Guests

Full Transcript

0:00:03 – Janeen
I think a lot of it. For those of us like yourself and me who are more on the implementation side, we really are curious about AI. We want to know how it’s going to affect our day-to-day job. How do we implement it for our customers Our customers really that interested in it? How will it change our jobs? And really is anyone pushing for it as hard as Salesforce thinks they’re going to push for it? I think, from a customer standpoint, they’re probably more interested in will it affect their ability to do their job? How can they use it in their job, or will it make their jobs superfluous and will it make their job go away? And I think it’s up to us to help them understand how they can make better use of AI to support their jobs.

0:01:04 – Fred
Hello and welcome to Banking on Disruption. I’m Fred Cadena. Last week was Dreamforce and I’m super excited to welcome Janeen Marquardt to discuss everything that happened last week. We have a bit of a shorter show for you this time around. After the interview, we won’t have a Quick Takes or an ISV Spotlight segment. Instead, I’ll have a couple of exciting announcements to share about the show. So stick around after our conversation with Janeen. While you’re listening to the podcast, why not take a moment to follow us on LinkedIn, at at the Banking on Disruption podcast, or on Instagram at at Banking on Disruption? Now sit back and strap in, because our show is coming to you right now On this episode.

I’m excited to welcome Janeen Marquardt. Janeen is a highly accomplished Salesforce leader, architect and strategist with over 15 years of experience delivering complex Salesforce business transformation solutions. She has more than 15 certifications. She volunteers her time as a community group leader, a mentor, a clicked coach, an Amplify BA facilitator and for Superbadge Sundays. Janeen is a seasoned speaker and has shared her knowledge and expertise at many industry events, most recently at Dreamforce 23, which is what we’re here to talk about. With a list of accomplishments like hers, I thought Janeen was the perfect guest to sit with our audience and just share a little bit insights and reflections on what we all just experienced at Dreamforce, whether we experienced it in person, like Janeen and I did, or through Salesforce Plus and catching up and watching sessions which, quite frankly, I think Janeen and I are both still doing, even though we were there in person. So, Janeen, I guess I’ll just start off with a broad question what were the big highlights and announcements from your perspective?

0:02:55 – Janeen
Hi, how are you Fred? Nice to see you and thanks for having me on. Thank you, glad you’re here.

0:03:00 – Janeen
Yeah, I mean, obviously AI was primarily the focus of everything at Dreamforce this year.

0:03:08 – Fred
They called it the largest AI conference in the world.

0:03:12 – Janeen
Yeah, even if you don’t believe it, I think that they were trying to make it so from everything, every word that they could find where A and I lived together in the word. Suddenly, those two became capitalized in a different color. So even if that wasn’t the case, it suddenly became the case. So it was kind of very, very in your face, I noticed. So definitely the biggest AI AI conference in the world definitely, but I would say that would be the standout, and there was definitely a lot of announcements related to how they’re bringing AI into everything Salesforce so we can definitely talk about how that works and what that means, because I know it’s definitely been on all of our tongues over the last few months how that was going to work for us.

0:04:03 – Fred
Totally. I’m sure I think you’re a lot like I am. You spend as much time at Dreamforce talking and networking with people as you do, if not more, in sessions, so obviously AI was what was on Salesforce’s mind In general. Do you think for the attendees that were there like, were they as excited and focused on AI or were they interested in other topics? Maybe not more so than AI, but not to the extent that Salesforce was trying to push it.

0:04:37 – Janeen
It really depends on each individual person’s focus. I think a lot of it. For those of us, like yourself and me, who are more on the implementation side, we really are curious about AI. We want to know how it’s going to affect our day-to-day job. How do we implement it for our customers Our customers really that interested in it? How will it change our jobs? And really is anyone pushing for it as hard as Salesforce thinks they’re going to push for it?

I think, from a customer standpoint, they’re probably more interested in. Will it affect their ability to do their job? How can they use it in their job? Or will it make their jobs superfluous and will it make their job go away? And I think it’s up to us to help them understand how they can make better use of AI to support their jobs and, especially in the case for us in Salesforce, how do we bring that in and show them how to use it as a tool and not make them feel like it’s a replacement for them, but really just helps them do their jobs better? So I think it really just depend on the focus of anyone’s individual job title.

