Is it Summer already?
Salesforce
We’re into April, which means the Summer 21 Salesforce release is on the horizon. Pre-release signups start on 15th April, but if you still have access to an earlier pre-release org, this will be updated to Summer 21 without you taking any action. Pre-release orgs tend to get less love as the release progresses, so if you can access a preview sandbox then you’ll find it’s a more valid representation of the release you’ll go live with. Pre-release is the route if you need the earliest possible access though.
Vaccine cloud has received an update to handle the millions of people that want to register for a COVID-19 vaccine. I had mine (AstraZeneca) a couple of weeks ago and had very little in the way of side effects - more tired than usual and a bit of a headache.
Salesforce Tower in San Francisco is to re-open in May. We’re now coming into yet another interesting time - it’s been very easy for companies to make sweeping statements about everyone working from home forever when they had to close their offices. Once they start opening them up again, will they be happy to have a low occupancy rate at full price? I’m expecting some of the work from anywhere promises to be rowed back or have caveats applied, but they need to tread carefully. Trying to force people back into offices full time will just push them out the door!
Management
A great post on the common mistakes that new engineering managers make - I’ve definitely seen a few of these over the course of my career, particularly people trying to work as a manager while taking on all of the engineering, then not understanding why the rest of the team are a bit fed up picking up the scraps and waiting for you to finish.
I’ve been background reading The Culture Code for a while now, and I’m loving it. If you want to understand how successful groups work together (and unsuccessful ones don’t), I’d highly recommend it.
Other
My (Salesforce related) blog output: