Episode 120: Salesforce & Communities with Atlas Can

Salesforce developer and technical consultant Atlas joins us today, and he shares his journey into the Salesforce ecosystem. Atlas talks about the opportunities he’s getting from the ecosystem, some things he is learning along the way, and how he is giving back to the community.

Through his blog articles on Salesforce Ben, Atlas brings community members to the spotlight. Atlas is also part of The Salesforce Discord Exchange (SFXD), a community-first platform, which facilitates technical and informal discussions for operators and nonprofits. SFXD is a decentralized community that focuses on helping each other out. This involves summarizing release notes and organizing learning sessions, among others.

Show Highlights:

His introduction to computers at an early age
His first consulting job experience
His passion for online learning
What he loves about the culture at Salesforce
What is SFXD?
How the pandemic impacted his work
Breaking the barrier of impostor syndrome
Atlas’ current projects
The future of online community

Episode Transcript

Atlas Can:
I was on that server all day, and they made me a community manager, like a game master type of thing. And those network guys who were operating the server gave me access to a SQL server.

Josh Birk:
That is Atlas Can, a Salesforce developer and technical consultant. I’m Josh Birk, your host for the Salesforce Developer Podcast. And here on the podcast, you’ll hear stories and insights from developers, for developers.

Josh Birk:
Today, we sit down and talk with Atlas about his journey into the Salesforce ecosystem, what he’s gotten out of that ecosystem, how he’s learned things along the way, and how he’s paying that back. But we’re going to start as we often and do with his early years and his first experiences with a computer.

Atlas Can:
I was like seven years old.

Josh Birk:
Really?

Atlas Can:
Yeah. My family bought me a computer. They started me out early, I guess. And I was trying to figure out how to launch games, and I have these floppy this games of Mario and Doom, and Doom was my favorite as a seven year old.

Josh Birk:
There we go.

Atlas Can:
Yeah. And I was trying to launch the executable file from the directory. I got my neighbor involved. You know? He was like this stock broker type guy. Yeah, that was me in a nutshell, trying to figure out how to launch games when I was seven. That was my first introduction to computers.

Josh Birk:
Wow. That is, first of all, great parenting on all-around.

Atlas Can:
Yeah.

Josh Birk:
Like seven year old playing Doom. And I know I’m sounding snarky there, but actually, two thumbs up, folks. And also, what a nice neighbor to be like, “Hey, can you help me play Doom?”

Atlas Can:
Yes.

Josh Birk:
Like my dad had a rule that was like, “We’ll get you to a computer. But the only thing you can do is use it to help you with your homework, because that’s why you needed a computer.” And then our biggest problem was getting my dad off of the computer because he was playing video games on it the whole time.

Josh Birk:
Anyway, around how old were you when you started first learning English?

Atlas Can:
I think I was like around 12.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
We got English lessons from the middle school starting up. But I was really into it because of video games. Like I got the PlayStation and other games. You know? PC games that I was still trying to figure out, and it was all written in English, even from the CD cover that I was trying to figure out what it was about, like all these RPG games.

Josh Birk:
Got it.

Atlas Can:
And that’s what got me really heavily involved in trying to learn, because it was like a huge world opening up to me.

Josh Birk:
And that’s [inaudible 00:02:22] … Oh, so you had a class to help you give you a little bit of the backdrop of it, but you’re actually in the World of Warcraft with English being thrown at you is was the… So it’s like the most interactive flashcards on the planet, it sounds like?

Atlas Can:
Yes, exactly. It started out with Ultima Online, but I was playing all these mRPGs during high school.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Atlas Can:
So it was like a whole new world opening up to me.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Atlas Can:
And I was trying to figure it out, because that was what’s needed to proceed in the game. You know?

Josh Birk:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), mm-hmm (affirmative). That’s awesome. And when did you first end up going to the United States?

Atlas Can:
I was 18.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
And I first enrolled to college. And after in that summer year, I was enrolled in this work and travel program, and I picked California to work into during the summer, and I worked as a ride operator and on a help desk of a boardwalk company, like Santa Cruz seaside company. And I worked in Santa Cruz, and I went to San Francisco on weekends, it was like the perfect experience for me. And that also opened up a whole new world, because I didn’t have much real world practice except for on video games. But then I went to United States, and I worked there, and it was so nice.