0:05:51 – Fred
I think that makes a lot of sense. The sessions that you went to and or watched afterwards on Salesforce Plus did they hit the mark in your opinion? Were they answering the questions on people’s minds about how AI is going to help them, how realistic it is, what’s the timeline and those types of questions?

0:06:12 – Janeen
I think they tried to. I think that they’ve kind of jumped out in front of it earlier this year with, oh my gosh, ai. We have to get out in front of it and be AI and show how we’re going to have it be part of this product and we’re AI. And this was them saying okay, we said AI, and we said it a lot and we said it’s going to be here in. This is what we were meaning, right? So here we’re going to show it in demonstration, integrated into the product and what that really means, and kind of back it up with some reality, whereas before they were doing like some smoke and mirrors, waving their hands a little bit. And I think that it was good for us to sort of see that in practice, because I know a lot of us on the implementation side have been like, okay, but what?

does this really mean in reality. Yeah, like, that’s really cool. Like now you’ve said Einstein GPT and sales cloud GPT and we’re like but what does that really mean? So I think that this was helpful for us to get a feel for what that meant in reality. I have yet to see a customer actually say, great, we want it, put it in. And I haven’t heard from any of my other colleagues say, oh yeah, my customers are scrambling for this. I haven’t heard anybody say that. So maybe now that people have started to see it like played out how it might be useful and that it actually exists, I’m gonna say that in the air quotes, that it actually exists, that maybe we’ll get more calls for it or maybe it just actually exists. I’m unclear still if it takes a lot of implementation or if it’s just there. I don’t know if that question’s been answered for us yet.

0:08:01 – Fred
Yeah, I think it varies on the product. I think that Salesforce is doing a very smart thing of baking it into and basically concentrating on making AI available at various interaction points on the platform. I think in a lot of cases, it is just gonna be there. I think where there’s implementation is if you want to take more ownership of that trust layer, if you wanna bring in your own model, if you wanna do some of that other stuff that you know probably is a bit of a more enterprise approach than there’ll be work. But I think that if you’re going to leverage the models that Salesforce is making available, they’re putting it out there and I’ve seen some of this stuff. It seems pretty you know, pretty easy to start accessing using, which is fantastic, but I think more to come.

I’ve heard a lot of customers ask for AI, but I will say, like they don’t necessarily know the what Right, they’re like we wanna everybody’s using AI, we wanna use AI too. But I’m like okay, so what do you wanna use it for? And they’re like all well, we just wanna use AI. So I’m hoping that, exactly for stuff like you know, we wanna do what the other people are doing. I’m hoping that you know. Part of what came out of this is people have gotten a little bit clearer idea of where AI could work into their daily workflow and like, where does it make sense to use it Versus where is, you know, where is AI Maybe, you know, not gonna be the panacea that people think that it is gonna be?

I will tell you, outside of AI, one of the highlights that I found the most interesting was data cloud related. It feels like I’m rewinding a whole year to last year, but I will say that I’ve been pleased that I’ve been able to work with a couple of clients on data cloud stuff. I feel that this may just be a personal belief that it’s been pretty inaccessible outside of like the largest you know customers, just from a cost and complexity and all the rest kind of perspective. But I love that Salesforce has announced now everyone in enterprise and unlimited gets 10,000 profiles, and 10,000 profiles, you know, may not be enough. I mean, for a lot of companies it’s not gonna be enough, but it’s enough to run a pretty solid pilot right, and you know, and for some companies that might be enough. But, you know, thoughts are are you on the data cloud train or are you a data cloud detractor?

0:10:37 – Janeen
No, actually I think that it’s an important element for people to take advantage of, honestly, where I think we’re going to be in a little bit of trouble, or the people who are still just kind of on the verge of figuring things out. I’ve had a lot of customers who are like we need to really rethink our MDM strategy. Can you help us with that? And where I think that there was kind of a like a skip over was oh, they’ve just announced Genie. Is that MDM strategy? Not quite, no, exactly.

So, so it’s. It’s like we we almost need to like help them with that strategy. Still, like Genie isn’t quite that. Data clouding in and of itself isn’t quite that. So we still need to help them understand, like, how to put a strategy in place and that some combination of, maybe data cloud and a data lake might be needed and the thinking part we still need to help them with. But Wonderline structure might be there with these things and that 10,000 profiles might go a long way towards helping them get there.

But we, it’s not like here’s sales cloud and it’s the structure to help you use best practices to enable your sales team to do what they need to do. But data cloud isn’t like plug and play for MDM, nor is Genie, nor is data lake. I mean it’s sort of just this infrastructure. So it would be really cool if there was some sort of underlying best practices plug and play for folks for that. But even CDP still wasn’t that I mean. So like it’s just just short. I think of what a lot of customers need for dealing with their data. So on the upside, we still have a job.

0:12:21 – Fred
That is true. I mean, what recommendations did you have? Like, taking all that into mind, if you’re sitting here now, this will drop Thursday, so almost a week, I guess a week after Dreamforce ended and you’re like, all right, that data cloud was kind of cool. How do I, you know, how do I move forward? Like, what are you telling people? What is your recommendation?

0:12:42 – Janeen
I mean, I don’t know that that changes much of anything. It’s still right, you still need to engage with your consultants, your data consultants, to figure out the right strategy for you. Right, you still need to talk about what your goals are as a customer, what your needs are and where your existing infrastructure or your existing needs are falling short, and work that out right. So, in the true nature of clicked or anything else, right, it depends. I’m not wearing my it depends shirt at the moment, but that’s really, as a consultant, it’s what we say a lot. Right, it depends. So, what is your need? What are your goals? What do you need to accomplish? And let’s work that out. Can the new data cloud, can the new version of Genie, or can a data like? What is it you need? And then let’s figure it out. And is what Salesforce is offering enough for you, or do we need to expand outside of that? So I think there’s no one size fits all here when it comes to data, that’s for sure.

0:13:46 – Fred
No, I think that’s spot on and definitely insightful, and I think that having the data strategy and knowing what you want to accomplish is always a good first step, rather than just kind of diving in and tackling something, so hopefully.

0:14:04 – Janeen
I was saying. I mean, at a minimum, start with your data, make sure it’s clean, make sure it’s accurate, d-doop and like those are the most important things. So, regardless of where you’re going with it and what you need to do with it, if you’re thinking of some sort of an AI future, but those are the critical starting points. But, like, you gotta clean it up and it doesn’t matter who you engage with, it doesn’t matter where you’re gonna go with it and where you’re gonna put it. You gotta have clean data and there’s no consultancy on earth that’s gonna do that for you, because you are the expert. If you’re a client and you’re listening to this, right, you’ve gotta be the person responsible for taking a look at it. So you may as well get started.

0:14:48 – Fred
Yeah, data cleansing is one of those things. There’s not a lot of shortcuts to cleaning data, it really is. I had a this is someone else on the industry side but we had a couple of year project for cleaning up, like for an individual address data, because we just didn’t do a great job when it was a startup, when we started collecting that data, of standardizing it and it’s just, I mean, it’s just a slog of kind of going through and cleaning it up record over record over record, a couple million records later and you’re done. But totally, totally get that. I’m curious, like obviously there’s always roadmap sessions. I went to a couple. I went to the FSC roadmap session as an example, whether it was from one of those formal sessions or from an informal chat or just kind of reading between the lines Any takeaways or insights on Salesforce’s forward product roadmap? Like where are they going from here?

0:15:49 – Janeen
I am not sure if I heard anything other than AI. Honestly, if they said it, I think all I heard was AI is the future. So do I agree? Do I disagree? I’m not sure I have. We have a tendency, I think those of us who are sort of been around a while, to refer to it a little bit as the new shiny thing. So will we still be talking about AI in a year? I don’t even know right. Will something else surface that’s more interesting, more important? Will AI lose its sparkle? I don’t actually know the answer to that.

