0:05

Hello Admans, your guest has

0:07

Josh Burke here. Today we welcome

0:09

Eric Mall to talk a little

0:11

bit about AI, digital transformation, and

0:13

a lot about one of his

0:15

projects Flowfast, and how people can

0:17

learn flow in a really fun

0:19

and interactive way. So without any

0:21

further ado, let's go welcome Eric.

0:28

All right, today on the show, we welcome

0:30

Eric Ball to talk about, of course, probably

0:32

a little bit of AI, since that's what

0:34

we have to do these days. And Mile

0:36

High Dreaming and Flow Fest, Eric, welcome

0:39

to the show. Well, thanks for having me,

0:41

Josh. So let's start with your early

0:43

years. Did you always want to get

0:45

into software? No, I had no idea

0:47

I was going to get into software.

0:49

Though, when I was a very young

0:51

kid, my father used to build computers,

0:53

and I know. used to do a

0:55

little bit of the same as well,

0:57

like, you know, getting all the video

1:00

cards, the motherboards, getting all the components,

1:02

joining them together, but that wasn't something

1:04

that stuck with me throughout all these

1:06

years. I went to school for marketing,

1:08

but somehow ended up as the

1:10

accidental admin and here we are 15

1:12

years later. Got it. Well, that kind

1:14

of segues to the next question. How

1:16

did you first get introduced to Sales

1:18

Force? Well, since accidental admin

1:21

is the default answer for

1:23

most folks. I will basically

1:25

say, I joined a company

1:28

as a marketing analyst. It

1:30

was a small company and

1:32

like most small companies,

1:34

it gets to wear many hats.

1:37

And they basically said, hey, we

1:39

have sales force. Why don't you

1:42

manage sales force? And really

1:44

had a great experience there. We

1:46

had brought in my boss at

1:48

the time, was a Silicon Valley

1:51

type global sales director, and he

1:53

really challenged me a lot. He

1:55

used to say, hey, you know,

1:58

success factor, sales force. to

2:00

do this, or Adora Salesforce used

2:02

to do that. And really challenged

2:04

me to kind of reverse engineer

2:06

Salesforce. And I found a lot

2:08

of joining that. I thought it

2:10

was the grown up version of

2:12

Legos. Remember the first time I

2:15

successfully wrote a formula field. I

2:17

went to the software developers because

2:19

we were a software development company.

2:21

So I went to the software

2:23

development. team and said, hey, I'm

2:25

a developer now and they're like,

2:27

no, you're not. And I'm like,

2:29

okay, maybe I'm not. Right. But

2:32

the passion was there to play

2:34

around with the declaratively and then

2:36

just kind of from there went

2:38

to the consulting side, many years

2:40

on the consulting side, then back

2:42

client side and kept playing around

2:44

with all these new tools and

2:46

trying to keep up with all

2:49

of the different. features that Salesforce

2:51

continuously tends to roll out. Nice,

2:53

nice. Yeah, my old, I think

2:55

he was my skip level boss

2:57

for a while, but Mike Rosenbaum

2:59

at Salesforce famously. I'm probably getting

3:01

this wrong because it's been quite

3:03

a few years, but I think

3:05

it was something along the lines

3:08

of we sell Legos that people

3:10

build Millennium Falcons, right? It's like

3:12

what you can put together with

3:14

all these components. It's the really

3:16

cool part of the platform. It's

3:18

true. And it's also my old

3:20

boss and friend Dave Carroll used

3:22

to say, you know, we have

3:25

the one true platform because you're

3:27

allowed to build on top of

3:29

it. And it's this constant theme

3:31

when I talk to people, right?

3:33

It's like, like, especially back on

3:35

the developer side, people who have

3:37

to, you know, create Java servers

3:39

and put all these connections together

3:42

and run up a database, like

3:44

the simplicity of putting a custom

3:46

object together and then just using

3:48

it. It's, it's, it's a, it's

3:50

a, like, I'm an eventual. I'm

3:52

an evangelist. It's a, I'm an

3:54

evangelist. It's a certain kind of

3:56

a certain kind of a certain

3:59

kind of magic. It's a certain

4:01

kind of magic. It is. It's

4:03

almost like an operating system of

4:05

its own. You have so much

4:07

that sales source takes care of

4:09

for you that a lot of

4:11

times people can take for granted,

4:13

especially on the declarative side. It's...

4:16

folks just have to log in

4:18

get their login credentials and they

4:20

can go to set up and

4:22

start building things right away. Yeah.

