the conversion logic. 

The projects have received high praise from Salesforce Product Managers including Arnab Bose, Henry Liu, and Cari Aves; as well as other customers. I'm very honored that the projects are being talked about at the Lightning Now! tours and user groups around the world.


How do you become Developer Group leader? What made you interested in accepting the role as Developer Group leader? 
I had been attending the group since 2014 and at the time they were hosted quarterly by a local Salesforce partner, Virsys12. In 2015, I joined Virsys12 and, having really enjoyed the meetups and got a lot of value out of them, offered to take on responsibility for organizing the group and move to a monthly cadence. A year later I joined another Salesforce partner, GearsCRM, and continued to organize the monthly meetups as I do today.


How often your group meetup?
We meet every month and alternate between Admin-focused content one month then Developer-focused content next month.


How long have been your group established?
I think the group has been around about 4 years and I’ve been involved with it for the past 2 years.


How big is your user group member, and in average how many members attend for the meetup?
We average 10-15 attendees each meetup but the group overall has about 30-40 active members.


What have you learned as Developer Group leader?
As they say in Real Estate, “location, location, location!” Nashville and surrounding areas is a large city and drawing a large audience, in my experience, really depends on how conveniently located the venue is. To accommodate our members across the area we alternate each month meeting in a different location. I’ve also learned how valuable the Salesforce Community really is by networking and talking with the members, the business problems they’re solving, and the creative solutions they come up with. It is a vital support line for many of our Nashville admins and developers.


What do you love being a Developer Group leader?
My two passions are teaching and Salesforce. The opportunity to lead the Nashville Developer Group brings those two passions together. I really enjoy helping people learn how to use the platform and grow their careers.


Any challenges become the group leader and how to overcome it?
As they say in Real Estate, “location, location, location!” Nashville and surrounding areas is a large city and so finding locations that are convenient for most of our members is difficult. Honestly, I think geographically the area is large enough that we need more groups.


Tell us what is unique about your Developer Group
We are relatively close to Atlanta, GA where a major Salesforce office is located so we’ve been fortunate to have hands-on workshops presented by Salesforce and partners.

I also think our camaraderie among the members is special too. People don’t just attend, listen, leave; no, they come to hang out with their friends who are also doing awesome things with Salesforce. New friendships are forged and they begin to meet for lunch or coffee between meetups to talk shop and grow. 


Share us some tips that make your Developer Group success
Be proactive and frequent about communicating with the group on upcoming meetups, special events, tips and tricks, and overall just trying to be a helpful resource. Understand the needs and interests of the members and cater to them with the types of presentations, workshops, and vendors that are brought in to speak. Encourage members to speak and share their story and successes.


What would like to see your group in the future? 
I would like to see more groups form to help cover the whole greater Nashville area. We have lots of users, admins, and developers in the area but not all can be accommodated with a single monthly meetup that doesn’t cause some portion of the group to have to commute an hour or more.


One last thing you would like to share with the community
I love the Salesforce Ohana! I’ve never come across a tech community so friendly and eager to help each other out, encourage each other, and want nothing but the best for the community.

Simplysfdc comment: Doug, thanks for sharing with us, great to see what you did for the community, your Lightning conversion project, and yes, we are a big #Ohana

Personal notes: thanks for sharing and promoting Nashville - Tennessee, a city that I believe not many people outside of the United States heard about; this is the magic of #Ohana