Welcome to the seventh post of Know Your Salesforce Answers Community Leaders blog series!!
Inspired by Blog Series – Kevin Bacon by Eric ,Girly Geek By Lauren ,Admin Hero By Brent & the Answers Community forum of which I have been part from a long time,I decided to put this series and I hope that Stories of our Answers Community Leaders will motivate and inspire other Salesforce Community Members to contribute to community and know the guys who answer their questions 🙂
Special thanks to Eric Dreshfield and Phoebe for helping me to get started.
I am pretty excited this time as this post represents the person who is Mr.Answers himself and admired by the whole community for his awesome contribution with close to 50,000 Answers,so here I am with another post in “Know Your Salesforce Answers Community Leaders” series featuring – Steve Molis. You can connect with him 
on Twitter and Success community.
Tell Us About Yourself ?
I’ve been with the company I work for over 20 years, back in 2003 I was a Lotus Domino Developer and I was just wrapping up a project when my boss said “We’re getting this thing called Salesforce, and you’re gonna own it.” I joke that “I started with 30 Users and it was 30% of my time, now I have 300 Users and it’s 300% of my time”. As for the future? I probably have about 80 Trailhead Badges to learn and earn, and by the time I get them Chris Duarte and her team will probably come out with 180 more.
When Did You Start Answering?
I joined the DeveloperForce discussion groups back in 2004-2005, at first I was looking for tips & tricks, best practices, etc. Over time I started seeing people post questions that I had encountered on my own SFDC org, and so I would post what I knew or share what I had discovered/built.
What Inspired You To Do So ?
I’m a self-taught Salesforce Admin/Developer, when I started (2003) there was just the Online Help & Training Guides, we didn’t have stuff like TrailHead or the Success Community, we had to walk 5 miles in the snow… even in the Summer!
How Do You Feel Contributing To Answers Community?
I love it! I never stop learning, growing, getting better at what I do. There are so many great people on the Success Community and The Power of Us Hub who you can learn from like Deepak, Jeff May, Geoffrey Flynn, Sharif, Mayank, Amber Boaz, Becka Dente, Celeste Keller, Judi Sohn, Alex Sutherland, Pete Fife, Mark Pass, Brad Gross, Matt Lamb, too many to mention.
Special tips for our community users and the contributers
Provide as much information (up-front) as possible. Keep in mind most of the members of the Salesforce Community are fellow Customers (System Admins, Developers, Users). We do not have access to your SFDC org, or any customization that has been done in it. So you need to provide as much detailed information as possible for us to help you. It’s not an M.Night Shyamalan movie, so skips the surprise ending and last minute plot twists.
With that in mind if your question is about a Report or Dashboard post a screenshot of the Report, the Report Type, and the Filters, Groupings, Settings that you’re currently using and the results you’re getting. For questions related to Analytics: Reports and Dashboards those are especially helpful, screenshots are our “eyes” into your SFDC org (otherwise it’s kinda like playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey). I can’t count the number of times someone has posted a question about a Report or a Dashboard that ends up being like “I’m thinking of a number between Negative Infinity and Unicorn”.
What Would You Say To People To Inspire Them To Contribute To Answers Community?
JUST DO IT!!! You’ll learn, you’ll grow, you’ll become a better Admin, a better Developer, a better person. Someone (Sephy Wang) once posted the question “Why there are so many nice people here?”
My response was “Because it’s just the right thing to do and the right way to treat someone. People come here with their Salesforce questions, some of us have some Salesforce knowledge that can help them find the answer they are looking for, or at least help them get pointed in the right direction.
It’s no different than if I had a wristwatch and someone walked up to me and asked “Excuse me, do you know what time it is?” I mean how could I not help that person??? They’re asking for information, and I have that information (or can at least help them) and it costs me NOTHING, it takes MINIMAL physical effort on my behalf, it barely takes a moment of my time. How could I simply walk away without giving them the time of day? I just can’t do that to someone, that’s my “Why?”.”
That was my reason then (2013) and that’s still my reason today, and I don’t see it changing anytime soon.
Any Additonal Point/Tips/Comments
Get a Developer SFDC org, start doing Trailhead, and don’t stop exploring and learning.
PS. And if you post a Question and someone takes the time to answer it, take the time to say “Thank You” and mark the question as closed/resolved if they solved it for you (and buy them a beer at DreamForce!).
