Today, we sit down and talk with Jenh Vo about her long experience with Salesforce, her beginnings of learning admin and developer skills, and eventually getting deeply involved in various communities such as their local Women in Tech, Salesforce Saturdays, Li’l Trailblazers Book Club, and RAD Women, which jump-started her developer path.
Jenh is doing such amazing work in the Salesforce community and she got awarded The Golden Hoodie at Dreamforce 2021. Jenh also started Superbadge Sundays with her mentor where they share great tips and tricks to get started with getting superbadges. Jenh now has seven superbadges – all of them as a result of starting Superbadge Sundays.
Show Highlights:
- Jenh’s first experience with Salesforce
- How she built up her resume learning more about Salesforce
- Getting involved in the community
- The format of Superbadge Sundays
- How RAD Women jump-started her developer path
- The impetus behind the Li’l Trailblazers Book Club
- Her Dreamforce 2021 experience
- The inclusion presentation which talked about Asian women in tech
Links:
- Jenh on Twitter – http://twitter.com/sfdcKokua
- Jenh on Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sfdckokua/
Episode Transcript
Jenh Vo:
I guess it probably started when I took my first tech support role and that’s what really got me into doing that type of work.
Josh Birk:
That is Jenh Vo, a developer and consultant over at Slalom. I’m Josh Birk, your host with the Salesforce Developer podcast. And here on the podcast, you hear stories and insights from developers for developers. Today, we sit down and talk with Jenh about her long experience with Salesforce, how she got involved with it, learning admin skills, learning developer skills, and then eventually getting deeply involved in the community, women in tech, sales for Saturdays, super bad Sundays. We’re going to get into all of it, but we are going to start like we usually do, with the early years.
Jenh Vo:
It took a lot longer for me. I helped support roles in a lot of my prior positions. It was definitely something that I liked doing. I liked helping people, I liked solving problems. I liked finding the root cause of issues.
Josh Birk:
Nice. What was your first experience with Salesforce itself?
Jenh Vo:
Ooh, so I actually had to look back. I have a resume from 2006 that specifically had Salesforce on it so I was working a temp position for a local company that was using Salesforce and I vaguely remember that the information I put on my resume regarding my Salesforce experience was entering tasks.
Josh Birk:
Okay. And so was that something you kind of learned because you knew that was an essential part of the job that you were going to be applying for and you’re like, “I got to get this on my resume?”
Jenh Vo:
I think I just knew that Salesforce was a growing company and I knew that it was something that would probably be looked at on my resume and just having that little peak into it, I thought might help me secure another role where I could be more introduced I guess, to Salesforce.
Josh Birk:
Got it. And so 2006, you’re dating pretty well ahead of each Trailhead and a lot of the modern ways that we think of learning Salesforce. What was your method of trying to say, “I’m comfortable putting Salesforce on my resume?”
Jenh Vo:
Oh. It was probably knowing the very little I knew about Salesforce and just the fact that I had used it for a short period of time, that might help get my foot in the door at a place that had Salesforce or was interested in obtaining Salesforce.
Josh Birk:
Got you. So at the first, you weren’t trying to get into a deep dive of trying to get into the certification cycle or anything like that because you’ve got several certificates under your belt, when did it start to evolve for you to be, “I want to make this more of my career and more of something that I can build my resume out with?”
Jenh Vo:
So that started in 2012. Again, I was placed in a temp position and I knew just from the interview that they used Salesforce and so that definitely piqued my interest and I was in Salesforce every day, that was my job was to be working in Salesforce and that ended up becoming a permanent position. And so I just started learning more about Salesforce and more about the capabilities of it and that’s what really intrigued me to the point where I wanted to learn from the current Salesforce administrator, maybe become a super user, which I didn’t realize at the time but I think with all the things that I was already doing in Salesforce, I think I was already a super user without even knowing it.
Josh Birk:
Got you. It sounds like you kind of had the slow boil and then you just sort of realized that you were more immersed in Salesforce than you actually thought.
