Salesforce MVP 2020 - Daniel Stange - Success Journey

Salesforce MVP 2020 Success Journey about Daniel Stange

Daniel Stange, has been awarded as Salesforce MVP Title in March 2020 for his exceptional contribution to Trailblazer Community. His leadership skills, Trailblazer user group leader & mentor contribution with Trailblazer community, ability to share knowledge and being a speaker for many community conferences has inspired the Trailblazer Community members.

Here is Daniel Stange Salesforce MVP success journey in his own words about self – motivation, future goals, insights and advice for future Salesforce MVP aspirants and trailblazers.

Brief Introduction about yourself and your journey with Salesforce?
I’m working as a technical architect for a regional implementation partner, DIA die.interaktiven, in Germany since 2015. It is my second professional career – I hold a degree in Journalism, History, Political Science and Philosophy, and I worked as a research associate in the Humanities for 8 years. From 2009, I was working in the Digital Humanities, an area of the Humanities that is using digital techniques and methods to analyze large volumes of data and text. In my wildest dreams, I was phantasizing about a PaaS platform that wouldn’t require me to start from scratch for each project. I was getting tired of spending time on database abstraction, permissioning etc., and I found it frustrating that the availability of APIs was extremely poor in my area of research. When I opened my first developer org and started experimenting with it, I knew that I had found what I was looking for.

When did you first hear about Salesforce?
My first contact with Salesforce dates back to earliest days, but back then, I found Salesforce rather boring and didn’t have an idea what to do with it. More than a decade later, I had a discussion on my ideas about PaaS and SaaS with Hendrik Adam, CEO of DIA die.interaktiven. He offered me a job and asked me to open a Developer Edition, try it out and talk again a few weeks later. A few days with my dev org were enough to know that this was going to be the future of my professional career. I accepted the offer and switched careers in January 2015.

What Motivated you to become an Salesforce MVP?
You don’t actually decided, planned, or hoped to be a Salesforce MVP, so it’s nothing I had as my motivation. When I learned about the MVP program, I surely wished to be in this circle. But as I understood how the process worked, I realized that this award would come to me, instead of me hunting for it.

I love to discover things, and I love to tell stories and discuss my findings with others. So I became a conference speaker, a user group leader, a mentor to some people. Quite a number of people must have taken the time to write a nomination for me, so technically these people made me MVP. I’m grateful for their support and nominations, and I’m happy that things I did made an impact.

Did you have any Mentors if so what was their role during your journey towards MVP?
I don’t really have a mentor, but lots of friends who helped me grow and had a big impact on my journey. Daniel Peter, for sure, was a role model – his knowledge, generosity and friendliness have no boundaries. David Liu has been a big influence – I bet that’s true for most people of my generation. Jean Michel Mougeolle has been a true friend and advisor on my way, Christian Szandor Knapp has been a source of motivation and inspiration, and also the one to nudge me when I was taking wrong turns. Meighan Brodkey, Christian Menzinger, Marc Kirsch and Ankit Taneja are wonderful friends and collaborators. And this is just the top of the iceberg, but these guys were really important.

Last but not least: Meeting Don Robins, working with him, being introduced by him to his friends, spending endless hours with discussions on almost everything… I don’t want to miss this, and I’m extremely blessed to know Don.

What would be your best definition of Salesforce MVP?
The key virtue of every Salesforce MVP is giving back. In sports, an MVP is the person who makes the whole team better – and that also goes for MVPs. A Salesforce MVP promotes the values of the Salesforce Ohana and continually gives back to help others.

How does it feel being an MVP compared to a Trailblazer?
I don’t think that anything changed at all. I was just me before, and I’m just me, still.

Being an MVP is an award and a recognition on what I have done in the past. So, I’m happy that Salesforce awarded MVP honors to me. But it didn’t change me – I’m still the same person – a “Trallblazer” as you might say – and the only thing that’s different is that I have an MVP badge.

What are your future goals and how have you planned to accomplish it?
I am working to become a Certified Technical Architect for years now, and after I had passed all required certifications and completed System Architect and Application Architect, I’m now formally ready to register for the review board presentation.

I’m not sure when I’m going to have my first shot, but every new customer feels like a mock exam now. I’m focusing on creating clear visuals and artifacts, writing compelling and precise solutions… I guess I’m repeating and refining the typical architect tasks until I feel ready.

Your Insights and advice for future MVP aspirants and beginners apart from Trailhead and Salesforce certifications
The most important advice is: Be yourself, do what you’re good at, collaborate with others, be humble and supportive.

The only way to become a Salesforce MVP is to act as one, be an MVP.

Quite often, I looked at the lists of new MVPs, and I wondered: “Really? This person wasn’t an MVP yet?” That’s the essence of being an MVP: Just be an MVP for people, devote your time to make others better, let them shine. This is when Salesforce is going to pick you and recognize you for the things you did and will do.

To Contact Daniel Stange:-
Trailblazer: https://success.salesforce.com/profileview?u=0053000000B0VjsAAF
Twitter: https://twitter.com/stangomat
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielstange/