Description
Catch up on this Women in Salesforce DevOps community webinar, for a unique continuous professional development session (CPD) designed to help you explore, plan and accelerate your Salesforce career path.
Attendees took a motivating pledge for 2023 with the help of Development and Wellbeing Coach Liz Burkinshaw (LB Consultancy), helping them navigate potentially complex career landscapes using new tools and techniques. You’ll also:
- Build your blueprint career path
- Discover and overcome barriers between you and career success.
Learn more:
Transcript
So you'll see on your screens that we've got three presenters here today. We've got my colleague Rob Cowell. He's going to be managing that chat box and grabbing and grabbing info and pushing that over to the wonderful Liz Birkinshaw. Now before I'm not going to tell you all the secrets about Liz. I'm gonna leave that to Liz to introduce herself, but I'm really excited to introduce Liz as our facilitator and, main presenter in the session. I recently had the fortunate chance to meet her when she delivered, a session for a group of coaches, and I found the work that she was producing and how she was getting you to think about your career really helped me look into what I want to do in the future, and I wanted to bring that to all of you.
So let's jump into it. Over to you, Liz.
Thanks, Gemma. Hi, everyone. So delighted to have lots of people, popping on the call today. It's amazing.
I'm based in the UK, as Gemma says. I'm an Aussie originally, so I've had my traveling feet. I've I've stuck there in UK. I'm, just outside of York.
Anyone who's familiar with the the the UK geography in a little village called Stamford Bridge where over seven hundred fifty years ago, there was a big battle with some Vikings and some kings. So we're quite we're famous for that, and we have a notorious old bridge, which is a which is a heritage site. But lovely to join you today. I can see there's people from Zimbabwe.
There's some people from, all over the states. I think I saw someone from Dorset. I think I saw brilliant. Welcome.
Welcome. Welcome. I'll try and say this session rather morning, evening, where you're at. And a special welcome to whoever is in Melbourne in the states because I'm from Melbourne in Australia originally, so I feel so I finish it with you.
Anyway, hopefully, you've got with you the instructions for joining the session with that we're going to do some sketching, some drawing.
That is correct. We're going to too much about that.
But going to get we're going to get going, and see, maybe your thoughts and ideas and things you can get into action so that you can ignite your Salesforce career this year. So let's have a little look. So the first thing I want to share with you is, we're going to learn a new skill today as well, and you might use it. Maybe some of you are already sketched notice. I don't know. But just a really brief summary for those of you that have not come across sketchnoting before.
Sketch noting is visual note take visual note taking in its shortest form. And you might have seen it if you are on social media. There's quite a lot of sketch notice out there now. They might produce, a guide or tips or summaries of books or research from different people.
Maybe you've been lucky enough to be at a conference or an event where someone has been sketch noting and, recording the day's sessions in a big long story timeline, that's also sketchnoting. I use sketchnoting for lots of different reasons. I find that there's lots of really good research to show that it helps with memory. So if anyone's studying for anything at the moment, it's a process called dual coding, like two dual coding that can help with that.
Feel free to to check that out if you want to know more about that. But it's also a great way to support your well-being, bit of planning and organizing, which is what we're going to focus on today, some reflecting, summarizing. It's a nice useful tool. Helps you slow down some of your thinking so that you can put some clear ideas, thoughts, and feelings into a sketch.
Maybe calms your busy mind if you're similar to me and have that. And it's also a great opportunity to be a little bit more creative and to innovate. It helps you think things through in a different way. So I'm gonna get going.
I'm gonna show you some examples of what you, might create. But, first of all, there's one main rule about sketchnoting.
It's all about your ideas and not so much about the artwork. Okay? So you'll notice a lot of my images that I have, they're very basic.
When I first started sketch noting, I used stick people, and I felt really bad about that. Oh, they're not proper drawings. And, actually, I've just embraced that now. And I use stick drawings as my my normal representation of people, and I give them character and add details to them, hats, scarves, shoelaces, whatever it might be, things in their hands, what they are doing as a way to tell the story and to get more ideas across.
So as you can see, sometimes your ideas don't actually have to be what, something might look like now. So I've put a couple of examples there. I love these examples. So I've had to explain to my twelve year old son recently that the save icon on his computer when he's saving work and sending it back to school and doing his homework is actually a floppy disk.
I no longer have a floppy disk in my house, but I know that's the idea of saving, if that makes sense. So you it doesn't have to be, it's not a life drawing sketch. You perceive and remember that idea to be the same with, not quite sure if they would be in the States or Zimbabwe. But in the UK, if there's any speed cameras set up, there's quite a few in Yorkshire where we've got some speedy roads.
And they have a good old fashioned box cameras. Then they're obviously not a picture of a radar gun, which is what our local police force do use. So, again, it's the idea of a camera, not an actual life drawing of a camera. So please don't worry about your skills too much.
I want you really more to focus on your ideas.
Okay. Let's have a look.
Here's a couple of examples. These two I thought maybe a little bit pertinent to today's session. Both of these, you can find on Twitter. The one on the left is from a lady called, Haley, and she's a psychologist, and she talks about nine things you can do to achieve your goals.
And she's just done a little, tips, something for her to remember. Whether she's done that as part of sharing some information, which is one great way to use sketchnoting, or maybe she's used it to summarize, as you can see, a piece of research that she's taken from, a lady called Hadie Granthor Orvosen, which is amazing. And then on the right is just an example of a bit of a journey, bit of a it's not quite a ladder, which some of you might have a look at today, but it might be a journey or a pathway of where you are now and where you'd like to be by the end of the year. And that's an example that I used a couple of years ago when I was looking to progress, and change jobs and evolve what I was doing within my work.
So we're gonna do a warm up. So, hopefully, you've got some paper, a couple of piece of paper. Choose one piece of paper. It's gonna be your kind of draft scrappy bits, your draft bit.