I do think that it is important that they I think they’re addressing it in the right way. I think that they are looking at it in the right way and saying, especially when we deal with our customers’ data, that they’re looking at the elements of trust. And can we let our customers know that we are taking good care of their data, that we’re taking measures to ensure that we’re not letting their data out into the wild wild west of the world and letting their data out to train everybody else’s large language models, but that we’re just keeping it here inside any individual version of Salesforce? And I think that that’s really one of the key, important factors. I definitely think that that’s important to stress. I think that it’s an interesting idea that we’re able to take advantage of the algorithms and yet still keep that level of trust. I think that that’s correct.

I also fear that we may lose some of the advantages of the broader knowledge that could be had across the broader data model because of that. That doesn’t mean I disagree with my first statement because of it. So it’s kind of there’s pros and cons. So I think we might have to think about how do we continue to learn and yet protect the data at the same time? So there might be an evolution as to how we treat the models, how we continue to learn from the data. That is not sort of identifiable data and yet, like I mean cause, there are trends in the data that I think we can leverage without giving up information about where the data comes from. So where does that go?

I don’t know what will we be talking about with this next year. I don’t know If I could predict that, I would be so happy. But you know, as you and I both know, we’ve been around this industry long enough to know that it’s grown immensely in this time. It was a very, very simple Salesforce back when we started. It is grown to be so many things, so I think that we have to just hold on and see where it takes us and decide how we want to focus our energy. Right, we can’t possibly know everything. There is to know about everything, salesforce, because we would go nuts.

0:18:54 – Fred
Oh yeah, I mean, it’s impossible. There’s I have so many blind spots. I’d like to think when you and I got started, it was somewhat possible to be a like true platform expert on every part of the product. Now it’s not possible. It’s just you. There’s too much and there’s more features. You know every day. You know. You mentioned prediction. Do you want to put down a prediction for what’s the big theme for Dreamforce 24?

0:19:22 – Janeen
Oh my God, no, no, because, in all honesty. So here’s what’s funny.

0:19:29 – Fred
Yep.

0:19:30 – Janeen
I probably can talk about this now, early in 2023, I went to so no surprise, dreamforce, salesforce does market research and I was one of the people who did went to one of these early market research things and I went to a preview of keynotes. Some of these keynotes for probably for like world tour In early 2020, like very early like January 2023. And they were about Genie and D-Cloud and we were like ooh, wow, preview. And they were talking about like Genie was kind of going away. They were talking about data cloud. It hadn’t been released yet. They weren’t. It was before data cloud was data cloud. That never got released.

Those conversations never happened before the pivot to AI happened and we were like those of us who were there, like we’re kind of like looking at each other a couple of months later when the pivot to AI happened. We’re like, wow, that conversation never happened the whole, because by the time TDX happened, like a month later, the whole conversation has shifted to AI that quickly, I mean, and they’re only sort of just starting to have the conversation now about data cloud and shifting that back into the conversation how it relates to AI, because of course it does. So I can’t even begin to predict what’s gonna happen in a year, because it could be. I mean, I assume that AI will still be part of the conversation, but could be anything.

0:21:02 – Fred
It could be anything. So you can’t have Dreamforce without, like, big, buzz-worthy speakers and there was a long list of them this year Any standouts. Anybody that you were like, wow, I was blown away or, conversely, anybody just flopped. Anybody that you were like, oh, I can’t believe, I waited to see that person.

0:21:28 – Janeen
I well, I’m very excited to see Viola Davis and Spike Lee and I’m hoping that they’re on Salesforce plus, because the line was around the block and six wide and a thousand deep and I was like, no, because I want to have dinner at some point tonight, and so I I couldn’t do it and so I, my assumption is that I think it’s going to be on Salesforce plus and that’s basically the new strategy for me. Is anything that I think is worthy of seeing? I wait to see on Salesforce plus, because it’s impossible otherwise and and I think that that’s the way it’s got to be I mean, rain Wilson, I’m gonna hope, is on Salesforce plus, like he came on and said oh, dave Matthews, did you guys see that I’m like Dave Matthews, if I know, Dave Matthews was the main keynote, I absolutely would have made a point, a point to see that.

So that’s kind of problematic and I will say that I I love the fact that I can now see things After the fact, because there are so many things that are overlapping, I can’t get to all of them, no matter how hard I try, and so I think that it’s it’s almost like I don’t know if Salesforce plus is working for or against itself, because, like I, I will skip big sessions and in theory, I think they want a big audience for Because I know I can watch it later. But it’s also Such a great, great innovation and we absolutely should be leveraging the technology that’s at our fingertips yeah, to to be able to go to more things and see more things. So I was able to go to things that aren’t going to be on Salesforce plus so that I can watch the other things later.

0:23:04 – Fred
I would say I’m a big fan of Salesforce plus. I I wish they were more Transparent about what is and is it going to be on Salesforce plus, and I would even invite a Like a tiered model where some of it is truly free and then some of it’s only available. If you have a dream forest Badge and went to the conference, I mean it was clear Everything was was being, at least, I’ll say at least recorded in some of that. Like I, I didn’t go to a single session that did not have closed captioning, for example, yeah, I think was AI generated closed captioning, so it was being recorded in process. Like I would love to have Every session available on on Salesforce plus after the fact. Again, probably not For free, but if you, if you have a pass, I think that would be great.

You and I were talking before we hit the record button, about the, the summaries, and I think those are interesting. I what I haven’t done yet and I thought about it when you brought it up before is Gone to read a summary for one of the sessions I went to, just to see, like, how, how good is the summary compared to what I got out of it? Right? So, but again, I think I think I think the Salesforce definitely realizes there’s a lot going on and it’s hard for anybody, you know, impossible for anybody to hit anything, everything, and even impossible to hit all the things they want to try to hit.

Another thing we talked about before we hit record, that kind of ties into it and I’d love to talk about it on the show is all of the Extra, you know, outside of the campus pop-up spots, right, and the trend that I noticed, that I mentioned, was that you know, I, I’ve seen those, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve hosted those in in my in my career. I’m sure you have as well, but it seems like in the last couple they’re, they’re, they’re double doubting on content and not just not just streaming, not just come for the happy hour, not just like let’s meet, but like sessions that that either they didn’t submit to Dreamforce or maybe they submitted to Dreamforce and didn’t get in and they wanted to host themselves and that’s a whole separate, like ecosystem. What are your, what are your thoughts on those pop-ups and did you hit any particularly interesting ones this time around?

0:25:21 – Janeen
Yeah, actually we um, we spent quite a bit of time at Straconte, at the pink elephant. They had a great food and good content, so that was a good one to hit. Trying to think what was the other ones that we were at with good content. I think that was the primary one that had the content that we were going to a lot I’d have to go back. I don’t have my my dream force agenda up.

0:25:46 – Fred
No worries.

0:25:47 – Janeen
But, yeah, that I think that was the one we spent a lot of time at. We went to a number of different like parties and events I’m trying to think of all the different ones, but it’s really.

It all becomes like a blur at some point and it’s not because I have COVID or anything, that was the bonus that you know, dream COVID.

I guess we’re calling it at this point Dream COVID-23.

But yeah, although I will say I also did not really so much a pop-up, but there was actually more sort of outside of Dreamforce events like a Dreamforce Day Zero actually, for, like sales blazers, that I participated in which I thought was really great as a new sales blazer myself, newly minted certification, so that was lovely to connect with some folks on the sales blazer side of things, which is not so much on the consultant side but on the more user side of the certification and that kind of content.

So that was nice and I did a couple. One other event that I did, actually not at the Tower but just one of the other Salesforce buildings, which was Trailhead, is Listening, where we met with some of the folks who build out Trailhead and who are responsible for the certification content and for Trailhead and got to talk about what was working and not working about Trailhead and that, which is great, that Salesforce actually wants our feedback and wants to hear what can be done differently and better, and that’s really a great opportunity for us to enable and make better the experience for everybody.

And they had a range of people who were like people like me and others who are hardcore users and all star rangers and things like that all the way down to some brand new users, so that getting a range of experiences on there.

So there’s really just a range of different things going on, from those popups to Salesforce-driven events and the and then the core heart of Dreamforce, which is why it’s just so hard to even get to sessions, and so why we’re so grateful that Salesforce Plus continued to be a thing that maybe they envisioned during the well, maybe became a brainchild during the pandemic, but it didn’t just go away at the end of it, but really became a property of Salesforce as well, and I hope it continues because it brings this great content to people throughout the world who can’t be here for it and, honestly, 40,000 people is still a lot of people. It doesn’t have to become 170,000 people again, because really this COVID thing is not going away and really I think at least half of us have gotten the COVID thing. I don’t think we need 170,000 people here to do that, so that’s not going away either. It’s already enough, right.