4:24

How would you describe your current

4:26

job? Exciting, for sure. It's... No,

4:28

actually it really is quite exciting.

4:30

So I'm in mortgage lending now.

4:33

I was working beforehand as the

4:35

senior director, CRM, at First Advantage,

4:37

which is a global leader in

4:39

background checks and drug screenings and

4:41

so forth. So if you got

4:43

a job recently, chances are you

4:45

probably your employer probably went through

4:47

First Advantage, which I think Salesforce

4:49

is now a customer first advantage.

4:52

Got it. So, but that was

4:54

an interesting time. Got to learn

4:56

a lot of the corporate world,

4:58

got to know a lot of

5:00

working with different departments, really having

5:02

to get creative to get things

5:04

done and get things accomplished and,

5:06

you know, budgeting and all of

5:09

these things that a lot of

5:11

organizations had to deal with over

5:13

the past couple of years. During

5:15

that time in came the president

5:17

of Lens Financial that had been

5:19

kind of courting me for a

5:21

couple of months and He's like

5:23

look we're growing we're growing really

5:26

fast Still very small organization like

5:28

when I joined we were in

5:30

the mid-30s now we're 50 employees

5:32

all within less than a year

5:34

But he basically was raising a

5:36

round of investment to kind of

5:38

take the company to the next

5:40

level and he's like, help me

5:43

put a bunch together for what

5:45

a digital transformation would look like

5:47

to be able to really take

5:49

Lens to the next level. So

5:51

really, when he finally got the

5:53

approval and he got that round

5:55

of investment cleared, he's like, when

5:57

can you start? and we've been

6:00

on the run ever since working

6:02

on really exciting projects, including AI

6:04

and several other things. So it's,

6:06

it's. been fun to be able

6:08

to kind of go pedal to

6:10

the metal and really try to

6:12

put something exciting together. So first

6:14

of all I want to give

6:17

that person props because in so

6:19

many corporate environments they say things

6:21

like we need to do a

6:23

digital transformation but they don't fund

6:25

it. Yeah, without saying names or

6:27

companies or large insurance companies I

6:29

might have worked for in the

6:31

past. Anyway, actually I can't complain

6:33

about that. They did give me

6:36

a salad I guess. Technically, that

6:38

was their forum on the good.

6:40

Tell me a little bit more

6:42

about AI and about how you

6:44

see that as part of this

6:46

digital transformation. Yeah, so there's a

6:48

lot that's going on there, right?

6:50

So the key thing that we're

6:53

working on, Lens Financial is Project

6:55

Lexi. So Project Lexi on the

6:57

surface is basically our digital lending

6:59

ally. It's a character that we've

7:01

come up with. And what we're

7:03

trying to do is really build

7:05

an engine behind the digital transformation

7:07

that we can. you know, put

7:10

a customer 360 project together and

7:12

have that database and try to

7:14

learn from that as much as

7:16

we can. And from an AI

7:18

perspective, we have fairly ambitious visions

7:20

with what we wanted to do.

7:22

And how we've been tackling over

7:24

at Lens is that we're kind

7:27

of dipping our toes in the

7:29

water first, trying to see what

7:31

we can get away with. I

7:33

think we're still very much, we've...

7:35

grown in phases, we're still very

7:37

much in a prompting phase. Everything

7:39

is like a very grounded prompt

7:41

to get what we want and

7:44

be able to derive insights that

7:46

we're looking for, but we're starting

7:48

to look at more serious things

7:50

like building our own LLLM or

7:52

or like training our relevant models

7:54

to be able to have more

7:56

specific things going on, evaluate our

7:58

data, make sure that we're on,

8:01

make sure that we can identify

8:03

trends, make sure that we can

8:05

identify red flags early on, and

8:07

really trying to like bring all

8:09

of the process efficiency that we

8:11

can. This, our industry is an

8:13

industry that has so much, so

8:15

many steps and so many things

8:17

that we have to take. And

8:20

what we're looking for Lexi to

8:22

do is to be an extra

8:24

eyes over the shoulder to say,

8:26

hey, is there anything that you

8:28

potentially missed? Is there anything that

8:30

you have to be concerned with

8:32

in order to make the steel

8:34

go through? And that's kind of

8:37

one of the key things that

8:39

we're looking to use Lexi for

8:41

at Lens. Like this is a

8:43

history of good data. If you

8:45

see something that looks like it

8:47

might be moving into bad data,

8:49

let us know. Exactly. And in

8:51

addition to other things as well,

8:54

like we want to be able

8:56

to use optical character recognition, so

8:58

we're actively looking to be able

9:00

to build OCR and when you're

9:02

anyone that's listening here that's bought

9:04

a house or that's considering buying

9:06

a house, get ready to send

9:08

an avalanche of documents. You won't

9:11

want to know about the 20

9:13

cents that you have at the

9:15

bottom of your couch and where

9:17

has that been for the past

9:19

five years? Yes. So like there

9:21

is a lot of documents to

9:23

go through a lot of processes

9:25

to go through. So really being

9:28

able to evaluate all of that

9:30

and trying to make sure that

9:32

hey here everything's in the norm

9:34

here right everything looks fine or

9:36

hey here's something that doesn't add

9:38

up something anything that could raise

9:40

you know the attention of whether

9:42

it's the processor the underwriter just

9:45

to make sure that we increase

9:47

the you know, continue to increase

9:49

the quality of our processes without

9:51

affecting, right, our efficiency or our

9:53

pull-through ratios. Yeah. Two thoughts come

9:55

to One is, first of all,

9:57

I'm glad to hear the concept

9:59

of getting mortgage getting into the

10:01

digital age because when we bought

10:04

our condo here in Chicago, my

10:06

friends who had just gone through

10:08

this themselves were like, well, you

10:10

need to do one thing. Bring

10:12

two pens and a sandwich. You're

10:14

here to be in a room

10:16

for a really long time. It's

10:18

going to be a pain if

10:21

that Ben runs out of ink.

10:23

But also back to how you're talking about

10:25

training your own LLLM, I think that's an

10:27

interesting trend because in we've had these conversations

10:29

internally at sales force about like, you know,

10:31

do we build our own models? What bottles

10:33

do we use? Do we use, you know,

10:35

the open models? And the answer I think

10:37

has been a hodgepodge of these things,

10:39

but the nice, the interesting thing

10:41

is you need an AI that

10:43

knows about mortgage and mortgage processing

10:45

and what a good document looks

10:47

like. You don't need one that

10:49

knows how to cook a co-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-

10:51

Now for everyone that's listening to

10:54

this podcast, please imagine the

10:56

forward-looking statement slide. Strolling through

10:58

as Josh is going through

11:01

these items. Right, right. Although

11:03

I suppose back to the

11:05

sandwich joke might be handy

11:07

if it can cook a rotus or a chicken

11:09

for you too. Oh, how often do you

11:12

think you personally use AI for

11:14

work? There's definitely a frequent

11:16

use of ChadJPT. within our

11:19

organization, within a couple of

11:21

users. It's actually something that

11:23

we just started talking about,

11:26

putting in accepted AI, use

11:28

guidelines for all employees, because

11:30

it is something we have

11:33

to be very mindful of.