You're just gonna have some warm up. So with any good skill development, that I normally work with, it's gonna get into it. So what I'd like you to do is on your paper is just to sketch six different doodles. Doesn't matter what they are.
It might be whatever you do when you're in a meeting and you're coloring in. Maybe you do a bit of a, you know, a checkerboard and you color some bits in. Do that. That's fine.
Maybe you do stars. Maybe you do boxes. Whatever it is. Just do five or six.
How many you can do in the next couple of minutes or so. We're not they don't need to be perfect. It's just to literally get you going, start your, hands moving. I don't know how cold it is.
It's quite cold here in Yorkshire today. So I would need to get that moving. If you're using paper, pens, mark colored marker pens, brilliant. If you're using a tablet, you know, you're lucky enough to I call, I think, now, I've evolved.
I started with pen and paper. I've now evolved to having an iPad and a pen, which is a bit of a treat for me.
It just gets me going. It gets me practicing, getting my colors out, whatever it might be. So give you a moment or two to do those six. Don't worry too much about those.
Just get your rhythm going.
I love the doodles you have there. They're so you know, the whole idea behind this is meant to be nice and easy.
Yeah. They don't have to be too complicated. Okay. They don't some of them are are sort of deliberately, sketched as being two d.
Some are three d. I try not to be three d. I tend to get caught out of them quite often if I have some parts of my sketch three d and some bits bits two d. But, yes, I keep it simple.
Okay.
Next part of your warm up. So my name is easy. Nice and short. Liz. Well, that's that's my name.
My mom calls me Elizabeth, particularly when I'm in trouble. So choose, your name. Shortened version again. Don't mind.
And I just want you to write it in three different fonts, whatever fonts you might have. If you're stuck for fonts, have a look around your room. What have you got? Something on your desk?
Yeah. I'm I'm not saying you have to do it in Arial font or Calibrio or anything like that or Alio like, my corporate font.
But maybe, just be inspired by the different fonts they have. It's really useful to use fonts, as a way to sometimes separate out different ideas.
It's also a key thing to remember. Your sketch note can have words in it. So some people some of you today, you might have eighty percent of what you do might be, some drawings and sketches with twenty percent words, labeling, maybe a word or two to remind you what it's about. Yet there might be some others of you that flip it, and you have eighty percent, seventy, eighty percent words, and you have some images, some sketches to bring to life that idea. So there's no pressure to be one way or another. You know, you shift along that equalizer, how many sketches you want and how much, written words you want. But try and be a little bit, creative with your fonts so that there's some additional meaning that maybe comes across with those.
I've added in one that I did this a while ago. I did that at least, and I put my interest. It's clear summertime one because I've got sunflowers and ice creams, but I snuck in a daffodil as well, and some blue sky. Not quite what I've had today in Yorkshire, but we shall see.
Okay. Next part of the Walmart, part three. I want you to have a go at some people. So I want you to think about it doesn't have to be work related, but I want you to think about getting to the mindset of what you might be doing in twelve months' time, ten, eleven, twelve months' time.
If it is work related, brilliant.
Start sketching a deck, whatever it might be, a desk. If you're presenting, if you're at a conference, if you're if you've learned something, if you've got some accreditation for something, just draw yourself. Doesn't matter what it is. As you see, these are my stick people. I started with them. They are my style. That's how I do it.
I might say there's me waving, so I quite like to be happy and still continue to be happy and getting out and about. And maybe a bit of running, bit of moving more would be great for me. Not particularly career related, but just as an example. Pop a couple of things of what that might look like.
Might also want to think about what kinds of facial expressions you have. So I tend to default that all of my stick figures are smiley faces.
And I therefore, I tend to say if someone's sad or grumpy, I tend to save those to give additional meaning, to my sketches. And I quite often will draw a face with a big circle for the o, which means I'm talking, which happens all the time quite a lot. Okay. So, hopefully, you've got a little sketch of yourself doing something that you would would be doing in in a year's time or would like to have achieved in a year's time. That'd be great.
Okay. And then the last bit of our warm up. I want you to draw three different arrows. So arrows are really important for sketchnoting.
They help have a direction, potentially, on depending on how you want to set out your sketchnote, and I'll go through that in a moment. So they can help tell the story from the beginning to the end in different stages to help people to to help you remember which order you did it in. They're also quite good as an icon in themselves. So progress, we tend to have an up arrow.
Or if we want to decrease something that we're doing, we might have a down arrow. Or sometimes if we know it's going to be a bumpy journey, looks a little bit like a roller coaster, or one that's there, done a complete u-turn, we're gonna switch around. And there's some meaning within that as well. So arrows can have a couple of different meanings, and ideas behind them as well as actually helping us map the path of our sketch notes.
Okay. So, hopefully, shake things up. Hopefully, you've had a good warm up, and we're getting a little bit into the mindset that sketchnoting is about the ideas, not necessarily the artwork, but we can enjoy ourselves whilst whilst we do the sketchnoting and get additional well-being benefits from that. So new page.
New page or scroll up on your tablet if that's what you're doing. And I want you to divide your section into seven parts. And I've kind of given an example there. One will be for a title, which you can do at the end of the session today.
So whether it's calling igniting your Salesforce career, whatever it might be, you can call it that, put today's date, put down gear set, etcetera.
Feel free to do that. No problem at all. And then there'll be six other parts to make up the seven, that will be for the different questions we're going to ask you. I'm going to ask you to have a think about including what your career pledge will be for this year.
Okay? So as it says there, don't worry about perfection. Don't worry. If you do have a tablet, you're able to move stuff around and make it look really nice.
That's what I do all the time now. But if it's the first time you're sketchnoting, please bear that in mind. Be forgiving of yourself. Be kind to yourself.
This is something you're trying first today for the new for the for the first time as a new thing.