0:28:43 – Fred
It is 40,000. I mean it felt full. I mean I went to the 170,000 one as well, but this one did not feel empty for being one quarter the size and I think people are probably just not as open. Maybe not the right word, but like it’s not a spread out.

Yeah, they just don’t know the campuses spread out. But I think people just may not be as excited about attending conferences as they were a few years ago, whether it be remote working, whether it be health concerns and everything else. I think a bit of a hybrid event makes a lot of sense. I’m curious. I didn’t hear. I don’t know if you heard or not. Obviously there was a lot of noise in the weeks leading up to Dream Forest that Mark Benioff said oh, maybe it won’t be in San Francisco next year. Have they announced new dates? Is it back in San Francisco or, okay, it is it?

0:29:41 – Janeen
is. It is Interestingly enough because I’m a local. I think it was on Monday. I had like a pop up from the local news station. Mayor London Breed says very excited to continue hosting this event every year. San Francisco really wants it here. Obviously it’s good for our economy, it’s important and honestly my brain was like there’s no way Mark’s going to move it out of the Bay Area. He has contributed so much just being here, the tower he gives so much to Benioff Children’s Hospital.

He donates so much and even they announced like 100 million to the schools, 100 million to the hospitals. He gives so much here I was like there’s no way he’s moving it out. There was an announcement I don’t know where it came from. There was an announcement next year in San Francisco the 17th through 19th of September. So it is going to be here next year. I don’t know if they’re going to have the conversation every year.

I am sure that I know that the city did do something. They did work hard to really clean up that area. I am sure that there was a lot of effort to move people from the streets, to clean the streets. I am sure that there was huge effort to make people who came here from other places to feel safe as much as possible and to clean it up, and I’m sure that was no small effort. I’m sure that there was a lot of money involved to help fund that effort. Absolutely, I have no doubt. But what I can tell you is that what San Francisco is experiencing post pandemic being worse than what we were experiencing in the pre pandemic is not unique to San Francisco.

0:31:21 – Fred
Right.

0:31:22 – Janeen
There certainly are elements that are unique in some ways because of our own politics, because of things like that.

But I mean there and there’s no easy solution and certainly if anyone could snap their fingers and have it be easy, of course we would.

But everybody who is on the street are also people and we want to have compassion for what they’re going through and we would like there to be a solution where they are happy and find peace. But we it’s not an easy solution, there are no easy answers and, like, all we can do is our best. But I ask people who are listening, who you know want to denigrate the city for whatever reason is. Just think about the people and understand that everyone has their story and recognize that it’s a struggle for us as a city, for the people who live here and would love there to be a solution, would love there to be an easy answer and know that there’s lots and lots of factors that go into it, and know that when you come here and you come to the city and you spend your money here, that it contributes to helping and that’s that’s the best we can do. But I just ask for your grace and your compassion for the people who you know don’t have another place to go.

0:32:46 – Fred
Yeah, no, I think it is a beautiful message. I I’m like you. I don’t know that I ever see Dream Forest moving out of San Francisco. It just doesn’t feel like it would be Dream Forest if it moved out of San Francisco. And you know to your point the, the investment, the money that goes back into the city. I think that as long as the city will support the conference, I think Salesforce will support the city in in, in keeping it there.

I don’t know, I’m not the right person to ask about safety. I generally feel pretty safe. I’m a rather large male individual. But when I was around with other people or just having conversations, like I think that the Salesforce did in the city, did a great job of keeping people safe, making the streets as accessible for everybody as possible, and I’m sure it was no small feat. So it’s exciting to hear that it’s officially back in in San Francisco again next year.

One of the things that I think kind of was left were kind of reading between the lines or not officially said. But one of the reasons why we don’t make it all the time, do as many content sessions as we want to, is because of the networking, because of the community, because and I always tell people, it’s usually my biggest piece of advice Find the few sessions that are not going to be recorded that you definitely want to go to right, but take advantage of the people that are going to be there, because most of the stuff you could find online you can find the recording, you can get the content another way, but meeting people, making those connections, getting that network, you can’t do anywhere else. For you like any specific highlights this year from a networking and community perspective, any particularly exciting events or happenings?