11:35

Yep. I think as an individual like

11:37

Chad LGBT level we have the

11:39

ever the ever occasional like simplify

11:41

this or like change this Jason

11:44

into tables for me because I

11:46

don't have the patience to do

11:48

it otherwise. There are like use

11:50

cases like that. Now with regards

11:52

to like Lexi and the built

11:54

models that we have several times

11:56

a day so typically we're

11:59

introducing Lexi. internally right

12:01

now as a culture building tool as

12:03

well. So instead of Lexi, you know,

12:05

people being worried about this Lexi tool

12:07

or what it can do, where we

12:10

started a kudos channel, so basically Lexi

12:12

is giving out kudos to the teams

12:14

who managed to get loans in the

12:16

fastest or people who logged the most

12:19

calls, you know, by the halfway through

12:21

the day. So there's a lot of

12:23

that. which helps us also understand right

12:26

kind of getting our feet wet kind

12:28

of how does this work like what

12:30

what can we get away with

12:32

what can we rely on and

12:34

kind of really set that step-by-step

12:36

foundation of where we really want

12:38

to take this yeah I think

12:40

as a small organization and having

12:42

seen this in the past myself

12:44

things can get very expensive very

12:46

fast If you're loose with perhaps

12:49

just grabbing vendors, you know, right

12:51

off the shelf saying, hey, I

12:53

can promise you all these things

12:55

and just give us all your

12:57

money, and the next thing you

12:59

know, this is something that we,

13:01

as a customer, didn't fully

13:03

understand what we needed. Maybe

13:06

the vendor was maybe just

13:08

too aggressive into getting the

13:10

business because let's be realistic. You

13:12

know, like, it's everything so new

13:14

that. trying to be one of

13:16

the early adopters without breaking the

13:18

bank is definitely something that we're

13:20

you know we're cognizant of and

13:22

we're just trying to make sure

13:24

that we're we're taking the right

13:26

steps you know checking everything off

13:28

and then saying all right now

13:30

we're now we're comfortable with making

13:33

the next move the next level

13:35

up and and ultimately integrate that

13:37

altogether. Yeah, I don't think of at least three-fourths

13:39

of any time I talk about AI to

13:41

audiences one of the things I include is

13:43

if you do not have an acceptable use

13:45

policy like now is the time like it's

13:47

back when you know social media somebody took

13:49

us all by surprise and realized he could

13:52

do as much good as harm and your

13:54

company was like these are the things you

13:56

probably should not do on Twitter like is

13:58

the you don't you know it's It's out

14:00

of the gate. That's the time

14:02

to start thinking about what do

14:04

you think people should or should

14:06

not do with it. It's funny

14:09

you say the 10-year AI thing

14:11

and this is as I often

14:13

do and I get in front

14:15

of a mic date myself in

14:17

my early days flash was still

14:19

a primary motivator for application building

14:21

shall we say and I couldn't

14:23

get into flash because I was

14:25

a JavaScript nerd and I learned

14:27

Pearl like I was a kind

14:29

of a programmer by default and

14:32

Flash just didn't make any sense

14:34

to me, but it was always

14:36

a red flag when somebody would

14:38

ask for five years of flash

14:40

experience when Flash had only been

14:42

invented three years ago. Yeah. I

14:44

just didn't submit that. It's a

14:46

pain that we all have to

14:48

go through. It's just hysterical like,

14:50

you know, it's, I see it

14:52

was in some of the slack.

14:55

channels or like some folks on

14:57

LinkedIn feeds calling out some of

14:59

these posts and it's it's ridiculous

15:01

they're out there like people are

15:03

just like no no no we

15:05

want the most experienced person in

15:07

the world to give us 15

15:09

years of experience in something that

15:11

came out like a year ago

15:13

right unless you've been at Stanford

15:15

working on this very quietly without

15:18

telling anybody but not been doing

15:20

this for 15 years. All right

15:22

well let's let's change gears a

15:24

little bit because we first man

15:26

I did an airy talk for

15:28

you all at Mile High Dreaming.

15:30

When did you first start getting

15:32

a high and involved a mild

15:34

hydrant in itself? So it was

15:36

last year, 2023. I had been

15:38

running Flow Fest for two years

15:41

by that point. Okay. And I

15:43

guess we'll go into the insides

15:45

of Flow Fest for anyone that's

15:47

not familiar. But everything that we've

15:49

done with Flow Fest was an

15:51

online event thus far. And we

15:53

had a couple of regional like

15:55

conferences, organizers, such as, you know,

15:57

Mile High Dreamy and a couple

15:59

of other dreaming events, and they

16:01

were always reaching out and they

16:04

were like, we really like what

16:06

you're doing. I mean, can we

16:08

do this in a conference setting?

16:10

Yeah. And Mahydriman was the one

16:12

that worked, like the timing, the

16:14

dates, the, you know, everything that

16:16

we needed. So we decided to

16:18

give it a shot. last year

16:20

in 2023 and we learned a

16:22

lot of taking an online format

16:24

and you know into an in-person

16:27

format. And this year when you

16:29

and I got a chance to

16:31

meet it was our second run

16:33

at it which we managed to

16:35

improve a lot. I think we

16:37

had a great time last year.

16:39

We had an even better time

16:41

this year. So yeah, it was

16:43

exciting to participate in it. Before

16:45

we get to the mechanics of

16:47

it, what's what's kind of the

16:50

origin of it? What was the

16:52

inspiration for doing that? So it

16:54

was really interesting. I had the

16:56

opportunity to participate in, I think

16:58

this is peak pandemic and someone

17:00

organized the zoom and said, hey,

17:02

I have a couple of flow

17:04

challenges and and I want to,

17:06

you know, see who can finish

17:08

them first and like, you know,

17:10

like I think there was like,

17:13

I don't know some. basic raffle

17:15

prize or something like that. And

17:17

I love the idea and I

17:19

had a conversation with them. I

17:21

was like, look, I think we

17:23

can do this, you know, much

17:25

bigger and more importantly, in a

17:27

fun educational way. I know we're

17:29

talking about AI. I know that

17:31

that's the hot topic right now.