Remember, you can include words for each section if you want a little prompt reminder, and you can also add either add the sketches to emphasize or they can be the main part. I've got some examples there. The easiest one is a kind of ridge pattern. Sometimes I do a spoke pattern, and other times I have different shapes that I bubble together. But don't stress too much about that. As long as you've got seven sections, one for your title, six for the questions we're going to ask.
Okay.
Let's go. We're ready. So pens, pencils, marker pens, coloring in. Anyone who's from Southern Hemisphere, texters.
I grew up with texters in Australia. Get them ready. Use your color as you will. Color's really useful for adding meaning to our sketches as well.
So section number one, in your first section.
If anyone attended the session in December, everyone who was attending was asked to think about what their career pledge might be for twenty twenty three. So if you did that, see if you can remember it. If you weren't at no no stress. I want you to think about what might your career pledge be for twenty twenty three?
So what are you hoping to achieve? What's what your goal be?
How will you progress your career? Are you going to broaden your skills, deepen your skills, network, meet new people? What might it be? Have a think about that.
Gonna go quiet just for a little bit. Let you have a think.
Anyone get stuck? Pop it in the chat.
Happy to answer any questions.
So, Liz, we have a couple of questions from the audience now Great. That I thought would be good for you.
So Tracy has asked, is the idea for sketch noting something you share with others, or is it personal notes?
Oh, Tracy, gold star. Excellent question. You can use it for either. I would recommend in the first instance, use it for your own notes, your own reflection, something that you can refer to.
So what you create today, you should be able to look at in three months, six months, nine months, and come back to it as a prompt, a visual prompt. You might if you've got a notice board, pin it on the notice board. It's a nice place to put it. As you develop your skills, you might find other uses.
So when I first started, I had a notebook. It was a bullet journal. It was gifted for a birthday a couple of years back, and I just used it for myself. I found it really useful just to sort of explore some ideas.
I then actually had a piece of, I had a had a project to work, and I was trying to get the idea of how everything connected to each other. And doing a good old Word document didn't help with that. Doing a PowerPoint presentation didn't help with that. So I just wonder.
I thought, well, I just need to organize my thoughts and plan it out, and so I drew it.
That then became the first sketch notes I had that I did share with others. Obviously, was a bit nervous sharing the first time, so I shared it with my boss. What do you think about this? She liked the ideas.
I was then able to extend and share it to other people to help them to understand how things connected together. So the visual, practice of being able to sketch out and show it, meant that I then started sharing. A lot of what I do now, I do share. So I I would use it to summarize.
That's because I'm trying to potentially raise profile to a to a a point or something I'm doing. So, for example, International Women's Day is coming up. I will probably do a sketch around International Women's Day, maybe as part of some work I'm doing with some other colleagues as well. But I know that so use it for both.
But great question. Thanks, Rob. Any other questions?
The other question that, I thought would be a good one for you is, recommendations on sketchnoting apps.
Ah, okay. So there's loads of them, and I'm gonna admit this is a confession.
I on my iPad, I just use notes. So when I first started, I just used the notes and my Apple pen, my Apple pencil, and I just use that. And I screenshot them, and I use it very simply.
What I found is lots of people, oh, which apps do you use this? I just use notes. Part of that is, I found something I feel comfortable and confident with. So, unfortunately, I don't have a recommendation for that.
What I would say is if you do like the idea of an app, start on it now and develop your skills. Does that make sense? There is what I want to do is okay within notes, if that makes sense. Some people like to add different bits in.
They might want to replicate and mirror things. I can do a little bit of that, but I tend to, not be too design led in my style, so it suits me. But, yeah, good question. Sorry.
I can't recommend one. Apologies because I use notes. I keep it simple, if that makes sense. I keep it super simple.
Thanks, Rob.
Okay. We're gonna move on. So, feel free. We're gonna ask in a couple of questions, but feel free.
If you've got any pledges, you could pop them in the chat, and then others can see what they are. Just in case I'm pop I'm recommending that just in case others are stuck and they don't quite know, you know, maybe they're not sure how to phrase it or what they might be drawing or sketch noting. There's no problem with that. If you feel happy doing that, feel feel free.
I understand it is lots of people on the call today.
So your second section, your second box or spoke or shape, whatever you're going to do. And the first question so the main question on screen, what does your career ladder or pathway look like? So maybe what steps might they be? What might you have to do?
So I thought there is a little, image. You might have a ladder, and you might draw some things on the steps. Or maybe it's a very winding pathway. Maybe there's only one or two stops on your pathway.
Maybe you want to represent it as a journey, as a bus. But I want you to think about and sketch where do you want to go and whether you're looking to progress up the ladder or maybe develop more of a mastery route with a developmental pathway. So think about which one of those. Some of you might be wanting to do both.
Maybe you're going to do pathway so that you can progress in the ladder. Up to you. But what does your career ladder or pathway look like this coming year, the next eleven, twelve months?
Where do you want to go? What does it look like?
Is it clear in your mind? If it's clear in your mind, how are you going to sketch and represent that?
And then is there anything along the way, whether it's up the ladder as you take the steps up the ladder or whether it's along a path or along a like, I'm thinking of the woods near me. What what's what's the path to the woods that I might go through? Think about what that might look like and how you might represent that.
And I'm gonna let you have a think, let you have a sketch.
See how you go.
I like the idea of a pathway because it means sometimes it doubles back on itself, or there's opportunity to pause, you know, a little bit longer. Same with the step.
And think about if you are considering the ladder idea as a way of representing progressing up and up and forward, how small are the rungs on your ladder? Are they small runs? Are they big steps?
Because when we come to doing a bit of action planning, we probably want to have some steps that are achievable. You don't wanna have them too big.
Are there some steps that you might have to bring someone in to help you to progress? Is it a very big step up? Think about how that might work. I'm thinking of kind of the, the good old outward bound type activity where you have to work as a team, you have to progress up this super high ladder. There's one in in the UK that's on the edge of a cliff, which I think is super scary. But the idea of progressing sometimes, you could have small steps, small space between the rungs, and other times, you might have bigger spaces where someone above you helps you lift you up or helps push you up.