Josh Birk:
So when you’re saying you’re a ride operator, like-

Atlas Can:
Yes.

Josh Birk:
I don’t this in a derogatory way, but you were a carnie then?

Atlas Can:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Josh Birk:
What ride were you operating?

Atlas Can:
I operated The Big Dipper there, and-

Josh Birk:
No!

Atlas Can:
Yeah. It was iconic, like it was in a movie.

Josh Birk:
Right. I was going to say, it’s the one everybody knows.

Atlas Can:
Yes! Yeah.

Josh Birk:
Nice. Why San Francisco?

Atlas Can:
It was because of tech probably.

Josh Birk:
[crosstalk 00:04:02]-

Atlas Can:
Like I was really interested in technology, and in high school I was interested in coding, but that was also just because that also needed for me to progress in games. I used to play World of Warcraft a lot, and I filled up my mom’s credit card. Then she took me off that pretty quickly, pretty quickly. Then I had to figure out the unofficial ways. You know? Pirate servers, basically, back in like 2004 or 5.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Atlas Can:
So I have to use my English to get around. I was like 14 at the time, and-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Atlas Can:
… yeah.

Josh Birk:
Nice. So you’re still in Turkey, you’re in Istanbul. You have a video game working understanding of English, and you’re using that to get unofficial World of Warcraft access?

Atlas Can:
Yes, when I was 14. And it worked. And then I spent so much time on that server. Yeah, probably I wasn’t studying that much to college entry exams, except for the last year, maybe.

Atlas Can:
Anyway, so-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Atlas Can:
… I was on that server all day, and they made me a community manager, like a game master type of thing. And those network guys who were operating the server gave me access to a SQL server. So I got some access to running commands, and I also had also inline commands in the game.

Josh Birk:
Uh-huh (affirmative).

Atlas Can:
And even at that age, I was trying to build and be part of some community’s organized events.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha.

Atlas Can:
And yeah, it was the perfect experience for me. I also crashed their servers a couple of times because I probably deleted a wrong table. They had to roll back the server a couple of times because of me.

Josh Birk:
So I love the… Like there’s so many parts of that which are classic. I almost feel like we should put a stock question into the podcast, which is in your early years of computing, what was the first thing that you blew your parents’ credit card out of?

Atlas Can:
Yes.

Josh Birk:
Because I think mine was I think we did a BBS system that we accidentally called long distance on or something like that, and we got in trouble for that. It’s also one of those things during the show that will date you slightly. For instance, using the phrase Bulletin Board System, I [inaudible 00:06:07] … at a certain point.

Josh Birk:
But that’s cool, because it gives you that groundwork of dealing with communities, dealing with computers, doing a little bit of tinkering on the back end. How international was that community?

Atlas Can:
It was pretty… Like most of it, most of the people was from Europe, but we got some Canadians and Americans all playing on different time zones. And I got to meet with all of them after, during the college. It was like a perfect experience. There was one person from Brazil. And yeah, it was like a perfect place for me to just practice English and try to learn some basics of coding.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. What did you study in college itself?

Atlas Can:
I studied chemistry. Yeah, I looked up to… You know? I watched, growing up, all these science documentaries on Discovery Channel, and I was going to be this big geneticist. You know? Chemistry.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Atlas Can:
Then I quickly realized that I should switch to program which was my true calling [crosstalk 00:06:59]-

Josh Birk:
[crosstalk 00:06:59]-

Atlas Can:
You know? I was heavily involved in computers all day anyway, like I grew up on internet culture, Reddit memes, and online communities. So I switched over to that, and got my first consulting job.

Josh Birk:
Nice. What was your first consulting job?

Atlas Can:
It was in a Salesforce partner in Turkey, it’s called Kofana. And it was also in a place for me to grow and learn. It was basically an Oracle consulting company, but they also had a really nice team of Salesforce consultants, and they were really experienced coming from also Oracle background. It was like a perfect place because you could do everything. And I started out as a admin, and then I also started becoming a developer and taking developer tasks, working on user studies, and they allowed me to spend probably a lot of time learning stuff from Trailhead, like certifications. When I first found out about Salesforce, I kind of went crazy.

Josh Birk:
Really? So tell me a little bit about that. Did they expect you to know Salesforce before getting into that consultancy, or did you pick that up on the fly?