17:33

You know, I still think that

17:36

there's so many foundational things in

17:38

order to make AI work, right,

17:40

whether it's data modeling or data

17:42

cleanliness and all of these things.

17:44

I think, especially for the declarative

17:46

side of folks, I think knowing

17:48

how to use automations properly is

17:50

a crucial thing. Everyone has a

17:52

flow course, right? Everyone, there's just

17:54

so much content out there. And

17:56

we wanted to do something that's

17:59

educational, that it's also entertaining at

18:01

the same time. And I remember

18:03

I had pitched this to Ben

18:05

McCarthy over at Salesforce, Ben, and

18:07

he's like, hey, I'm on. on

18:09

board, I, you know, what do

18:11

you think, you know, how many

18:13

people do you think you're going

18:15

to get on this? I was

18:17

like, look, maybe we get 10,

18:19

maybe we get 100 people, like,

18:22

he even sent me this, the

18:24

screenshot of the WhatsApp message after

18:26

we held the first one, because

18:28

the first time around, I think

18:30

we got 2,000 people that registered.

18:32

Nice. And quickly once we opened

18:34

the registration, we realized that we

18:36

kind of had to up our

18:38

game. So we put our heads

18:40

together and we managed to put

18:42

the events online and Effectively, it's

18:45

a series of challenges that folks

18:47

have to go through And the

18:49

final challenge the folks that passed

18:51

the the first qualify around they

18:53

go into the final challenge So

18:55

we'll have something like four to

18:57

six competitors on the final challenge

18:59

and then they have to screen

19:01

share. So if you think e-sports

19:03

like we're there just watching and

19:05

commentating as we see people be

19:08

given a challenge on the flow

19:10

and they're building it out and

19:12

you're seeing how folks interpret challenges

19:14

differently or or solution design things

19:16

differently and it's great because we

19:18

get a chance to point out

19:20

the different ways of approaching a

19:22

challenge and sometimes the pros and

19:24

cons of it. Equally, one of

19:26

the key things that we love

19:28

about flowfasts that we don't see

19:31

anywhere else. And, you know, we

19:33

were talking and trying to tell

19:35

the trailhead folks to see if

19:37

they could incorporate something like this

19:39

is, you know, trailhead gives you

19:41

directions on how to build flows,

19:43

but. as an admin, one of

19:45

the most crucial things is fixing

19:47

broken flows. So, you know, in

19:49

flowfasts you will have challenges where

19:51

the flows are broken at the

19:54

beginning and the challenge is to

19:56

fix whatever's wrong and debug it

19:58

successfully. Got it. So, yeah, ultimately

20:00

it's just a really entertaining way

20:02

to learn some more about flows

20:04

and we try to do every

20:06

flowfasts or challenge around recent feature

20:08

releases. so forth. So let's let's

20:10

first of all I want to

20:12

go back to what you said

20:14

about AI is important but it's

20:17

an important part of the of

20:19

the platform it's not I know

20:21

it's the big marketing push right

20:23

now. I go back to the

20:25

Legos thing, right? Like AI is

20:27

another Lego. It's another Lego set

20:29

that's very powerful one, but it's

20:31

gonna be way more powerful if

20:33

you leverage your flow skills, if

20:35

you leverage your data security skills,

20:37

if you leverage your data security

20:40

skills, if you leverage your data

20:42

management skills. So 100% agreement there.

20:44

Let's a little bit more into

20:46

the challenge. So you have teams.

20:48

They get an org and then

20:50

like how are they, how are

20:52

you presenting the challenges to them.

20:54

And you said some are debugging

20:56

challenges, but what are some of

20:58

the other challenges that they go

21:00

through? Yeah. So the online and

21:03

the in-person format have their own

21:05

deviations, but ultimately what competitors will

21:07

be given is that there will

21:09

be a list of challenges. And

21:11

will the team that's organizing the

21:13

event myself and several other flow

21:15

experts, everyone that has been a

21:17

flow fest champion has come back

21:19

to help. building the future challenges,

21:21

which is cool. So ultimately you'll

21:23

have a series of challenges and

21:26

we'll try to list it almost

21:28

as if it's a certification exam

21:30

question, all very scenario base. Like

21:32

Universal Containers is looking to accomplish

21:34

XYZ. So effectively there will be

21:36

these four challenges. You'll have your

21:38

own Devorgs, so we provide all

21:40

of these instructions. We have a

21:42

managed package that you'll install, which

21:44

basically will nuke all of the

21:46

Devorg's data and install a fresh

21:49

data set, so that way we

21:51

know everybody's using the same data.