Okay. We're gonna move on to section three.
So if we're thinking about our ladder or pathway, what skills are you going to need to develop so that you can progress?
So think about there might be some technical skills.
So, I snuck on to the session in December to see, to get a bit of an insight into the Salesforce world.
And there might be some technical skills I picked up that you could have some technical skills, but lots of people or couple of the, ladies that were sharing their stories were talking about some of the interpersonal skills or the intrapersonal skills. So things they needed to do, to build relationships, whether that's networking, connecting with other people, being able to give and receive feedback, some of those skills. You might have line management skills, those kind of things, as well as some of the intrapersonal skills that that people might be looking at. So, you know, are we looking at being organized? Are we looking at, changing some of your own behaviors?
What is it? What skills do you need to progress to develop your career? And maybe it's really obvious. Maybe they're really technical skills, and and you can come back to this later.
I can say after having, I know Robson McCall, but I love I love the trailblazer idea. I wanna bring it. I my my job that I have in the UK, I wanna bring the idea of trailblazing into that. There's nothing to do with Salesforce. I love the concept of it. It really sets my imagination alight of the idea and the and the representation of what that can look like.
And I know it has a very technical, idea with you guys.
So let's have a look. We've got we've got halfway through couple of our questions.
We're going to see if anyone's willing to pop their hand up and maybe share what they've put so far, particularly maybe around the skills that's useful for other people to hear, might spark some ideas in other people. Humans are social beings. We we get a lot out of being together and hearing from each other. So, I'm gonna ask Gemma because if I get involved with the tech so, Gemma, can you help Tracy? Because she's popped her hand up. I'd love to hear what Tracy's been up to with her sketch.
Okay. Tracy, I'll allow you to talk. She'd connect now.
Hi, Tracy.
Hello. Hello. Thank you for being here. Can you guys hear me?
Yes. I can. So tray so, Tracy, what what have you been sketching? What ideas have you been putting down on paper or on your tablet today?
For from paper, so my goal is, reach.
So I just wanna reach more people in the ecosystem.
Yep.
And then I have a a little step stepping stone how I do it. And one is a light bulb because I have to have the idea. The The second is a little tool because I have to have the tools. The third is, like, a little keyboard to actually do the work, and the last is a megaphone to get the the information out.
Tracy, I love this. This is great.
And then the next one, which was, the skills I need, one is I I drew a little book because I have to do a lot of research to make sure I note. And the other one is, like, a calendar, like, a journal because I have to be really organized, and that's one thing I have to make sure that I'm I'm lofty, but I have to make sure that I'm very organized and making sure I have a plan. And the last thing is I drew, like, a little orb where it has me in the middle, and it has little orbs around. So the reach of making sure that I network with people.
Great. So, Tracy, and this is a tip for anyone. That's great. I love that. Is there anything in your sketch, in your drawing that represents the ideas of what you might do?
So if you've got your book, is there certain types of books or books you don't have? Maybe it's books on your bookshelf that you still haven't read yet. You know? Where are those books?
Try and be I want you to try and be more specific if you can. Okay. And the same and the same as if you so you talk about the ecosystem. Where in the ecosystem?
If you go into network and connect with people, where would you start? So don't worry too much now because there is a question a little bit later on that maybe gets into some of those specifics. But think about and you could just write next to it. If you don't want to draw the draw the book cover, that's okay.
You can just write next to it what you might have. But it might be particularly for your books.
Do you need to get a new one? Do you need to go shopping and get a new one? Do you need to ask the budget for that? Is that book you've already got that you need to revisit? Does that make sense?
So it might be Definitely.
Some sometimes when we're doing our skills so it could be, implied by the question that skill is a new skill. Sometimes it's about brushing up this oh, wait. Three or four years ago, I used to have to do this, and I got out of practice. I'm gonna brush up on those skills because I know that that will help me make the next step, make my journey on that pathway a little bit easier or smoother or quicker.
Super. Tracy, I love that. Thank you so much. Ecosystem. And can I say, ecosystem is a great visual?
I quite often will have circles that are connected with each other, and you could put different things within those circles that represent how the ecosystem might support you with that. Because I know you're you've got a really strong community feel. Because I suppose I that was, my heart was so warm, and I'm so thrilled when I came out in December of how community focused you are. It's amazing.
Brilliant. Thank you, Tracy. Anyone else got anyone else got their hand up? Anyone else willing to share?
We'll do some sharing again at the end, but we will progress, Gemma, so that we've got enough time for people. So this should be your fourth section fourth section on your sketchnote page or in your tablet.
So, linking to what Tracy said actually, what learning or new experiences are you looking to do? So I want you to be specific.
Are there events that you're looking to attend or would like to attend, whether that's online, face to face? Is it online? Draw a computer. What you know, represent, if you can, the idea of what events you like to attend.
Maybe there's a specific speaker that you want to go and see.
Is there a way to visually represent that? So be specific. Maybe instead of just attending an event, you want to present or speak or volunteer on a committee. That's an idea I got from the session in December of how some of the women were talking about some of your community were talking about how they wanted to progress and they get involved and network and be part and learn from others.
And that was one of the key things I took. I thought that was brilliant as a way of a kid that has volunteering as a way to develop. Fabulous. Thought it was fabulous.
Or are there any specific projects that you want to be involved with? Do you need to go and seek them out? Are there ones that you know are already sort of in your schedule for the year that you know you might be doing in in one of the quarters this year? Are there ones that you want to offer to do or put your hand up to do?
You know? I when I say hand up, I don't mean practically in the meeting, but it might be. You know? Go and talk to whoever is running that project, see how you can be involved.
And I've popped in my little sketch out on the side. You know? You must be the change you want to see in the world. So how are you going to start living in the way that you want to be by the end of the year?