0:34:41 – Janeen
Yeah, actually we launched myself, David Noe and Jade Keenan. We launched a new virtual, primarily virtual community group called Ohonability. It’s focused on people with disabilities, both seen and unseen, of all types. We’re not judging or making you qualify them, but one of the things that’s always been let’s call it near and dear to my heart is this idea that there are some times when you need a little extra help and it’s really hard to get. And actually this dream force was a real challenge for those of us who needed a little extra help getting around or getting help. And in fact, touching back on something you mentioned, you were in a lot of sessions you were at where you saw the readout, the transcript of the session going on, and I mean that is there to aid those people who have hearing issues, so it’s there for them. So there’s a lot of work that’s being done to really help people with various issues and they’re all based on accessibility. And as much work is being done here or around the world at people’s places of employment, we still have a long way to go Because, even though I had asked for assistance and I had a little mark on my tag that noted me as somebody who had a mobility issue to see me.

I mean, yeah, you might see I’m wearing a knee brace, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. And even though in theory I’m supposed to have what’s called like a fast pass in line, when I go up to a security person at the lunch line and say, is there sort of a fast pass line, their first reaction, for example, was to say the back of the line’s over there. And I say, excuse me, but isn’t there some sort of a fast pass line for people who are disabled? The back of the line’s over there? Right, I get it, but I thought that there was some sort of a way for folks who were mobility impaired to not have to stand in the line. Oh well, if you go up over here and you cross over there and go to the Uruguayna Gardens, yeah, but see, five feet from me is a lunch.

0:36:55 – Fred
Right.

0:36:56 – Janeen
And I’m standing here, right and so, but like a little thing, like that guy saying to me hi, is there’s some way I can help you First, instead of just pointing me to the end of the line, would really go a long way towards making my experience be better. And then, instead of pointing me to the back of the line, saying, oh yes, of course, here’s how I can help you, right? And then now I’m standing around and I’m holding my lunch and there was no way to sit.

0:37:22 – Fred
No place to sit. I can’t sit on the floor Right, I can’t.

0:37:27 – Janeen
I physically cannot get on the floor. There was nowhere to go. I stood and I ate that lunch with my fingers because I can’t hold the lunch. And I mean I can’t. So finding like maybe there’s a designated place for people who have mobility issues that can sit down, I mean really small things. Or when I ask me people at the information booth, can you help me find a place to sit, instead of saying where is your mobility consultant? I don’t know, do I have a mobility consultant Right? Like help me so. So we’ve launched this group called the Hawn Ability. I’ll send you a link, so maybe do this.

0:38:09 – Fred
We’ll put in the show notes. Yeah, for sure.

0:38:11 – Janeen
Yeah, we can post this, but and it’s meant to really we’re going to set this up so that people who have different types of issues, who have different types of concerns, can help. We can help educate people. We can help educate each other. How can we help each other? How can people help us? How do we find ways to just give some grace to one another and make sure that we have what we need in order to take care of each other, because it’s not that hard? How can I help you instead of treating somebody badly right off the bat?

0:38:48 – Fred
No, I love that and I think Salesforce is always, and I think they generally make a fairly good effort in diversity and conclusion and in being being as inclusive as possible to all groups, and sometimes you know to your point when the rubber hits the road at the end of the line, that message doesn’t always get carried all the way through, all the way through. So I love that, I think that’s really exciting and we’ll definitely put in the show notes and people will hopefully get involved, you know, as an advocate or an ally, or if you have some call to actions on there, we’ll send those out as well. Thank you.

0:39:26 – Janeen
Yeah, and I think that Salesforce does an incredible job of all of those things and I think that it’s true that it’s finding how to make sure that information makes it all the way to that very last person who, ultimately, is going to be the person I come in contact with, because it’s one thing for Mark Benioff to say it, or for Charlie Isaacs to say it, or even the accessibility group to be putting that out and helping me make sure, because I went to my sessions and there was a seat with a tag on it that had my name, so I knew that I had a place to sit down when I got there late because I moved slow.

