I recently had a conversation with a student about imposter syndrome that helped them. Perhaps this perspective will help you too.
Fact: EVERYONE get imposter syndrome. Even a top-of-their-game singers like Dua Lipa and Adele have been outspoken about it.
Imposter syndrome is simply the uncomfortable feeling you have when there’s a gap between your previous experience and your expectation of a future experience.… Read the rest
As I dive deeper and deeper into this agentic world, I started to notice a few less-than-positive things.
1. AI doesn’t push back
Aside from token limits, AI will keep going for a long as you do. This means you can work longer and harder than ever, and AI won’t say, “Hey, you’ve been at this for a while.… Read the rest
If you missed the webinar that Mike Tolo and I held last Friday, you can watch it on YouTube.
Here’s the AI-generated summary:
Alex and Mike Topalovich discuss what agentic AI means for the Salesforce ecosystem: the real productivity gains, and the risks that come with them.… Read the rest
At Northeast Dreamin, one topic definitely caught my attention.
More people started to realize that if AI can implement something in minutes that would have taken a human hours, how does hourly billing work?
Clients are not dumb. They know you’re using AI.… Read the rest
Here’s something an AI cannot do:
Starting a prompt with, “As a Salesforce consultant with 10 years of experience….” doesn’t magically turn the AI into an expert.
So while the AI can be quite intelligent, it’s not able to replace anyone with grey hairs anytime soon.… Read the rest
With every significant technological advance, people are impacted. From farm automation to automated telephone switching to ATMs to using robots on assembly lines.
With each advance, humans had to redefine their responsibilities. And as my friend said, “You can open a door by yourself, but doormen still exist”.… Read the rest
Recently, I mentioned some ways that I believe current AI will reshape the Salesforce ecosystem.
That email received lots of attention, so I shared it on LinkedIn. The post was also popular and started deeper conversations.
Mike Topalovich shared some great insights, and we agreed that a LinkedIn post was not the right forum for sharing those ideas.… Read the rest
Northeast Dreamin (NED) was last week in Concord, NH. It was great to meet up with some readers in real life, and to catch up with old Salesforce colleagues.
From my perspective, there were two main takeaways from the conference.
1.… Read the rest
I’m old enough to remember a time before Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
The year was 2003, and people and organizations purchased software only once. You bought MS Office (or Siebel CRM, the cool CRM at the time) for a high price. Then you hosted it on your personal computer or in a server room.… Read the rest
It’s recently become trendy to use AI to reverse engineer products.
To reverse engineer something is basically to take it apart and see how it works. Back when I was a computer engineer, we would obtain a competitor’s physical product and try to see how they accomplished their results.… Read the rest
A last minute notice, but I’ll be attending Northeast Dreamin in Concord, NH this week.
If you’re attending, give me a shout and we can meetup. I’ll be there Wed evening until Fri evening. And there’s probably going to be an informal meetup Wed and Thurs night.… Read the rest
With all the possibilities that are now achievable with AI, it’s important to remain humble.
We are still human, prone to biases and mistakes. Give us a bigger hammer and we’ll still miss the nail sometimes and hit our thumb on occasion.… Read the rest
LinkedIn used to be a good place for business. You could
These days, with AI slop, LinkedIn has become a cesspool of low-quality information.… Read the rest
As you may know, I’m a big nerd, and love finding excuses to use my new buddy, Claude. So here’s a trend report for when Salesforce’s API versions will be retired.
Historically, every three years, Salesforce retires API versions in batches of ten:
This means, if the trend continues, these will be retired going forward:
Plotted with the latest version, the chart looks like this:
The takeaway
Salesforce keeps about sliding window with 31 to 44 API versions available at any time.… Read the rest
You’ve probably seen Salesforce’s Product and Feature Retirement Newsletter that gets emailed every once in a while.
The item that catches my attention the most is when Salesforce retires platform API versions. For example, the most recent newsletter says API versions 31 to 40 will be deprecated in June, 2028.… Read the rest
It’s been a while since I spoke about remote work. Since it’s Friday, here we go.
