Thursday, May 16, 2013

Version problems with Salesforce Lists and Ext.Js

Have you ever wondered, once you use javascript in your left side bar in Salesforce, your list pages just hang and see the ever ubiquitous, spinning wheel?
Well, today I have encountered this as we have been rolling out are beta release of a Appexchange product.

The issue is that when you are using Ext.JS for any development and JavaScripting, make sure that those are compatible with Salesforce Ext.JS libraries.  Otherwise, you will run into JavaScript version libary problems and Salesforce Lists will just not work.  Salesforce Lists usings Ext.JS libraries to pull the lists and this causes all the trouble

Monday, May 13, 2013

Leading Big Vision from Heart

I've borrowed this title Stanford University's Leadership series podcast from Justin Rosenstein  of Asana.  Everyone should hear this podcast to see how a small startup is able to lead a change in organizations to share resources and become more collaborative in solving complex problems.

We so often forget in daily pony-and-dog-show by leaders that how important it is for the employees to focus on vision of the organization.  It is primary job of the leaders to ensure that every decision taken by them are small steps is towards that vision.  This will enable employees who serve the customers understand how they can forward that greater vision.  While many may see this is all "text book" speak and does not happen in organizations  I would call as BS.  I had the privilege of working with some true leaders in their capacity who have followed the principle of leading through big vision and I'm very grateful for them for mentoring me.

The basic responsibility of a leader is to make sure, they let the employees understand the goal and purpose.  The leader is the captain of the ship. An organization may have performed well in the past and in near term, but without a goal and purpose, it is like a drunk captain who is enjoying the catch (s)he just had caught and not worried of the storms in the horizon.   The employees too will ignore what is in the horizon and just enjoy the party on-board, and think who caution on the impending storm are just people who don't understand how to party.  In these cases, the captain of the ship who does not take any responsibility and is happy to maintain the status-quo only to see in few years, they will be like 100s of organization buried by the storm on "change".

In this every changing world, technology is enabling competition a small 5 people company to compete with a large corporate.  The same technology if not adopted quickly is risking companies(For Example BMC Software) to go out of business is a telling tale of how leaders can really screw-up organization and employees from having a leaner, open and collaborative environments.