Jenh Vo:
Yeah. And then that’s what piqued my interest to obtain a certification. I had no idea about Trailhead. I had told my manager once our Salesforce administrator had left, that I was still interested in learning more about Salesforce and possibly becoming certified. And so luckily, I was able to attend Destination Success in 2017 and that’s how I was able to obtain my admin certification.
Josh Birk:
Got you. And, so that was your very first certificate, was the admin one?
Jenh Vo:
Yeah.
Josh Birk:
And that’s an interesting timing because that’s when Trailhead was kind of first starting to move forward and take off, but not quite in the forefront of the community that we have it today. So chronologically speaking, it’s one of the things I really want to talk to you about is a lot of your community involvement. And so you get certified, you realize you’re a super user, out of the many things that you’ve been doing with the community, what was chronologically the first thing that you started getting involved with?
Jenh Vo:
Oh. So what brought me into the community was a community conference the beginning of 2018, I was able to attend Tahoe retreatment. Yeah. Oh, it was amazing. So my first community conference, the night before it started, there was a joint community group happy hour and so I went to that and I walked in not knowing a single person and walked out, applying to be a Women in Tech community group leader and about a dozen new friends.
Josh Birk:
That’s amazing. Okay. We can’t go through all dozen people because that’s very transformative. Who were you talking to that made you think, in that period of time, “I really want to get involved in something like WIT.”
Jenh Vo:
So the very first person that I spoke with, she came up to me, her name is Kyla Longe. She came up, we had a little bit of small talk, asked me where I was from. She’d mentioned there wasn’t a WIT group in my area, had said that I should start one and then proceeded to walk me around this bar, introducing me to all the other community group leaders in the room which there were a lot. I remember I spoke to Dan Peter. He immediately gave me his contact information, said if needed any help, that I could contact him. I met Gabriela Petrone who has become family to me now, just a number of people from everywhere, that were existing community group leaders that had all told me the same thing that I could do it and go for it.
Josh Birk:
Nice. Yeah. And focusing on that start of it, how did you find going from the pitch of, “Yes, you can do this,” to getting it really kicked off. Were there specific challenges or maybe words of advice you would give somebody if they were being told the same thing?
Jenh Vo:
I don’t know if this is typical, but what I did was as soon as I found out that I was approved to become a leader, I started attending any and every community group event in my area within a 40, 50 mile radius.
Josh Birk:
Oh, wow.
Jenh Vo:
Yeah. And the one that was consistent every month was the San Francisco Developer group with Dan Peter and so I was attending that one and just meeting people and researching, how do I do this? I’ve never done this before. What do I to do have my group be even close to as successful as Dan’s”?
Josh Birk:
Because it’s not like they give you an instruction manual for these kind of things.
Jenh Vo:
Exactly.
Josh Birk:
We can now do the, how did it started and how is it going now? And actually, I guess we should level set where precisely are you located?
Jenh Vo:
So my group is the Sunnyvale Women in Tech group so I’m in the Bay Area, California.
Josh Birk:
OK. And how’s the WIT group going these days?
Jenh Vo:
It’s going well. With COVID, we didn’t have as many events but we were able to do some great virtual events, which actually brought people from all over as opposed to just local folks. Yeah, that was really good.
Josh Birk:
Nice. And you’ve also gotten involved with the local Salesforce Saturday, is that something that you’re active in or do you have a leadership role there? And also bonus question, how has that been during the pandemic?
Jenh Vo:
Oh, so with Salesforce Saturday, that was actually something that was brought up at my very first WIT meeting. There was a person that was starting to get interested in going down the Salesforce certification path. She was an employee of Salesforce at the time, but she wanted to do more. So she had brought up the idea of starting a Salesforce Saturday and so we started that together and we were meeting up almost every Saturday and slowly we were getting 2, 3, 4, 5 people joining us and it was great. A lot of people, I guess, were wanting something like that in the area were interested in Salesforce or just help with Trailhead badges so that was really nice.