21:53

So please don't install this managed

21:55

package in your production environment. And

21:57

I don't think I've put enough

21:59

disclaimers now. Just in case, so

22:01

you'll set up your managed package,

22:03

you'll have the data normalized. so

22:05

all competitors have the same data.

22:07

And then they'll have a series

22:09

of challenges. Now, the challenges, we

22:12

provide an unmanaged package that has,

22:14

we try to simplify as much

22:16

as we can. So every challenge

22:18

will have a flow already built

22:20

for it. So effectively, all they

22:22

need to do is just build

22:24

on top of that. We tell

22:26

them you don't need to go

22:28

anywhere outside of the flow canvas

22:30

for any portion of the competition.

22:32

And the final element in every

22:34

challenge is a subflow that pushes

22:37

your work to our host org.

22:39

So we actually do receive all

22:41

of your work. We'll receive a

22:43

couple of submission variables, which helps

22:45

us check to see if at

22:47

an early pace if we see

22:49

all the right numbers to see

22:51

if everything is done correctly. Yeah.

22:53

And then we also get the

22:55

XML so we can look at

22:57

things like have you used loops,

23:00

have you used, is there any

23:02

DML inside a loop? We could

23:04

really kind of pin down what

23:06

you have there. And then when

23:08

you do the final challenge, we'll

23:10

have a judges review of the

23:12

work. So have actually someone looking

23:14

in like we'll usually tell them

23:16

like, hey, there are a couple

23:18

of things that are off limits.

23:20

you know, for example, like, you

23:23

can't have, like, unofficial SF components

23:25

in there, like, if we start

23:27

seeing Apex actions, that's not, you

23:29

know, you're not giving everyone a

23:31

fair shot, right? Because you thought

23:33

of installing Apex actions in their

23:35

invocable actions that you could try

23:37

to, you know, use to skip

23:39

some steps, that's not fair game.

23:41

So, you know, I know, ultimately,

23:43

short of not, there not being

23:46

anything like... brazenly bad practice like,

23:48

you know, like DML's inside a

23:50

loop. Then, then typically we'll, you

23:52

know, if everything's correct and they

23:54

got the numbers correctly, then then

23:56

we'll name the winner. Nice, nice.

23:58

Now, having seen you in person,

24:00

I got a compliment. You're a

24:02

really good pitchman. during this like

24:04

you're really keeping the audience engaged

24:06

you're keeping the audience very excited

24:09

you're pitching the teams next to

24:11

each other I'm curious how how

24:13

did that work in the online

24:15

version like were you just sort

24:17

of a talking head that was

24:19

kind of like doing an MC

24:21

for the whole thing you barely

24:24

got to see me on Ben McCarthy

24:26

so he was the MC and

24:28

for most of those and I

24:30

was mostly in the background running

24:32

logistics got it and making sure

24:34

that everyone was was up and

24:36

running we would have our panel

24:38

of judges we'd be coordinating internally

24:40

so there would be a zoom

24:42

meeting that all the competitors would

24:44

be in so everyone's running the

24:46

first part of the competition there

24:48

we do our housekeeping rules we

24:50

share the challenges if anyone has

24:53

any questions we try to address

24:55

it there and then in the parallel

24:57

track there will be We use Streamyard,

24:59

so be the live stream, and then

25:02

that is like a group of 12

25:04

folks. And then for the qualifier rounds,

25:06

which are those challenges where we don't

25:08

know who's going to go in the

25:11

final round yet, then Ben McCarthy would

25:13

have guest speakers, like Jen Lee was

25:15

there at the last one. We had

25:18

several like Flonatics will be doing presentations

25:20

on, hey, here's the latest flow releases

25:22

or any specific presentation that we want

25:25

to bring in. And then usually there's

25:27

the turnaround point where we'll

25:29

bring the finalists for that final challenge

25:31

in because then they'll jump in on

25:34

stream yard so they can screen share.

25:36

Yeah. And then at that point, because

25:38

now we're only managing for folks, I'll

25:41

jump in and I'll be commentating on

25:43

what they're doing. So I'll usually be

25:45

operating stream yard and kind of switching

25:48

between screens and be like, oh look

25:50

here, something's interesting. Here's a different approach.