How are you making those small steps to progressing towards that? Is is there a big conference or anything? Are there are there lots of conferences, Gemma, that people can get involved with that you would recommend or other events that Gear Set are hosting?
Yes. There definitely are. There's, obviously, the Salesforce based events, the Trailblazer ones. There's, TDX coming up soon that a lot of you will know about. But if you're unable to travel, of course, there's Gearsets Summit, which is a virtual based, it's a virtual based, day of our activities and presentations.
So you'll if you're interested, keep an eye on our website as the details will be released for that. That's coming up in March. There's lots of education, and learning opportunities there. And then again throughout the year, GISSET GISSET is always delivering something to delight you all.
And I would say the number one thing at the moment, if you want to progress your understanding of DevOps, is to jump into our our, Launchpad.
This is a tool where you can get you all get certifications.
Again, it's like what you're probably already doing as you're studying. You've accessed Salesforce's own trailblazer, but we have something similar, but maybe somewhat on a smaller scale at the moment. But, yeah, check that out. That's really good.
I can see Rob's already dropped a link in there for you.
Thanks, Rob. Thanks, Rob. Thanks, Gemma. It just and it might be that you don't know the specifics, but if there's an event happening in March, maybe you pop a little calendar.
You might draw a little calendar of March. You're gonna have a look at what events are happening in March. Maybe you know what your work program's like over the coming months, and you know when you've maybe got a little bit more downtime, if such a thing exists these days, in which you can do more of the learning, do more of the, you know, attending events. What are you going to prioritize?
We would love to attend everything. I'm, I'm loving at being at back out and about at the moment, but I can't do everything because I still got my, all my day job stuff that I need to get done as well. So, they complement each other, but we need to maybe plan time to have a look at what it might be. And maybe the new experiences, maybe one of your actions or one of your sketches is that you're going to have a little look about what's around.
You're gonna ask other colleagues, what they would recommend of new experiences, what events, what projects did they find useful in the past. So that might be having a conversation with colleagues to find out what they have found useful might be what you put in your section for, for your sketch note today. Okay. We're gonna move on.
This is your fifth section. So we're on the home straight now. Your fifth section. So I've already alluded to connecting with other people. As I said earlier, human beings, we're built for connection. We're designed for connection.
It is part we're we're a social being, for the whole part, even though we sometimes need to maybe step away and recharge at times. But I want you to think about who should you be connecting with this year and which relationship should you be developing so that you can build your professional community? So do you have a mentor?
Do you have a coach? Do you have a sponsor? Now all of those roles can be quite official and maybe through your organization.
They can also be informal. Okay? Don't feel that you know, I don't officially have a mentor, but I've got someone who I can go to. They're like a trusted adviser.
Maybe that's someone you could have a bit of a planned conversation with. Are any of those people, or maybe they're not, experts in where you want to go, experts in your ladder or experts in your pathway that they can help you? What specialisms can they bring to you? So, hopefully, I'm, I'm I'm hoping that you're thinking of some people now we've got them in mind.
Now you don't necessarily have to draw them. So, like, if it was me, you wouldn't be me, but, obviously, it wouldn't be you wouldn't have to draw my my longer hair and my glasses. You could do something as Liz sketch noting. So you could put sketch noting Liz and do a little sketch note.
So it doesn't actually have to be, remember, when you're sketch noting, a life drawing session, you can represent the idea of a person. Obviously, put their name as well. Are you going to get involved in any communities practice, or are you already involved in a community of practice, but maybe you're not a particularly active member and you could do more of that? So it could be that you're going to spend, I don't know, ten minutes a day, twenty minutes a week, whatever it might be, of engaging with that community.
Is that do they hold little events? Do they have live events they hold that you can tap into? And the same goes for, you know, your Slack community, the Twitter community. I started following some people in December.
Love it. I love seeing all different perspectives that people bring, and it sends me off on, lovely little thought journeys of of what I might look at next and what I don't understand about the world and have those wow moments. And then that brings me back to, okay, how can I bring more of that into my professional working life?
My little sketchnoting there, that's just a a nod to to do some of this connection relationship building. We quite often have to we it's not always networking, but we have to be a bit purposeful, be deliberate, plan who we want to go and talk to, and make that happen. So this is a for example, I read a book or read it was like a a long a long article, like a book, around networking essentials. This was a couple of years ago, when I needed to do a bit more networking to build my community, and this is what I did.
And it was just useful, even though I've been networking for years, just to be reminded of things I need to do, to be more purposeful, to have a conversation, to pay attention, try not to interrogate people and quiz them too much better. Make it a conversation so that you're also finding out information, but building relationship and building community at the same time.
Yeah. That's what you need to think about.
I love that last point there, Liz.
I think that's a really great, soft skill that is It over It is.
It's really important. We we quite often will chat to people whether it's over lunch or over the desk or, you know, if we're out for drinks on a Friday night or as I saw Rob last week, earlier this week, out for breakfast, having bacon. It's there is chatting about work, and you can ask people, but it's it's a two way conversation. Right? So quite often, mentors in particular, there's benefit they get from that process as well. Purchase sponsors may be a little bit different.
But you you're not just finding out information. You are building a relationship.
So you are sharing part of yourself with that person. They might be someone in two years that says, oh, yeah. I've I've, I've worked with Gemma. Yeah.
You should have a conversation with her about that new role. So you never know where that links to. So, yes, there's finding out information, but the purpose of this fifth section is around who you're going to connect and build relationships for. So it should be relational, not transactional.
It's a bit of a shift. But I'm I'm pretty comfortable with, with the community that I've experienced so far that that's probably second nature to most of you, actually. But yeah. Thanks, Gemma.
Appreciate that.
Yeah.
You you've hit you've hit the nail on the head there.