Jenh Vo:
That, because of the pandemic, we were not having the in person meetups so I threw out an idea to my mentor, Pat McClellan, about doing Superbadge Sundays because he was very into Superbadges. And at the time I didn’t have any, I was not scared, I guess I thought that they were super time consuming and that I would need to sit down for a full eight hours to bang it out so I didn’t have any experience. And so we started these Superbadge Sundays and he came up with these great tips and tricks to get started. And that’s when I realized, “Oh, I can do this in chunks.” I don’t have to worry about going through everything or worrying about, “Oh, I forgot what I was doing, because I started it a day or two ago.” And so we started that and we’ve been doing that for… I can’t even remember now how long ago I started.
Josh Birk:
A pandemic ago. We can at least say it probably started on a blur’s day, the next one’s going to be on a blur’s day. Yeah, I hear you. I very much hear you. I actually had somebody recently ask me, “So, what year did you kick off Trailhead?” And I’m like, “Before the pandemic. I’ll have to go check my notes right now because I don’t know, time is somewhat meaningless.” So that’s kind of brilliant because I think you just brought up a lot of the things that people think about when they move to a Superbadge because it is almost the inverse of a lot of the concepts behind Trailhead where we’re trying to give you manageable chunks and it’s a singular challenge and it’s something you kind of do on the side. And I think that there’s a lot of people who approach it with, “I don’t want to give up entire Saturday in order to try to get this done.” So give me a little bit more detail on that. Instead of giving up eight to 12 hours in a row, when you’re breaking it out into chunks, how much easier does that make it and how much time commitment does that give for somebody trying to get something like a Superbadge done?
Jenh Vo:
Oh, it’s so much easier and so much less stressful. I was doing each challenge, maybe one or two a day so maybe an hour, I mean, pretty much as much time as you would spend on any Trailhead project but it was just getting started and seeing, oh, this is going to be an eight hour commitment. I don’t know if I’m going to have eight hours to get this started and completed.
Josh Birk:
Right. It’s now taken me almost a month to watch the latest Bond movie for almost exactly the same reason so I very much appreciate that. And I also think approaching that it’s also kind of smart from an application design point of view because you don’t try to tackle everything all at once. You try to tackle the cord and examine that and then move on to the next problem and the next problem. How many Superbadges do you have under your belt now?
Jenh Vo:
I have seven now and all of them-
Josh Birk:
Really?
Jenh Vo:
Yeah. All of them are from starting the Superbadge Sundays.
Josh Birk:
That is awesome. That is really awesome. What’s the format of Superbadge Sunday in the current pandemic frame time? I don’t really know what the noun following pandemic should be right now, but we’re in with this kind of weird quasi. Maybe people are getting together, maybe they’re not right now.
Jenh Vo:
So we do these all virtually. We have people from all over the world attend. It’s typically an hour long and it’s just going over general tips and tricks and then jumping into specific tips for that Superbadge.
Josh Birk:
Got it. So a nice little study hall, I love it.
Jenh Vo:
Yeah.
Josh Birk:
I love it. And then on a topic that I love bringing up on the podcast, when did you first start getting involved with RAD Women?
Jenh Vo:
Oh. Yeah, that was in 2018 and that is what jump started me into my developer path.
Josh Birk:
Got you.
Jenh Vo:
Yeah. I would have to say that, being at my first Dreamforce and seeing Leah McGowen-Hare on stage was pivotal to me thinking, “Oh, Hey, maybe I could do that. Maybe I could be a developer.” But RAD Women Code is what really helped solidify that, that’s what I want to do, that’s what I’m striving for. Yeah. It’s a great program.
Josh Birk:
You don’t even know where to start. I have only watched it from the sidelines, but I’ve seen that passion come from it before and you have got to be at least, I don’t know if I can count on, I think I need at least both hands for people I’ve talked to just around the podcast alone, whose experience with the Leah being in the room with them has inspired them to be, “That’s something I can do.” I know I’ll sound cliche, but let’s just talk, what a great example of representation matters that we don’t have to have the developer being, I think it was Jessica who described it as, the fifties guy with the crew cut and the taped glasses and the pens in the pocket kind of thing like that. I’m happy with engineers looking like that, don’t get me wrong but they don’t have to look like that and sometimes it just that moment of inspiration to get people started.