25:52

Here's a different approach. to kind of

25:54

pick apart what we're seeing and if

25:57

we see something that's interesting especially

25:59

if something that we haven't thought

26:01

of, the nice thing about the

26:03

online competition is that you really

26:06

get hundreds of competitors. So, you

26:08

know, sometimes you see things that

26:10

you haven't thought of, which is

26:12

exciting to be able to share

26:14

with the crowd, you know, that's

26:16

watching. Yeah. Do you have like

26:18

some favorite moments or some things

26:20

that you've seen from the challenges?

26:22

this live final challenge, which I

26:24

think was flow fest v4. You

26:26

couldn't have you couldn't have like

26:28

planned this out. So we roughly

26:30

came up with the rules that

26:32

if you submit, you know, that

26:34

you've completed the challenge, we're going

26:36

to do a judge's review on

26:38

screen. We'll ask you to kind

26:40

of go through to show us

26:42

different parts of the flow. And

26:44

if you get it wrong, then

26:46

you go to the back of

26:49

the line and anybody that says

26:51

they've completed the challenges. then we

26:53

would go and review theirs. So

26:55

we don't want to motivate people

26:57

to just kind of immediately submit

26:59

and then kind of like building

27:01

is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this

27:03

guy had submitted and he got

27:05

it he got it wrong. There

27:07

like there was something hysterical like

27:09

when he ran the debug it

27:11

was a screen flow and it

27:13

said something like you have 30

27:15

opportunities in your organ like 70

27:17

closed one opportunities. I'm like that

27:19

math doesn't work out. There's not

27:21

the right in the diagram there.

27:23

There's something there's off here. So

27:25

and it was funny because it

27:27

suddenly became tense and everyone just

27:29

kind of like all of the

27:31

judgment. just kind of lit up

27:34

because like we're reviewing the next

27:36

guy and it's like suddenly like

27:38

the heat is on the pressures

27:40

on and everyone's just kind of

27:42

like all right what's going on

27:44

or yeah another one's ready for

27:46

submission if this guy doesn't make

27:48

it was just it was literally

27:50

kind of like end of World

27:52

Cup everyone's just kind of like

27:54

it's the end of the second

27:56

half and everyone's just counting the

27:58

seconds and they're just kind of

28:00

like who's gonna win and it

28:02

turns out fix what he needed.

28:04

So taking the the focus champion

28:06

title, it was just something how

28:08

it all worked out. It was

28:10

just it was just tons of

28:12

fun and excitement and and your

28:14

adrenaline, you know, like I've. I've

28:17

organized six of these online and

28:19

the two mile high dreaming ones

28:21

and and your adrenaline is running

28:23

at a million. Like a solid

28:25

72 hours just to like kind

28:27

of bring yourself down to like

28:29

a normal human level. So with

28:31

everything going on it's it was

28:33

just so exciting. It was like

28:35

it was a really great experience

28:37

to be able to be a

28:39

part of that. That's awesome. Is

28:41

there any place people can see

28:43

previous versions? Yes, so I sales

28:45

for spin has listed most of

28:47

the flow fest videos live streams

28:49

so you can check most of

28:51

them out there We're trying to

28:53

we tried on my high dreaming

28:55

last year and you can find

28:57

it somewhere on LinkedIn. I don't

28:59

recommend you do or have a

29:02

lot of patience because one of

29:04

the things we learned was that

29:06

you can't do 10 million things

29:08

at once. So I literally just

29:10

had like two webcams connected and

29:12

like one facing different parts of

29:14

the of the stage and the

29:16

sound quality was atrocious. We only

29:18

found that out later. It was

29:20

just we're like, we're like, we're

29:22

like, we're like, we're like, If

29:24

someone's going to do video or

29:26

we're going to try to live

29:28

stream this, we need a separate

29:30

team. But this year, the Maha

29:32

Dreaming folks did have a video

29:34

production company, so I know there's

29:36

video being edited. I don't know

29:38

what the final video is going

29:40

to look like, but I know

29:42

it's in the works. So check

29:45

out the Maha Dreaming YouTube channel.

29:47

Maybe by the time this airs,

29:49

then it'll already be out there.

29:51

dreaming? Are you going to keep

29:53

going there? Are you going to

29:55

do more online things? Or might

29:57

we see you at a TDX

29:59

or a dream force in the

30:01

future? That's really more of a

30:03

B question, right? You're like, I

30:05

don't know, Josh. Look, I think

30:07

it's incredibly exciting. The online ones

30:09

is an incredible amount of work.