Apparently there’s a new type of remote work that’s gaining popularity. It’s the type in which you commute to the office and work from there, but some or most of your colleagues are remote.… Read the rest
Given this recent discovery of just how far AI has progressed, I have a few insights and predictions.
Brace yourself, I’m brutally honest here.
Firstly, if you’re JUST a developer, or JUST an admin, you will no longer be in demand.… Read the rest
If you’re curious about my AI commands, I’ll share some details with you. Keep in mind this command was created just by using prompts.
The /start command
This command begins work on a task based on a Trello card. The AI reads the card, determines the task’s name, and asks whether the card has enough detail to start designing.… Read the rest
Diving a little deeper into my AI workflow, here are some more granular details.
I use several commands (or skills), to have the AI perform a series of instructions. Commands begin with a “/”.
/start {Trello URL}
Reads the Trello card from the URL and tries to understand what I want.… Read the rest
OK, I’ve dipped my toe into the Model Context Protocol (MCP) world. In case you didn’t know, MCP is a mechanism that allows an AI to perform work on your behalf.
Before this week, I usually asked my old AI (Gemini) for its opinion and copied + pasted its answer.… Read the rest
For the last year, I’ve been using Gemini Pro. This is because it was a free subscription for a year with the purchase of my mobile phone.
I’ve mostly used it to code my Salesforce app, and it’s been good enough to get the job done.… Read the rest
Documentation is often the last consideration in any Salesforce implementation. It’s tedious, requires constant revision, and most techies dislike writing.
Case in point: for my Salesforce app, clients have been steadily complaining about the lack of complete documentation. They appreciate that I’m always available to answer questions, but prefer a more self-serve option.… Read the rest
As a continuation of yesterday’s email, a couple of my nonprofit clients recently ended their support contract. This opens up my availability to help others.
Here’s a testimonial from one of those clients:
… Read the rest“When our organization began evaluating whether Veevart was truly the right CRM for our needs, Alex was instrumental in helping us find clarity.
Times are tough these days for Salesforce nonprofit consultants.
Lots of nonprofits are buckling down for the fall season and don’t seem to as deep pockets anymore. Some are focusing on non-CRM activities. Others may consider leaving Salesforce altogether.
This is probably caused by one or more of the following factors:
Given this, consultants may start looking to widen their focus to maintain an income.… Read the rest
I’m currently helping a Salesforce partner officially become an Independent Software Vendor (ISV).
If you don’t already know, ISVs sell a product on the Salesforce AppExchange. This is in contrast with the other type of partner, System Integrators (SIs).
Sadly, becoming an official ISV is not an easy or straightforward process.… Read the rest
As a consultant, I work with multiple Salesforce orgs.
Some of them are mine, some are my clients. I use Bitwarden as a password manager to manage login credentials, including passkeys.
I never felt the need to track more details about these orgs.… Read the rest
During a mid-project meeting with a client today, we discussed some external processes. And it seemed like there was some confusion.
The initial scope seemed clear: Use a new form tool to capture contact information, send the results to Salesforce, and augment the platform to manage the new data.… Read the rest
At Dreamforce this year, Salesforce officially announced AIforce.
As with most announcements, it’s not completely clear what Airforce actually is. But from what I’ve gathered:
As consultants, we’ll see how we can leverage these capabilities.… Read the rest
If you haven’t heard yet, Agentforce Sales, formerly known as Sales Cloud, will be called Sales Cloud again.
The same applies to all other Agentforce variations. Here’s an article from The Next Web with more details.
Personally, I was never a big fan of the name Agentforce Nonprofit (AFNP).… Read the rest
Here are the upcoming login changes, coming to a Salesforce instance near you.
Starting June 2026, you’ll only need to enter your username. If you have a passkey enabled, then you’ll confirm the login from there. If you don’t, you’ll need to enter your password.… Read the rest