Atlas Can:
Not really. They just asked me to research Salesforce before I come to the interview.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
And they probably got me in because of my English, because I like talking a lot.

Josh Birk:
Oh, right.

Atlas Can:
And yeah, I went to some boot camps, and I had some relevant experience before. I was really interested in college, for example, in massive open online courses, MIT open courseware. I was taking, doing coursework there, going to boot camps in my local area. So those probably did help. I’m a huge passionate learner, and really passionate about online learning in general, which helped me to get where I am today.

Josh Birk:
Well, tell me a little bit more about that. Because it sounds like something that has led you through your entire life. Like in a lot of ways, learning English through World of Warcraft is possibly the most arcane version of a massively online course. But it kind of works, right?

Atlas Can:
Yeah.

Josh Birk:
Is it just something that you have always felt particularly helpful to you, to others, all of the above? Or is it just something that’s always been a thread in your life?

Atlas Can:
So this relates to my general curiosity, and I was really interested in science, and decided to pursue a chemistry degree first, and I go to academia. But I was also interested in technology, and it was really freeing for me to take all these online education classes.

Atlas Can:
I volunteered in startups, also built around communities there. Both of them is called like brainly.co right now.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
It used to be called Open Study. And it was like a perfect experience for me during college. And I volunteered there, I tutored high school university students, so I helped with their class work. I was just really passionate and curious about learning.

Josh Birk:
Got it, got it. Okay. So then you went to boot camps for Salesforce. Like when was specifically the first introduction you had to Salesforce?

Atlas Can:
Well, for Salesforce, it was 2017.

Josh Birk:
[crosstalk 00:09:49]-

Atlas Can:
And literally I just looked it up what Salesforce was before I went to the job interview. Before that, I went to [C# .NET 00:09:56] boot camps in Istanbul.

Josh Birk:
Got it.

Atlas Can:
Those were really nice. I learned about like OOP and all the other concepts that was necessary. It was like beginning steps for me.

Atlas Can:
But yeah, Salesforce, I just learned on the job, and I was really fortunate enough to get accepted to that team, and I had amazing teammates. I should actually send some shout outs to them.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
Their names are [inaudible 00:10:21], [inaudible 00:10:21], [inaudible 00:10:21]. Those are my guys. They helped me a lot, and they’re also [inaudible 00:10:24] … but if I start talking about them, that would be like a too long podcast probably, but yeah.

Josh Birk:
We’ll think about getting them their own episodes. How about that?

Atlas Can:
Awesome.

Josh Birk:
Okay. So tell me little more about why do you think Salesforce appealed to you? And I’m going to poke a little bit, because it feels like it’s this perfect storm for you. Because it’s all online. You can learn about it online. It’s already got a community-focused thing. Like did it just hit all the right buttons for you?

Atlas Can:
Exactly. It was like a perfect opportunity. Like I sometimes question why am I doing all this coursework for free during college, like online courses.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Atlas Can:
And what’s going to be useful for, and why did I lean so much onto this stuff?

Josh Birk:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Atlas Can:
But then it all made sense to me. Of course, the time I spent in California, [inaudible 00:11:14] … like a team of Google engineers visited [inaudible 00:11:18] … one day and I hung out with them.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Atlas Can:
And they were so helpful, and they were so nice. He said, “You could do this, too, one day.” And I was so inspired. And after, like many, many years later, while I was still trying to do this, while I was still trying to figure out if I could pull this off-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Atlas Can:
… when I first saw Salesforce, and all the open online education, and they got all these Trailhead certifications, a lot of developer content, really good developer content from developer relations team. Shout out to them, by the way. Also, named one of them. I named a couple of them.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
I mean, it was the perfect thing for me. Because in my first year, I took a lot of certification exams, I got probably four or five, and I finished almost half of Trailhead because I was so addicted to the badges. And superbadges were really difficult, but-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Atlas Can:
… that’s where the communities that I’m part of, all my coworkers stepped in and helped me. It was the perfect thing for me. Salesforce did change my life. And I used to be really skeptical about it, too. You know? Listening all day…

Atlas Can:
Also, I listen to your podcast a lot. Also developer YouTube channel.

Josh Birk:
Wow.

