Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, it’s time for another Lightning Champion Spotlight episode. We talk to Shun Kosaka, Salesforce Application Development Specialist at Accenture. We’re at the final episode of our six-part series, the Lightning Champions Spotlight, hosted by Kelly Walker, Senior Adoption Consultant at Salesforce. We talk to our amazing Lightning Champions to find out about their career journey, how it lead them to the Lightning Experience, advice on handling change management, and why Lightning Experience is so awesome.
Join us as we talk about how to win over stakeholders by focusing on game-changing features, and what it was like to translate all fourteen Superbadges into Japanese.
You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Shun Kosaka.
Shun initially studied electrical engineering in university with an emphasis on telecommunications. “I wanted to work with something I can use to realize business more quickly, so I got a job as a software engineer,” he says. He started out working on general system development and supporting project management.
“After I completed some Lightning Projects,” Shun says, “I think one very good point of Lightning is that the component features are intuitive and easy to explain.” So when he’s showing Salesforce to the business side people on his team, he can simply change things on the fly to really demonstrate the power of the platform and how it can make their jobs easier. Features like Mass Quick Action combined with Flow, Process Builder, and the other automation tools can create some really powerful synergies. The game-changing applications can really win over stakeholders and drive adoption.
Based in Tokyo, Japan, Shun has really taken a deep dive into his community to drive enthusiasm for both the platform in general and Lightning in particular. He’s done a lot of work to localize Salesforce content for his Japanese audience, translating the Trailhead Superbadges for his community. He recently worked through the Process Automation Superbadge and the users who worked with his translation passed, which gives him a lot of satisfaction.
As far as change management goes, Shun has a lot of experience both changing from Lightning to Classic himself and helping his clients through the process. “When we work with technology, we always need to handle change management,” he says, “before starting your project, define the guidelines of change management, define the communications with executive stakeholders, and assign a team for it.” In other words, make a plan for how you’re going to execute rather than wait for problems or miscommunications to pop up.
Kelly Walker: Welcome to the Salesforce Lightning Champion Spotlight on the Salesforce Admins podcast. My name is Kelly Walker and I am a Senior Adoption Consultant here at Salesforce. I also have the amazing opportunity of working closely with the awesome trailblazers who are passionate about Lightning, and have become Lightning Champions to evangelize the power of Lightning. In this mini series, we will be talking to six awesome Lightning Champions to talk about their career journey, how it led them to the Lightning Experience. Advice on handling change management, and to focus on their stories of why Lightning Experience is so awesome.
Kelly Walker: Ohayo Gozaimasu. how are you?
Shun-san: Ohayo Gozaimasu. I’m fine, thank you for much for having me today.
Kelly Walker: Well, we are so excited to have you on the admins podcast, and to have everyone get to know you a little bit better. You are a rock star in your local community, in your Ohana here in Japan. But now I can’t wait for everyone to get to know you, one of our amazing Lightning Champions here in Japan. So without further ado, I would love for you to just kind of break down where you were before Salesforce. What did your journey look like prior to working on Salesforce?
Shun-san: Okay, let me talk about what I did before. I started my Salesforce career. When I was a university student, I studied engineering, electrical engineering, especially about telecommunication. So almost all my friends got a job of a researcher or telecommunication engineer. I enjoyed my study, but our study often takes very long time appearing the world. So I wanted to work with something I can realize the business more quickly. And so fortunately I got a job as a software engineer in the current company. Before I started Salesforce mainly I engaged in developing on premise backbone systems and supporting project management. So I learned the general system development there and I think those experiences really helpful for my current Salesforce career.
Kelly Walker: So you are instrumental in Lightning adoption and engagement in the Japanese region. How did you learn Lightning and what are you doing to help others learn it?
Shun-san: Okay. Okay. When I started my Salesforce career, I think it’s before four or five years ago, I think Lightning experience already appeared, but my first glance was Classic because it wasn’t subscribed and console was not supported at the time. So I have been studying both Classic and Lightning. To be honest, it was harder for me to use Lightning for the first time at the time because it was so fast and many features were not supported yet. However, I’ve been enjoying seeing Lightning grow up having a lot of nice features while I’m switching between Classic and Lightning and now I saw them in Classic screen and after I succeeded some Lightning project. I think one very good point of Lightning is that a user interface features a component resist. So they’re intuitive and easy to explain. So when I explained so forth to the business side, people in client I, I always show this specific business use case, which Salesforce can recognize and make more efficient.