So that was amazing. But it needs to make it to every single security person. It needs to make every person who’s working a line. It needs to make like the message has to go to every single person who’s part of that organization, putting on the show how to treat people with some grace and some dignity, who it’s already hard enough to say I need help Like that’s hard when you’re an independent woman who has made her way through this world and now I have to say I need help getting my lunch.

0:40:33 – Fred
Yeah.

0:40:34 – Janeen
Like that I’ve got asked, but then to be yelled at by somebody who’s like half your age, like, like, it’s, it’s, it’s enough. Right, you know, it’s enough like, treat me with some dignity.

0:40:46 – Fred
Yeah.

0:40:46 – Janeen
Don’t treat me like a child, don’t treat me like a nuisance. Just treat me with some dignity. I’m not here breaking the rules. I’m not carrying a gun, I just want my lunch, yeah, and I don’t want to stand in line for 20 minutes because that is very, very painful.

0:41:03 – Fred
So, yeah, no, I think, I think that’s, I think that’s beautiful and I think that’s spot on and I’m excited for the group that that you’ve been pioneering Well. This has been a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate the time, especially you know we’re all swamped after Dream Forest and to make time just a few days after the conference wrapped up. I really, I really really appreciate it, other than, obviously, we’ll put the honnability in the, in the show notes and the other way that people can reach out if they’re interested in connecting with you, learning more about any of the exciting stuff that you’re working on.

0:41:37 – Janeen
Yeah, sure you can find me on LinkedIn. I think you’ve got that link as well. Yeah, please do follow me, and certainly you can follow me on my trailhead profile. I can make sure you have that as well for your notes, and those are the easiest ways to find me right now.

0:41:52 – Fred
Perfect, Well, that sounds great. Well, thank you.

0:41:54 – Janeen
There’s Twitter too, but I don’t do that much.

0:41:57 – Fred
I think, I think Twitter was supplanted with X and I just I just read an article today that they’re going to start charging for it. So I already didn’t. I already didn’t use it. Now I’m going to not use it even more.

0:42:11 – Janeen
We too, we too Well awesome.

0:42:14 – Fred
Well, thank you so much and have a great rest of your day.

0:42:17 – Janeen
You too, thanks so much.

0:42:23 – Fred
Well, everyone, we hope you enjoyed episode 12 of banking on disruption. I know I did, don’t forget. You can find show notes and a full transcript of the show on our website, bankingondisruption.com. I mentioned in the interest of exciting announcements. So first, with last week being Dreamforce, we hosted our first ever banking on disruption meetup. It was an awesome opportunity to meet and network with guests and supporters of the show on a beautiful rooftop in the shadow of the Salesforce Tower. Thanks again to our partners, FormStack, for co-hosting it with us. If you want to see pictures of everything you missed, visit dreamforce.bankingondesruption.com. We’re absolutely looking forward to hosting another one at the next Dreamforce and are looking for opportunities to do similar meetups at world tours and dreaming events. So keep posting In Saturday news. Dan is elected to take a hiatus from the show. He’s been a great co-host getting us relaunched and through our first 10 episodes and I can’t thank him enough. For now we will continue the interviews with me as the host and interviewer for our main segments.

We’re also reimagining Quicktakes. It doesn’t really work as a solo proposition and, as much as I liked our bot Charlotte from episode 10, we’ll be moving to more of a round robin Quicktakes with a total of four of us weighing in on topics. I’ll be dropping who the new Quicktake members are over the next two weeks, and our first new segment will air in two weeks, on October 5th. I will say this two of the three panelists are former guests in the program, so if you want to take a guess, please feel free to post it to our LinkedIn page or Instagram. We also got such good feedback from ISV Spotlight with Gong that we’re going to make that a regular feature as well.

Isv Spotlights will be special standalone shows that will drop on opposite weeks from the main show. Look for the first one on October 12th. Until then, new episodes drop every other Thursday. So we’ll see you in two weeks and in the meantime, don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram at at banking on disruption. Until next time. This is Fred Cadena, wishing you success in your digital pursuits.