30:11

Yeah. And I would not be

30:13

able to put any of this

30:15

together if it wasn't for the

30:17

awesome. Flownatics or previous Flow Fest

30:19

champions, folks that helped put this

30:21

together, build the managed package, all

30:23

of these things. It's quite a

30:25

lot. And the Mile High Dreaming

30:28

folks are also super helpful in

30:30

helping organize that. So Mile High

30:32

Dreaming, like I think it's an

30:34

awesome home, so to say. And

30:36

the timing works out well. I

30:38

know a couple of other dreaming

30:40

events like I mentioned earlier, came,

30:42

like one in specific both times.

30:44

Like there was just schedule conflict.

30:46

It was just like, it's just

30:48

a really bad time the year

30:50

because I'm usually traveling. And we

30:52

just couldn't make it on that

30:54

alone. But we've had interest. If

30:56

anyone's interested, I'm happy to try

30:58

to see what we can do.

31:00

TDX would be definitely the goal.

31:02

Nice. Because I think there's a

31:04

ton of potential. Everyone that goes

31:06

seems to have some really good

31:08

feedback. Not only, you know, like

31:10

sometimes people are like, yeah, this

31:13

is awesome. And sometimes people come

31:15

like I've never had someone like,

31:17

well, this sucks. Like what we've

31:19

had and I think was really

31:21

interested is that people are passionate

31:23

about this stuff. So so they'll

31:25

come and be like, oh, you

31:27

know, it'll be a really good

31:29

idea or like here's something that

31:31

I didn't see over I was

31:33

hoping to see. And we look

31:35

at that in a lot of

31:37

the the comments. kind of comes

31:39

around on things that are like

31:41

video production, right? Like you need

31:43

a video production team, an AV

31:45

team, running this, if you're gonna

31:47

be sharing screens, if you're gonna

31:49

be commentating all of these things.

31:51

So it's something whether, I think

31:53

we're getting enough traction with my

31:56

high dreaming that maybe for the

31:58

next. here, we can do like

32:00

a sponsorship package for for mile

32:02

hide dreaming and if a sponsor

32:04

that picks up that tab, then

32:06

we can invest in all of

32:08

these big things. But naturally, Salesforce

32:10

has Salesforce Plus. They have amazing

32:12

venues for Ademons and developers like

32:14

TDX. If it's something that if

32:16

there's somebody that can pull this

32:18

off at its fullest and show

32:20

the full potential of what flow

32:22

fest can be. I have no

32:24

doubt that a venue like TD

32:26

would TDX would be it. Awesome.

32:28

Eric, I've got one final question

32:30

for you. What is your favorite

32:32

non-technical hobby? My favorite non-technical hobby

32:34

is absolutely flying. I am a

32:36

private pilot. Wow. So I've made

32:38

the poor financial decision to get

32:41

in my private license. And with

32:43

my pilot's license since 2017, I've

32:45

been flying around Southeast United States.

32:47

Nice. Bahamas, all those things. I

32:49

just need a poor excuse to

32:51

fly and I'm around my way

32:53

to the airport. And away you

32:55

go. Nice. My dad's a pilot.

32:57

He was a co-owner in an

32:59

aerobatic biplane. And I can tell

33:01

you for a fact, I do

33:03

not know. I do not have

33:05

any fear of roller coasters anymore.

33:07

After he did, I think it's

33:09

called the reverse emelman. You know

33:11

what I'm talking about? Are you

33:13

going straight up? I don't plan

33:15

for all the engines. Nothing like

33:17

the silence of enough of air

33:19

around you while you're here. So

33:21

I tell you the materials, tell

33:24

you the materials. Eric, thank you

33:26

so much for the great conversation

33:28

and information. That was a lot

33:30

of fun. Yeah, it was always

33:32

fun having a chat with you,

33:34

Josh, whether it's in person or

33:36

over the podcast here. Thanks for

33:38

having me. Hope everyone enjoys it.

33:40

And that's our show. Now if

33:42

you want to learn more about

33:44

this podcast and the life of

33:46

a Salesforce admin in general head

33:48

on over to admin. salesforce.com And

33:50

of of course

33:52

you can subscribe

33:54

to this podcast this

33:56

the using the of

33:58

your choice of your

34:00

choice. I to thank

34:02

you for listening

34:04

for we will

34:06

talk to you

34:09

later talk to you later. You