Atlas Can:
And I used to question can I do it? Like I’m just still trying to figure out. I’m a Salesforce admin, and oh, okay, this seems like interesting, but it’s also really difficult. How can I be a programmer? I got some maybe relevant experience.

Josh Birk:
Uh-huh (affirmative).

Atlas Can:
But it just I got the pathway laid out in front of me. And so many, again, so cliche, about trail blazers around me. Also, on online-

Josh Birk:
Wow.

Atlas Can:
And that’s where the online communities came in, especially during the pandemic-

Josh Birk:
Right.

Atlas Can:
… in the last two years.

Josh Birk:
Right. So I want to dig into that, but I also want to round that out a little bit more. Because I think your experience is very normal, and I think it’s something… Let’s level set a little bit. You have a technical background. You have done some work with computing. You’ve mostly self-taught yourself through English. You’ve been to the States and back. And yet, I mean, will you just go ahead and throw it on the table? Like you felt like you had an imposter syndrome over becoming this programmer-type person?

Atlas Can:
Yeah.

Josh Birk:
And like at the start of this journey, you didn’t have that envisioning yourself being able to be a successful technical Salesforce consultant type person?

Atlas Can:
Exactly. I had that issue. But I just looked around, and everybody was so open, and Salesforce’s own culture, Ohana and all the other community of developers and admins, they were so helpful to me. And I found an online community that really helped me. And there are many. You know? Stack Exchange. But you know? My favorite is the Salesforce Discord community, the Exchange.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Atlas Can:
And that also had a huge impact on me and to get rid of that, but also overcome.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Atlas Can:
And yeah.

Josh Birk:
Were there people in those early years that, I’m going to go ahead and phrase this in a humorous way-

Atlas Can:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)?

Josh Birk:
… because I know any name that you say we’ll probably hear it in a way of love. But was there anybody in those early years that you’re like, “Well, if they can do that, I can do that”?

Atlas Can:
Well, I got a lot of self-learner trailblazers, like [James Howe 00:14:23] and [David Reed 00:14:24], and they encouraged me a lot. They told me that, “Hey, you can do this, too.” And I was lucky enough to be in the ecosystem by itself, but to be able to perform on the level of those guys is still my challenge.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
But they were always there for me. And I got also a long list of names, but those are the two names that just came out.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
Popped up, yeah.

Josh Birk:
Okay. Out of the various aspects of Salesforce community, what was the first one that really started to pull you in and make you realize that there’s a broader ecosystem here?

Atlas Can:
Yeah. So Salesforce Discard Exchange, no doubt.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
I mean, there are a lot of good communities out there. Salesforce Ben has a really nice blog. That was like my newspaper rating what’s happening around the ecosystem every day. I probably forgot a lot of them, but Salesforce Discord Exchange is the best one. Yeah.

Josh Birk:
I’m going to stereotype you for here for a second. Did you fall into Discord easily because of your gamer background?

Atlas Can:
Of course. Yeah.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
Yeah. My coworkers were asking me like, “What are you doing on Discord all day? Is it like are you gaming on it on the side?” And I’m like, “Nope. I’m talking to some Salesforce architect from Google. He’s trying to help me out just [inaudible 00:15:31] … which you didn’t help, by the way.” [crosstalk 00:15:36] … And they were like, “Oh, this exists?” And I was like, “Yeah.”

Josh Birk:
Okay. So for the people who haven’t heard prior episodes, tell me about Salesforce, my head will always try to say SFDX.

Atlas Can:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Josh Birk:
It’s just trained to do it. Tell me more about SFXD. Like what is it, and what can people find at the Discord channel, or the Discord server?

Atlas Can:
Okay, so SFXD is a community-first platform where we do technical and informal discussions. We’re operated as a non-profit, and we are a decentralized community. We help each other out. We summarize release notes, organized learning sessions, and we have a Wiki. And there’s also tons of people who are really good at their job, really, and just doing their best and trying to keep a community.

Josh Birk:
Got it. How did the pandemic hit you along this journey?

Atlas Can:
So I got a job or offer from [Empower 00:16:28], and I was ready to leave. And while I was getting my visa, pandemic happened. So that’s pretty rare, and I had to work from remotely for the past two years. And that’s also where SFXD really shined for me. I was still trying to figure out my ropes, as I was still pretty junior [crosstalk 00:16:47]-

Josh Birk:
Uh-huh (affirmative).

Atlas Can:
But I learned quickly and I have to rely on my skillset, and also, my networking and my friends to basically deliver projects on my own from beginning to end.

Josh Birk:
So you didn’t have that cliche workplace where you could go grab a cup of coffee, swing by somebody’s cubicle, and be like, “Hey, do you have time later today to show me how you did this three years ago,” or anything like that? You had to replace all of that with an online community?

Atlas Can:
Exactly, yeah. In Istanbul, Turkey, I sort of had that experience. But in the last two years, I didn’t.

Josh Birk:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And what’s your current role with SFXD? Are you just a participant, or are you helping organize? What’s going on there?

Atlas Can:
What I do right now is bring community members to spotlight.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
And I do blog articles on Salesforce Ben.

Josh Birk:
[crosstalk 00:17:35]-

Atlas Can:
Recently, I interviewed James Simone from Salesforce-

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
… about his choice of Apex blog and Apex Rollup repository. I got other ones coming. And that’s where I’m really passionate about like bring the best people in our community in front of the spotlight.

Josh Birk:
Do you have any other favorites?

Atlas Can:
I interviewed James Howe, I interviewed David Reed, so that probably shows my favorites. But yeah, but shout us to SFXD members. Okay, we got to that part.

Josh Birk:
Yep.

Atlas Can:
[Jonathan Gillisbe 00:18:04], [inaudible 00:18:04], [Chris Sigmund 00:18:04], David Reed, Coding With the Force, he has an amazing YouTube channel for Salesforce developers, come check it out. Mike Tetlow from TaskRay, [Jim Bartick 00:18:16] from [Growth Heroes 00:18:16]. And not on SFXD, but on Stack Exchange, my hero is sfdcfox, [Brian 00:18:22]-

Josh Birk:
Of course. Of course.

Atlas Can:
Yeah. Yeah. Shout out to him.

Josh Birk:
I don’t know what kind of medal Brian is deserving of these days, but it’s made out of an interesting metal itself, I think, for sure.

Josh Birk:
But let’s touch on that a little bit. Outside of the [inaudible 00:18:36] … Discord community, what are some of the other community elements that you would recommend people checking out?

Atlas Can:
So Stack Exchange is a very formal way. And what I used to do is go back and find the most up uploaded and most best answers and questions on Stack Exchange. I remember going to Trailhead and [inaudible 00:18:52] sample gallery, doing superbadges. And I remember going back to [Kevin Portman’s 00:18:57] [Code Li ve 00:18:57], where it was an amazing experience because he’s doing it live, and it’s okay to fail. I love his approach to programming. Yeah, that really helped me with the issues that I had that we talked before.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Atlas Can:
So what else? I’m probably missing all of these. Salesforce Ben’s blog. And yeah, that’s it.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. I do think it’s interesting the highlights that keep coming up, the joke, ongoing’s joke that the Stack Exchange is my IDE.

Atlas Can:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Josh Birk:
And I love Kevin’s philosophy that it’s okay to fail, because it’s also come up multiple times in the podcast, and it’s like it’s not only okay to fail. You’re going to fail. It’s going to happen. It’s part of programming. Like if you got it right the first time, that challenge was not big enough for you to handle. Like that’s you didn’t learn anything if you didn’t fail the first time you tried to put a class together. So yeah, it’s just it’s all part of the learning

Atlas Can:
Exactly.

Josh Birk:
And you know? We can skip this if you feel it’s too personal, but how do you feel about imposter syndrome now that you’ve gotten to the other side of the spectrum?

Atlas Can:
Ha, ha, that’s really funny. How I feel right now is I’ve embraced it.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. Okay.

Atlas Can:
I’m doing everything that I can in a Salesforce ecosystem. Because it feels to me like a huge community. It’s almost like a huge family.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Atlas Can:
And I got my community. I’m on every community there is probably. And I’m on SFXD, what’s really inspiring for me is to do something for that community. And I also do developer advocacy. I try to do just [inaudible 00:20:25] … articles on Salesforce Ben, I write on Blue Canvas’s blog [crosstalk 00:20:28]-

Josh Birk:
Uh-huh (affirmative).

Atlas Can:
By the way, they have a CPQ deployed. It just came out recently, it’s free, so shout out to them.

Josh Birk:
Yep.

Atlas Can:
Alex and Jack. But I’m trying to do as much as I can because I fully embrace it now. Nothing bad really happened to me. Like it’s been two years. I survived a pandemic with my friends, and my community, and I’m doing well, so I don’t feel bad about it anymore.

Atlas Can:
Like last year, we talked to Kevin about how we could do an episode on Code Live.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Atlas Can:
And you know? I chickened out, basically. I was too scared. But now I’ve heard out like he’s leaving, and I’m really sad.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. Yeah.

Atlas Can:
That’s why I want to do the show now, to honor that also.

Josh Birk:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Atlas Can:
And I’m not afraid of it anymore.

Josh Birk:
Nice. Well, shout out to our mutual friend, Kevin, and kudos to all of his hard work on Code Live. It’s been an excellent… You know? During the pandemic, it’s been hard to get the community on the mic. You know?

Atlas Can:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), mm-hmm (affirmative).

Josh Birk:
And it’s like Kevin’s done an excellent job of highlighting people. And you know? I’ve had people who are scared to get on the podcast, even though I tell them a hundred times that they’re in complete control of the episode. I haven’t gone on Code Live.

Atlas Can:
Oh, no.

Josh Birk:
Even though Kevin, even though after I interviewed him, Kevin’s like, “Well, son, when do I get you on the show?” And I’m like, “I haven’t coded that much lately.” So you know? I won’t go into details because I don’t think anything is determined yet. I believe the show will go on, so hopefully, you’ll get a second chance for that.

Atlas Can:
I would love to.

Josh Birk:
Okay. So first of all, I just think that’s brilliant, because it’s like you leaned into it, and it’s like I love that phrase that nothing bad happened, right?

Atlas Can:
Nothing bad happened, no.

Josh Birk:
Nothing bad happened. I actually-

Atlas Can:
I’m still here.

Josh Birk:
You are still here. This reminds me of one of my very first ever computer programing classes. I was a kid. I was in, I don’t know, grade school, I think. It was like it was an Apple II. It was basic. You know? There was nothing but go to lines. And my teacher said, “Look, there’s nothing you’re going to put into those computers that’s going to break them.”

Atlas Can:
Yep.

Josh Birk:
Like, “You can try anything in this classroom. And everything might go wrong, but you’re not going to break the computer, so go crazy.” And the fact that I remember that-

Atlas Can:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.

Josh Birk:
… like 35 years later, right?

Atlas Can:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Josh Birk:
It’s like… Well, okay. It might have been more than six. But anyway, it is always an excellent learning experience.

Josh Birk:
Talking more about learning, like outside of Trailhead. Well, actually, let me just poke real quickly because I think I was about to get you a second answer there. How did you get involved in Salesforce Ben?

Atlas Can:
We worked in the same company.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
And he was looking for writers, and I was like, “Oh.” This is the first website that I booked for when-

Josh Birk:
Right.

Atlas Can:
… I was learning about Salesforce. And I asked them if I can write something, and my first article was like JavaScript developer certification guide, which I studied for months. And yeah, it was also I registered for the beta exam, and it also got canceled because of the pandemic, so I had to take it like a couple of months later.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Atlas Can:
Yeah.

Josh Birk:
Outside of, so we’ve mentioned community spotlight articles. I know most people listening to this podcast probably read Salesforce Ben, but what other kind of content is up there?

Atlas Can:
So I write articles for DevOps usually on Blue Canvas’s blog and YouTube channel.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
We’ve been exploring developer advocacy, and what are the useful things that I could do for the community in general? And I’ve been really fortunate to work with them. And I’m exploring to see what I can do more, really. Like I’m thinking about making content about flows for developers, because I think that-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Atlas Can:
… there’s a huge need, and it’s not been covered lately when I last checked, and I need to step up my flow game, really. So yeah. It will be [crosstalk 00:24:16]-

Josh Birk:
Everybody does, I think. Everybody does.

Atlas Can:
Yes. It’s going-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Atlas Can:
I mean, fantastic. There’s a fantastic progress there. Shout out to the Salesforce flow team. They’re also on Discord, by the way. Everybody’s on Discord. People should join. Yes.