That is exactly what the community is like. I think moving forward, I'd love to see us as a group connect more around some of the, community larger events and user groups that are happening. So for those of you joining us today, keep keep that in mind, and and think about opportunities and ways that you might want us all to get together for coffee on a morning before we go into the main session. I think that's definitely some, you know, bit of fun that we can inject there, getting to know people face to face.
Thanks, Gemma. Okay. Last section. Hopefully, you've only got one section left, hopefully. Otherwise, my counting's out.
One quick question, Liz, that's come from the audience. Sorry. Just very quickly before we move on. So Tracy, as as our more sort of around the the the sort of logistics of sketch noting itself, how do you stop the urge to write everything out instead of sketching?
Number one, just write it and then add a picture to it. Over time, you will start, to write less. Part of it is we have been conditioned, Tracy, for a long time to write notes in full. But quite often, if you look back over maybe your notebooks or journals that you've had or if you've been to conference or events, Quite often, the bits that I remember and go back to as reference points is where I put a box around something or I've drawn five stars next to it or I've pointed an arrow at it.
We don't necessarily go back and look at each of the words. There's there's a whole thing around writing notes, whether if you type notes. So, Tracy, don't stress about it. Maybe choose one of the words that jumps out at you, that you're drawn to in that sentence, and try and represent that as a key idea.
So try rather than writing verbatim in what I'm saying, the idea of relationship rather than transactional. So it might be how whatever relationship means to you, if that makes sense. Like, it might be for me, I might draw a face with smiley heart eyes, like, as relationship. That's my shorthand in my own head.
And then transactional, I always think of money. So I might draw some, oddly, as an Australian who now lives in the UK and has worked in the States before, I tend to draw money that's green. So somehow in my mind, money is American dollars. Anyway, that's a whole other story.
So I would draw that, and I I would put probably the word versus between them. So I'd have my little happy face with my love hearts and then my money on the side, and that would represent relational versus transactional as an example. But it's a good question, Trace, and thank you for popping it in the chat.
It will ease off as you start to trust yourself to remember what you were thinking when you drew the note, drew drew the sketch.
It's quite often. Maybe some of you have already got this, and I would challenge you challenge you, ask you, have a go, this week to if you want to, just share your sketch. So I know I did this on Thursday.
And you can tell the story of this session through your sketches, and you will remember more and be able to tell more than what your actual visual notes is. So your visual notes is a real summary of that. So it's just, getting out of that comfort zone tracing. It's my top tip.
Don't be frightened to doing it now. As you practice it and move on, the number of words you have will, reduce, so don't stress too much. But great question. Thanks, Rob.
Okay.
Last section.
So this is a bit of, action planning here. So in other parts of my professional working life, I look at how to get people to change their habits and progress with their habits. One of the things that means we're more likely to do something is if we write, sketch, draw them, whatever it might be, put them down on paper or a tablet, either way, get them down out of our mind so they're not no longer thought that we've actioned it. And it's something called, commitment bias. So if we write something down, we are more likely to do it. If we tell someone else, we are more likely to do it. If any of you have ever done a fundraising event, I don't know, a marathon, I don't know, something at whether it's a church or part of your sports club or a community group where you raise funds, and you sent out, like, a just giving page, those kind of pages, that is tapping into our our commitment bias.
So we feel then, oh, we're more committed because other people now are investing in in us, whether that's through time to listen to what we're doing or, you know, they're making a donation, whatever it might be. But, also, if you pop something down on paper, you might plan it into your calendar as well. So I'm going to ask you also to make a note to put some of these dates in your calendar later on because I know that they'll come handy. This is tapping into that.
So it's also good to know what you're going to do first. There's lots of things to do with getting people to shift and work towards their goals. So your goal, I'd like you to go back to your pledge, your main pledge, the main goal that you're after, and maybe you've refined that over just over the past half an hour. Maybe you've refined refined the different things you're going to have to do.
I want you to think about what would you sketch for April that you'll have done by April? So you put could put April, a little sketch. What will you have done by then? What will you have done by July?
Doing this little sketch or a word. Just Tracy, don't worry too. Don't stress too much about it. Pop some words if you want.
And October.
I have said there, include a short snappy sentence. So I want you to have both because both of those will help you.
And this is you starting to progress. So I would expect that the April ones got you started. I mean, that's that's still quite a few weeks away. Right?
I'm try I'm trying to calculate in my head. Depends on whether it starts of April or end of April. But, you know, eight to twelve weeks away, What could you start doing towards your pledge for this year? What are you doing about your ladder?
What are you doing about your pathway?
What will it look like in July, summertime, or wintertime, anyone who's southern hemisphere?
And what will it look like in October? So we're starting by October, you'd be starting to hope that most things are coming into place by then. So I've just put a little example there. You could have in your section now instead of saying step one, you could put April, step two, July, step three, October. If you want to do individual ones, that's fine, but I know that's quite a lot of sketching for the time we've got today.
So, hopefully, you've got a couple of steps in mind. Think little milestones, little actionable things that you can do that you are in control of so you're not relying on someone else to make that happen.
And you might have a couple of things. You might be super quick at your sketching, and you're going to have a couple of things by April, one thing by July, couple couple of things by October. Totally fine with that.
Today's sketch note, you can come back to an ad detail. It will be a prompt for further thinking for you. So don't feel that you have to have every step mapped out now. That's quite an ask for you to do that as well as learning a new skill and of asking about what your pledge is and what you're going to do for this coming year.
Liz, you and I, had a really good conversation around this section as we when we were preparing.
And I think one of the best things that you that you shared with me is it doesn't have to be that final goal. It can just be taking such a, like, little mini steps to towards that goal. So maybe find that conference. So for us, in our space, it will be go on to the trailblazer site.
Look at all the dates that are coming up. Go on to gear set. Look at all the events that they've got coming up. Wherever that source is, that is your first step.
Find the source and go to the source and get your information, and that really help push you along towards your final goal.
Yeah. Exactly. So if someone is interested at one of our previous sections is that's a great reminder, Gemma. It It might be that you're wanting to find a mentor or you want someone who has some technical expertise to support you.
Maybe you take between now and April to find out who that is. Not that you've already started and finished that part. Might be that by July, you've started that relationship, whether it's a mentoring relationship or a technical skill development relation coaching relationship. And by October, you might not have finished it.
You might have just started, in starting to action some of the things out of that developmental relationship that you're after. So, yeah, they can be tiny small steps. They need to be achievable for you. I'm not gonna, talk to you about smart goals, but they do need something that you feel comfortable doing that will give you confidence as you progress through the year.
So we build our confidence and self esteem by achieving and having regular success. So don't make it too big. If those time periods are too big for you, shorten them down, make them into months. That's up to you.
But I didn't want to that that's quite an overwhelming thing, like I said, to do in a little sketch noting session today. Okay. So by now, you should have all six sections. Think about what you're gonna call it.
You're gonna call it igniting your Salesforce script, whatever yours might be. It might be Liz's career pledge. You know, whatever. Personalize it to you.
Put today's date. One of the things that is quite useful to do, you can come back to it. You can add color. You can add some detail.
If you feel you're finished, a nice way to show actually, I've I've finished with this piece of thinking is to put a border. So around the outside of your paper or tablet, just pop a border on it. Put today's date so it helps mark a period in time.
And then think about who who you're going to share this with if you want to. You don't have to. That doesn't mean you have to put it on social media. You don't have to.
You could just share it with one colleague, your line manager, you the partner at home just to share. Look what I've learned today. I've got this new skill of sketch noting I'm gonna have a go at. But, also, I started to work towards my pledge, my professional work career pledge, with Salesforce this year.
And then if you want to, have it somewhere that you know you can refer back to it.
So I'm sure Gemma will prompt you over this coming year. What did you pledge? How are you progressing? So that's someone who is also helping with your commitment bias, actually.
Because all of you on the call today, Gemma knows that you've done this. So I'm sure she'll come back, and there'll be a bit of a nudge, in a supportive way to say, okay. How are you getting on? Do you want any help?
Is there anything I could help with? But well done. Just gonna check now. We can see well, let's see if we can if you've got any questions or if anyone's willing to here we go.
Oh, there we go. So maxing out your career pledge. So that this is, capitalizing on the commitment by a suspect I was talking about. Make sure you also book some time in with yourself.
So put it in your calendar every couple of months, every week, however however frequently you want, to see how your plans are progressing. Have a check-in with yourself.
And let's see if anyone's willing to share, Gemma. Let me just double check where I'm at. I'm gonna stop sharing my screen.
Yes, please. If there is anybody who wants to share, please raise your hand.
Well, I have to go into a different presenter mode to do that, but I love seeing it.
I'd love to hear if anyone's happy to put their hand up and unmute themselves of how they've represented an idea. So what you would do if you wanted to do that was tell me what you drew or sketched, and then tell me what that idea is. And I bet you're gonna tell me a really short answer of what you sketched, but the explanation of it is much bigger than the sketch represents. But I'd love to hear if anyone is willing to have a go at that. It's a great sharing community. It's useful for others to hear, people give that a go. So is there anyone who's willing to do that role?
Oh, Tracy. Tracy, you've got two gold stars, three gold stars. There you go, Tracy.
I was waiting for other people to to do it, but no one else will. I think for me, what what really took it and we talked about the relational, is versus transactional. I drew a cup of coffee, and then I threw a dollar sign, and I put a x to the dollar sign, and I put a big circle around the coffee.
Tracy, I'm coming to you because I know to have a relationship with you means coffee, which makes me very happy.
But the funny thing is, I'll know there's caffeine, so don't let me just make a tea, but it yeah.
Yeah.
I I like I like tea too. My Australian my Australianness means I, love I grew up on coffee, love coffee, but my now living in the UK for twenty five years means I I'm very partial to tea as well. But what what that tells me so even if I was to look at that, actually, Tracy wants it to be a not not social for the purpose of only social, but you're happy to spend time to get to know me. That coffee or having a hot drink together represents something more than a meeting where we both got our note pages out.
It's different. And so that's what I would take from that, and you can explain that. But But, also, you've got your dollar sign and you put a cross through it. Perfect.
I sometimes use the band sign, like the red circle with a great big red slash through it to say I'm not doing that. That's a great way to do that as well. Thank you, Tracy. That's great to share.
Have you filled your whole page, Tracy? I have. Yes. Are you happy with your sketch notes?
Are you pleased I am.
I am. It really is very helpful for sure, and it was very good timing for me. So thank you.
I'm glad. Thank you, Tracy. Anyone else brave enough? Come on. There's some, Liz sketch noting gold stars up up for grabs.
Okay. Well, there's no there there isn't anybody as yet. But whilst I'm just, whilst we're waiting to see if anyone else wants to put their hand up, I'm going to mention your future self will be very happy that past Gemma or Liz or Rob did this activity.
I'd love it if you would each take a picture of your sketch, put it into your email, and then schedule a send to yourself. I'd like you to do that for the first of April, the first of July, and the first of October because I'm gonna be head mistress. I'm gonna check-in on you.
Yeah. I'd I'd love to I'd love for your future self to receive that reminder, keep you on track, keep yourself accountable, and definitely keep talking to each other about about these activities. As I mentioned, there's obviously LinkedIn where you can each connect with each other. If you want to find a buddy to, to to work together on this task and keep each other accountable, that's also a great idea.
I'm gonna jump in, Gemma, because I've just had a look in the chat. So I don't know if, Deborah is willing to unmute herself and share. Oh, great. Deborah has said she's excited.
She's a sketch noting with her Rocketbook. I now want to know what her Rocketbook is. Is it an app? Is it a is it like a a bullet journal, but better?
