Ramping up

Last Updated on Friday, 22 May 2009 01:32 Written by Steve Friday, 22 May 2009 01:32

I just finished a week down in San Francisco, trying to come up to speed on the Salesforce.com Foundation and what I’ll be doing here. I had four main goals in coming down:

• Meet my new co-workers face to face (the ones in HQ, anyway)
• Get a better read on the culture of the Foundation–that’s hard to do remotely
• Spend time with Steve Wright working through what my main areas of focus should be
• Connect with folks at Salesforce.com the company and learn how best to leverage their knowledge and systems in serving nonprofits

I felt like my trip was a great success in all of those categories. I have great co-workers and it was so nice to spend time with them in meetings, at happy hour, etc. It was really cool to connect with some great people at the Company. The Foundation is a small nonprofit, but we’re connected to this massive software company.

I’ll be at the Foundation filling all sorts of roles that have whole teams at the Company–product management, sales engineering, internal process work, partner support. I’ve already gotten great tips and suggestions from Company employees about how best to get this work done. It’s really exciting.

So I’m feeling good, if overwhelmed. Starting a new job is always a lot to absorb. It’s a bit daunting hearing how the Product Management team gathers requirements, interfaces with developers, and tracks progress, and then realize that I’ll be doing all that by myself! Setting expectations of what we can get done will be key…

7 Comments

1. Jon Stahl   |  Friday, 22 May 2009 at 2:18 pm

   Welcome back, can’t wait to hear about your adventures in person!

   
2. Julie Trell   |  Monday, 25 May 2009 at 8:35 am

   If you weren’t overwhelmed on your first week, I’d be very concerned! Welcome to the team! You’re off to a great start!

   
3. Jon Cline   |  Wednesday, 27 May 2009 at 11:51 pm

   Congrats Steve! You have done a great service at OneNW and I am sure you will continue it at SFF.

   Take care.

   
4. Steve   |  Thursday, 28 May 2009 at 8:37 am

   Thanks Jon!

   
5. Steve   |  Thursday, 28 May 2009 at 8:37 am

   Thanks Julie! It was great to meet you in person last week!

   
6. Susan Fairchild   |  Friday, 29 May 2009 at 3:09 pm

   Congrats Steve! Happy to hear the exciting news…I bet it was still hard to leave the OneNW team. Glad to hear you’re sticking around in Seattle. I bet that means we’ll run into you even more in Ballard.

   
7. Steve   |  Friday, 29 May 2009 at 4:38 pm

   Yep, I don’t get far from home anymore!