TRAILHEAD

Writing for Trailhead is the highlight of my career at Salesforce. If you've never heard of it (no worries) Trailhead is a place to learn all about Salesforce, for free.

I love writing for this medium because of the immense challenge it poses for writers. The Trailhead style, or what literary types call voice & tone, expects the words to be simple and easily to understand. However, most of what we are teaching is complicated. So getting a difficult topic clear enough to explain it in simple language is challenging and incredibly rewarding.  

I worked as a full time writer from June 2016. Almost all the writing I've done, so far, is for internal audiences at Salesforce. But there was one module I wrote for public audiences that was some of the most meaningful work I've ever done.

Like so many people, I felt scared at the start of the pandemic. I knew that one of the best ways to fight fear and overcome helplessness is to help others. I just didn't know how. I was paralyzed.

Soon into the pandemic, Salesforce announced Work.com, a set of tools to help people get back to work. I was so proud to work for a company that was able to innovate, create, and make something that could help millions of people start to get back to work.

Then, I was given the chance to create a quick start on Workplace Command Center (no longer published), part of the Work.com suite of tools. This is a type of module that gives learners a chance to learn by doing.  I'd like to think that there are some people out there who did this module, got an idea for an app, and built it because of the confidence they had from learning on Trailhead.

It was one of those moments where you realize that power of technology to make life better. I got to use my gift of understanding technology and explaining it in everyday language. I was so thrilled that I got to be part of it.