Like, I'm now excited about what's that.
I don't know if she's willing to share, but, if anyone else can shed light on that, I'm always willing to learn something new. It's a two way process with me.
It's a reusable notebook. So it's got, it it got special flex pen. You can also write a regular paper with it, but you write in this notebook, and then there's an app where you can take a picture of it. It will transcribe it.
Try to trans let me try to transcribe it if you wrote neatly.
Right?
And there's a you can send it to places like I can do this thing.
I can take a picture of it and send it to my, Gmail or send it to my OneDrive or my Google Drive. And it's and then you can then you just use water to wash the page off. It's and you can just keep using this. I'll I'll put a link in the chat.
Deborah, I've I've never heard it before, but I love it. And I love that it's clearly a tool that you use now, but you're going to add this new potentially developing skill of sketch notes and to enhance what you do with that. I I've done sketch notes where I've used, I've done them in corporate reports, like my end of year. Like, I just put them in.
It it helps number one, it helps people, to understand some of the ideas I'm representing. But number two, they also know a little bit about me. So, the fact that I sketch a note, oh, you're so creative. Oh, I'm quite I'm actually quite structured and organized in how I'm creative and use my innovative practice, but it gives people an idea about me and what goes on maybe in my mind if they can cope with all of that.
But, yeah, really useful. And I find it very calming, actually. I sometimes do it on holiday, and we'll just, sketch ideas that come on come to you on holiday. I've for example, not work related, not Salesforce Salesforce related.
Sorry, Gemma and Rob. But I sit with my son sometimes, and I will do our to do list for the holiday, but we'll do it in pictures. So he will tell me. I draw them.
Sometimes I write it. He draws it. So he is then more, keen to get involved in some of the he's twelve now. So he's on that age, right, where he's he needs a bit of encouragement, and he's more likely to do it.
So you know? He still remembers we were meant to go to Nashville, the first year of the pandemic, and he, we're meant to go to Nashville and go to the water park. He still talks about it now because we've not managed to get back to Nashville yet. It's next year's plan.
So he talked that because we sketched note that. But, Deborah, thank you so much for share sharing. I've written down Rocketbook, and I'm gonna go and have a look. There's a question that I've just seen pop in, but I wasn't quick enough wrong.
Yep. So there's a question here. Can you give a quick recap of what goes in each section?
Oh, yes.
So able to share that one back.
I can definitely do that.
I know the session's been recorded, so it's going to be shared with everyone as well, Gemma. But the first section is what's your career pledge.
Easy. What's your career pledge?
I'm now I'm now imagining you madly scribbling this. Your second section is what does your career ladder or career path pathway look like for this year? So what steps might you be thinking of? Where are you aiming to get to? Are you going up the ladder, around the path, along the path, progressing, developing expertise? What might that look like?
Number three was what skills do you need? So that's that that was the question around technical, interpersonal, intrapersonal.
So what skills do you need to develop to meet your career pledge to achieve that?
And some of that might be networking or it might be that you need to do certain certificates or badges.
Number four is what learning experiences.
So that was around events, attending, volunteering, speaking, projects you put your hand up for that you want to be involved with as part of your daily workflow or sort of a quarterly workflow.
That was number four. So four was about events. Oh, sorry. New experiences rather. What learning and new experiences do you want? Number five is around the people. Who you're gonna connect with and build relationships with?
And then number six was looking at what mini goals you're going to set yourself April, July, October.
I've whizzed through those. I hope that's okay.
No probs. Thanks, Kathy. Lovely to have you with us. Enjoy the rest of your day. I think that's So over to you, Gemma.
Yeah. That's that was really great session. Thanks for recapping at the end.
Don't worry. We've recorded this session, and we will be sharing it next week for people to follow along or for anybody who didn't have a chance to join us this evening. I hope that you've taken, a lot away from this session. It's certainly given me a couple of ideas as to what this community can be or move towards in the future.
But I'm definitely going to call on you all as individuals who are engaged in this group to throw some ideas into the pot as to what you would like to see coming next. You know, whether that's getting together to do a session on building relationships or women in sales force leadership.
You know, these are all things that we can be thinking about doing in the future. So if you do have a pledge and you want help with that pledge or there's an area, feel free to drop me an email.
You'll have that from the registration forms and the confirmations in order to get back in touch with me. But, yeah, I think, Liz, you've been an absolute star. Thank you, Rob, for all the help. But the number one thing I that we can take away from this is probably the commitment bias. And I hope that everyone, Liz, has really g'd you on and kind of given you that spark and ignited that fire within you to get action, to really make yourself, a pledge and come up with something concrete and solid that you want to build for yourself in your career. So, again, Liz, thank you so much.
You're welcome. Thanks everyone for joining in. I hope you've had a good go at sketch noting. It's a new skill as well and it's thinking at your journey for this coming year, your career pledge for this coming year.
Just have a go at sketch noting wherever you are. That's my top tip as well. See if it helps you calm your mind. You might use it for work.
You might use it for a hobby. You might put it on the back of a birthday card you're sending. You send a little happy birthday picture. Just something.
Give a go. Unleash your creative side. Remember, it's all about the ideas and not about the art. But, otherwise, happy sketchnoting.
I wish you a a fabulous year with Salesforce, and, please feel free to connect with me on on the good old socials. I'm on Twitter, on LinkedIn. Connect if you've got any questions, let me know. No problem at all. But thank you so much for Gearset for hosting me today. Thank you, Gemma and Rob, for being such gracious hosts. I've had a fabulous time.
Oh, it's been wonderful. It's been great having you here. And, obviously, before we close out, a big thank you to all of you for attending. Absolute stars.
Don't forget we've got a summit coming up that is free to attend so if you're interested in furthering your education and development around DevOps that's a great place for you to land. So without further ado, you're all awesome and I look forward to seeing you at community events soon. Goodbye.
