How to create a vivid community within the Salesforce ecosystem and bring it to life
As a proud member of the Salesforce ecosystem, Nextview Consulting brings in some local flavor with the Hamburg Developer Group. This group was founded by one of our own employees, Senior Technical Architect Florian Baltes. The purpose of the developer community group is to gain and discuss knowledge and best practices in a safe, informal, and open environment. Find more in this article about Florian’s passion for his Developer Group, how he has built this community and brought it to life, despite all the difficulties that the pandemic has brought and especially in terms of in person events and meetups.
Hamburg Developer Group
Florian: “When I started my career within the Salesforce ecosystem, I also participated in a lot of onboarding sessions in and around Munich. During this time, friends and new colleagues informed me about a community meetup. I found this idea very interesting and was happy to join them for various meetings. I loved the atmosphere, the informal knowledge-sharing and of course meeting all these amazing new people. It became clear to me that, back in Hamburg, I really wanted to join a similar group. After some research I unfortunately found out that the previous Developer Group in Hamburg got discontinued in 2018.”
Florian somehow missed the fruitful interaction he had when he was visiting the community group in Munich. It became clear to him that Hamburg also needed to have a community like this as he also saw a big need for it in his hometown. He quickly decided to take matters into his own hands and created a new community, inspired by the Munich Group. “I gathered with a colleague and basically said: ‘let’s just do it and build something great together’”, Florian remembers. He and his friend founded the ‘Hamburg Developer Group’ and since then their ambition is to host their community meetings on a monthly basis. “Due to everyone’s busy schedules, gathering up once a month isn’t always achievable. But we try to meet up at least every second month, where usually around twenty to thirty people join.”
Turning challenges into opportunities
As it wasn’t possible to host physical meetings in the middle of a pandemic, the community started to organize meetings on a virtual base. Florian: “We started hosting online meetings, although we were doubting if we could win the same number of participants as if it was a real-life event. Surprisingly to say that we had many joiners within our new community starting from day one. And actually, this hasn’t changed over time. Even though we have never met in person so far, we try to look at it positively and consider it somehow as a nice thing: it gives people from all places the opportunity to join — which enriches the community even more. I can safely say that I found friends this way that I would not have met if it was an in-person meeting.” In spite of the fact that Florian does not rule out the possibility of hosting in person events, he is not planning on leaving out the virtual elements. “We have met so many nice people from all kinds of places. If we have in-person meetings, we will definitely find a way to also have our friends from all over the globe participating”, he says.
Learning as friends
The main purpose of the community group is to learn and discuss knowledge, best practices, and solutions in a safe and open environment without the pressure to perform. Florian explains: “It’s all about a fun way of exchanging knowledge and meeting real cool people within the Salesforce Ecosystem while expanding your network. Members are invited to not only participate in meetings, but also speak up about any topic in the world of Salesforce Development.”
Florian’s community is created on a non-profit basis. Businesses within the Salesforce ecosystem support these communities but are not necessarily involved. Florian: “We are not employed by Salesforce but do this in our private time. The goal is not to create a business atmosphere, but to keep the community alive in an informal way. We want to give everybody a safe environment to trial run keynotes and talks, share ideas, get feedback, and discuss Salesforce developments. Therefore, it doesn’t matter which company someone is working for. Businesses within the Salesforce Ecosystem might be competing, the people in our community are not. I really see them as my friends.”
Positive vibes only
Everybody’s free to join the Hamburg Developer Group, as long as they support its terms. “For me, it’s very important to maintain a friendly, supportive and harassment-free environment. Regardless of gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, race, ethnicity, religion, or any other group identity. I think that’s also one of the requirements of a good community”, says Florian. “We want everyone to feel welcome. Participants need to be respectful and considerate in a positive and constructive way. This means we do our best to improve the discussion, respect each other, be clear and stay focused on the topic.”
Giving back
Florian really enjoys building up the community and is looking forward to continuing to succeed together also in the future. He explains: “I’m in the lucky position where I can organize and stimulate knowledge sharing. That’s also why I have created this group. It’s about giving back and sharing opportunities with other people.”
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