Josh Birk:
Okay. So if people want to join SFXD, how would they do that?

Atlas Can:
They would go to show notes, and they would go to our LinkedIn page. Just search for SFXD, Salesforce Discord Exchange. But it will be also in the show notes.

Josh Birk:
Okay, sounds like a plan. I know you wanted to give a lot of shout outs to people. Is there anybody we’ve missed along the way?

Atlas Can:
Let me see. Okay. Salesforce developer relations team, Trailhead team at Salesforce.

Josh Birk:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Atlas Can:
I’ve said Kevin Portman, but there’s also Philip [inaudible 00:24:56]. I took his lookup component, broke it apart when I was trying to use it for project-

Josh Birk:
Uh-huh (affirmative).

Atlas Can:
… like three years ago. He was really helpful, too.

Josh Birk:
[crosstalk 00:25:05]-

Atlas Can:
And [inaudible 00:25:06]. Also, there’s a really good content on Salesforce admins blog, YouTube channel too, so shout out to them also. They have this one called like how I solved this section.

Josh Birk:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Atlas Can:
I love those, because I’m usually stuck on reporting and stuff, so I look it up there probably.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. Reporting is usually something I have to steal from somebody else.

Atlas Can:
Yeah.

Josh Birk:
I think I’m still pretty terrible at it, yeah.

Josh Birk:
Tell me a little bit about post-pandemic. Like how do you think? You’ve gotten so ingrained into an online community, into being able to work remotely, and to be able to access resources remotely. Do you think as the pandemic winds down, knock on wood, crossing the fingers, all that good stuff.

Atlas Can:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Josh Birk:
Because you know? Podcast lives on, so three years from now, if omicron 13 is raging, I apologize to the general population of the earth. But presuming the pandemic winds down a little bit, do you think that’s going to change your cycle, your journeys going forward?

Atlas Can:
I would certainly try going out more. I really want to go Salesforce events, because there’s so many people to meet in real life for the first time.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Atlas Can:
It’s been pretty surreal experience for me in the past two years. It’s been pretty interesting for everybody, to say the least. But yeah, I’m looking forward to going to the events, going to [Trail of X 00:26:23], Dreamforce, and everything.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha.

Atlas Can:
And meet you, yeah.

Josh Birk:
Eventually, I certainly hope so. I will definitely be heading over to TrailblazerDX 2022-

Atlas Can:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Josh Birk:
… unless some things change. And I, too, am sort of tentatively wading back into the waters of what the old world… The old new world? The new old world? I don’t really know what to call it anymore. How that’s going to affect, how that’s going to go out. Is there a developer group near you?

Atlas Can:
Yes!

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
But it’s on [PAGE 00:26:55], and I’m trying to… I have plans for it. You know? [crosstalk 00:26:59]-

Josh Birk:
Got it.

Atlas Can:
… disclose right now. But yeah, I want to also do content for it. I wanted organize meetings for it also.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Atlas Can:
I guess, plans for there, yeah. Absolutely.

Josh Birk:
That sounds awesome. Well, definitely a reason for me to go ahead and get my passport renewed, I guess, then, huh?

Atlas Can:
Yeah. Come to [Assemble 00:27:13].

Josh Birk:
Sounds awesome.

Josh Birk:
And that’s our show everybody. Now, be sure to check out the show. Now, it’s for this particular episode, Atlas has included links to things like the SFXD channel and some of his work, so you can check out the stuff he’s been doing and the communities he’s been participating in.

Josh Birk:
Now, before we go, I did ask after, Atlas’s favorite non-technical hobby, and it’s actually something I’ve done like once, and it is a lot of fun.

Atlas Can:
Kite surfing. I recently learned kite surfing.

Josh Birk:
Kite surfing, really?

Atlas Can:
Yes! It’s addictive. Yeah.

Josh Birk:
And also really easy to do social distancing with it.

Atlas Can:
Yes, you can get away, pretty far away from people.

Josh Birk:
I want to thank Atlas for the great conversation and information. And as always, I want to thank you for listening.

Josh Birk:
Now, if you want to learn more about this show, head on over to developer.salesforce.com/podcast, where you can hear old episodes, see those show notes, and have links to your favorite podcast service. Thanks again, everybody, and I’ll talk to you next week.

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