Shun-san: So to make a change is always a fear for those who do not know about it well, but if they can find something, something with the they want to use like, Oh this is a nice feature and we’ve saved our time like that. Finding a game changing feature has a possibility to mitigate the overall uncomfortableness for them to have new things. And I think Lightning is much easier to client than Classic.
Kelly Walker: Awesome. What was the game changer for you?
Shun-san: Okay, let me share about my two favorite features. Yeah. One is mass quick action. I created JavaScript potence to list to be actions in Classic before but in Lightning all you have to do is just grading your standard reduction and put it on such an app. It’s so easy and combination of mass quick action with process or flow can realize complex business process, so I really like it.
Kelly Walker: Awesome. Yeah. Mass quick action is definitely on my top list as well and I love how you’re combining it with flow and as some of the other automation tools that are intuitively or just within the platform. So amazing. What’s your other?
Shun-san: Okay. Another is a quick set up, especially in cyber squad, you need to back and forth among a lot of setup menus like chat bot and chat deployment, only channel setting and so on. So I often use quick set up for demo bypass. Yeah. But please don’t forget to see what happens actually when you use that. Yeah, it’s very important when you fix the settings right there.
Kelly Walker: So I know you can do a lot within your community in Tokyo and Japan, a little bit broader. What are you doing to help your community members understand not only Lightning but more about Salesforce?
Shun-san: Okay. I’m organizing some music loop and I’m also active in online float visit community, but one of the activities I’d like to share today is localizing Salesforce content. For example, I localize almost all the joint head supervisors into Japanese.
Kelly Walker: What super badge was your favorite to work with?
Shun-san: I think I like process automation, supervise specialist super badge. Some little business in Japan, utilized my translated document for process automation. So the badges do include the skills and they passed the application beta do a certification exam. And so I’m so happy to hear that people tell me it’s helpful.
Kelly Walker: Now with regards to your journey to Salesforce and Lightning, and you mentioned a little bit about the change management that took place not only in your career but also for the customers that you work with. So do you have any advice for our Trailblazers who are maybe going through a transition or maybe trying to implement new features, new functionality, and they’re just not getting that user buy-in? What tips do have on change management?
Shun-san: Oh, it’s a hard question and actually I don’t have an absolute answer, but yeah, whenever we work with technology, we always need to handle change management, executive sponsorship, user adoption, training, testing, migration and so on. So it’s not only about Salesforce, so that generally before starting the project define the guideline about change management, you’ll find the communication and assigns a team for it. So things will change. So we need to come face to face with it. And sincerity.
Kelly Walker: Do you think it’s just a matter of just getting in there and working side by side, I mean it sounds like rather than avoiding it, you face it face on.
Shun-san: Yes, yes.
Kelly Walker: Well, Shun you’ve done some amazing things for your local community as well as the community abroad. I’d love to understand and maybe leave our Ohana with some words of advice that you have in Japanese as well as in English.
Shun-san: [foreign language 00:09:23] My other advice is that don’t do it by only yourself, count on your coworkers, count on community, count on your friends, and give back to them.
Kelly Walker: Well, amazing. You’ve definitely given back and we are so grateful for all that you’re doing as a Lightening Champion and I just want to say arigato gozaimasu. Thank you so much Shun-san. It’s been a pleasure.
Shun-san: Thank you so much.
Kelly Walker: Bye bye.
Shun-san: Well, it was such a pleasure to have Shun-sun on the podcast today. He is so enthusiastic and his passion for Salesforce just radiates through him. He made a great point when it comes to Lightning. Talk to your stakeholders about that game changing feature that will solve their problems and improve productivity. And don’t forget that Lightning not only benefits end users, but admins and developers as well. Shun-san is heavily involved in the Japanese community, participating in local community groups, translating all 14 super badges and VS code into Japanese and even organizing Japan dreaming. It’s no surprise and he recommends everyone plugs into their local community to learn and give back. With that, we’ve come to the end of our Lightning Champion spotlight on the Admins Podcast. It’s been an absolute pleasure introducing you to a handful of our amazing Lightning Champions for spreading Lightning to their communities throughout the world. Visit our meet the champions page in the show notes to find an amazing Lightning Champion near you. Thanks for listening. Bye bye.
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