Jenh Vo:
Yeah, absolutely. There’s just too much good to say about RAD Women Code. I can’t even articulate what I want to say because it’s wow.
Josh Birk:
Yeah. What has been your specific involvement on it? Have you been on the coaching side and the learning side or just one or the other?
Jenh Vo:
I’ve been on the learner side for RAD Women Code one and two. My plan is to eventually become a RAD Women coach And that’s been a plan since I first heard of the program. It was like, “That’s what I want to do someday.” I want to be able to give back and be a coach and help people the same way, all my fantastic RAD coaches helped me.
Josh Birk:
Did you find learning what we would call the development genre of things, much different from all the other things that you’ve already learned? Or was it really just going down a similar path with different nouns and verbs of it?
Jenh Vo:
I would say, for me, it was very different. It’s very difficult. I’m still trying to wrap my head around all the concepts. I like that it’s difficult though.
Josh Birk:
Interesting.
Jenh Vo:
I like that it’s challenging. And the more I do, the more I see how the declarative and the programmatic sides intersect if that makes sense.
Josh Birk:
It makes a lot of sense and I’ll follow up that with, do you think the challenges are what keeps you coming back to learn more?
Jenh Vo:
Oh, absolutely.
Josh Birk:
Nice. Now, while researching for this interview, I did not even know that this existed, but it’s completely adorable. Can you tell me a little bit about the little Trailblazers book club?
Jenh Vo:
Yes. Oh, that was something that my mentor, Pat McClellan had thought of. He was planning to read to his granddaughter for an hour a day during the pandemic just to give her parents a break. And he knew that I had kids, so my kids jumped right in and there were other parents in the community that thought it was a good idea and so he ended up reading to kids for an hour a day, every day for almost a whole year of the pandemic.
Josh Birk:
Really?
Jenh Vo:
Yeah.
Josh Birk:
Wow. Well, now that’s secured him an episode on the show for sure.
Jenh Vo:
Yeah.
Josh Birk:
Was it kind of a one off thing? Is it something that might keep going? Because I love everything about that.
Jenh Vo:
I’m not sure. I know it was because the kids were stuck at home. The parents were home working and trying to manage the children. And it just kind of was like, “Oh, well, I’m going to give the parents a break so they can decompress from the day of work and managing the kids and the homework and the homeschooling.”
Josh Birk:
Yeah.
Jenh Vo:
So I don’t know. Now with things opening up and kids back at school, I’m not sure if it will continue but I mean, it was amazing. And he would be able to better tell you but I think he had mentioned that he had read over 20 books in that period of time.
Josh Birk:
Oh my God. Okay, That’s amazing. I’ll definitely have to follow up with him. I did think I took a note from the article I was reading about it. So your kids are actively involved in Trailhead, is that a true statement?
Jenh Vo:
Yeah. So it started with my 12 year old, she was watching me do my Trailhead modules and she was like, “Oh, that looks fun. I want to try.” She started doing some. We’ve done a few projects together and she has, I know, it’s over 60 badges.
Josh Birk:
Oh, wow.
Jenh Vo:
Yeah. Her goal is a hundred obviously because she wants to be a Ranger. Yeah, she’s been doing that for, at least, a couple years now. And then my nine year old as well had become interested and so she has badges and they’ve attended some Oakland Salesforce Saturdays with me.
Josh Birk:
Nice.
Jenh Vo:
Yeah. They love everything about Trailhead and the characters.
Josh Birk:
That’s amazing. Now at least in part, because of all amazing work you’ve been doing in the community, you got awarded the Golden Hoodie and I believe it was last TDX, correct? Last Trailblazer DX 21?
Jenh Vo:
It was Dreamforce.
Josh Birk:
It was Dreamforce, okay.
Jenh Vo:
Yeah.
Josh Birk:
What was that experience like?
Jenh Vo:
That was terrifying. It was amazing. It was absolutely incredible. I did not expect it.
Josh Birk:
Really?
Jenh Vo:
Yeah. Actually, so when I was asked if I was interested in being interviewed, a three minute interview, I had thought that it was going to be something virtual that was reported, that would probably play during one of the keynotes at Dreamforce. So I was completely surprised when they said, “Oh no, we want you to walk on stage.” I was trying to think of every possible way I could I back out of doing this.
Josh Birk:
Well, because I was going to follow up with this, was this just kind of a pure normal gut reaction, “What do you mean you want to pull me up on stage?” Or was there a whole another layer to this? The Dreamforce last year was one of their first attempts to really be back in person so you’re also in a, not quite post pandemic world with a bunch of people and going to get up on stage.
Jenh Vo:
So actually that’s what made it a little less scary was that, it wasn’t going to be the full blown Dreamforce where there were going to be the thousands of people in the audience so it was a lot more comforting for me. not having as many people staring at me but I mean, that was my first time ever stepping on a stage so it was a wonderful experience. [crosstalk 00:24:33]
Josh Birk:
I was going to say, when our community people are like, “Hey, can we interview you for three minutes?” It might be a trap. It’s probably a wonderful trap that you’ll end up enjoying by the end of it but yes, they have motives. Sometimes, they have motives. Well, congratulations on all of that, but I do have a really quick question for you. Are you in fact Jen Lee?
Jenh Vo:
I love that question.
Josh Birk:
Okay, because when we were talking about this previously, I was just blown away that this presentation was being put together. So tell me a little bit about the origin story and some of the encounters that led you to want to have this inclusion presentation, talking about Asian and Women in Tech and we’re not all the same kind of thing.
Jenh Vo:
So it started off, Rachel Park and I were talking about submitting something for the United Minds Summer Camp and our idea was originally something that I guess you could say, has been done before, basically talking about women in tech and whatnot. And I think it was [inaudible 00:25:55] had come back to Rachel and said, “Can you think of something different? Can you think of something along those lines, but something more about you and Jenh?” And that’s where-
Josh Birk:
Oh really?
Jenh Vo:
Well, Rachel and myself, not Jen Lee.
Josh Birk:
Okay, got you. Thank you for clarifying my brain went a very strange corner at that.
Jenh Vo:
Yeah. And Rachel and I and [inaudible 00:26:30] and Tammy, everyone that we brought in, we all had that one thing in common that we had all at one point in time, been mistaken for Jen Lee.
Josh Birk:
Oh, wow.
Jenh Vo:
Which is an absolute compliment.
Josh Birk:
Sure. Oh yeah, if you’re going to get mistaken for somebody, Jen Lee would be high on the list for somebody to get mistaken for, for sure.
Jenh Vo:
Absolutely. So Rachel had brought up the fact that we’re, mistaken for Jen Lee and I said, “Okay, well, that’s it. That’s what we’re going to do.” So we submitted our talk and apparently it went over well with the committee so that’s how it happened.
Josh Birk:
And that’s our show now, before we go, I did ask after Jenh’s favorite non-technical hobby and not to give it away, but this is a hobby I did actually try once and the friend that I tried to with told me to never attempt it again. I believe his exact words were something like, “You have absolutely no sense of balance.”
Jenh Vo:
Non-technical hobby?
Josh Birk:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jenh Vo:
I like to ride motorcycles.
Josh Birk:
Real. What’s your bike? Wait, can I call it a bike? I don’t know.
Jenh Vo:
Yeah.
Josh Birk:
Okay.
Jenh Vo:
Yeah. So I’ve had a sport bike for quite a while and during the pandemic I picked up a Harley so now I have a sport bike and a Harley.
Josh Birk:
Nice.I’m guessing actually during the pandemic would be a great time to have a hobby where you can kind of have a helmet on and go wherever you want.
Jenh Vo:
Yeah. Oh, it definitely helps.
Josh Birk:
Nice. I want to thank Jenh for the great conversation and information and as always, I want to thank you for listening. Now, if you want to learn more about this show, head on over to developer.salesforce.com/podcast, where you could hear old episodes, see the show notes and links to your favorite podcasters. Thanks again, everybody. I’ll talk to you next week.