A conversation with Emma B-F, Project Manager at KELL Partners
In work and in life, there are certain go-to people you always call first when you need to think through a problem. For various members of the Thread team, that person is Emma B-F, Project Manager at KELL Partners, a tech consulting firm specializing in Salesforce. Several Thread team members have had the pleasure and honor of working with Emma over the years. As her expertise and savvy have grown, so too has our reliance on her clear-headed thinking. A veteran of nonprofit program management who has turned her talents toward tech, Emma has a first-hand appreciation of the nuances involved in readying a small nonprofit for big – or even not so big – changes to their digital resources.
When you’re being innovative, you need to first get specific. You need to define the problem, make clear why you need to solve it, and explain the benefit to your organization once it’s solved. To help get you into this mindset, it can often times be easier and more effective to invite someone new and impartial into the room.
Thread: You pivoted from program management to creating systems and databases because you were the most tech-savvy person at your nonprofit. What was the biggest thing that getting more hands-on with tech demystified for you?
Emma: First and foremost, it’s not that hard! You don’t need a degree in computer science to be a Salesforce Admin, and you don’t need to be in a leadership role to answer questions about technology and create digital solutions. What you really need is a penchant for logical thinking and organizing, as well as attentive listening skills.
When I talk to people who are thinking about getting into tech, the first question I ask is, “When you were in school, did you like organizing your binders?” It may seem silly, but this question gets to the fact that if you like organizing things by categories or common traits, then you have the logical thinking skills needed to work in tech.
Tech is just another kind of problem-solving. We often presume that you need to code or design software to touch anything digital, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact, the most successful technology solutions rely on people who are willing to tackle big, messy situations and identify the root issues. People who are curious about understanding why something is not working and enjoy investigating why it’s important to find a solution are often the most effective in implementing tech.
And that gets to why listening skills are so important. To be effective and successful, any tech solution needs to be people-centric. Especially in small nonprofits that don’t have an army of IT people at the ready, any digital asset needs to be built around the user – the staff, the constituent, or the donor. An effective Admin is someone who listens when a colleague says, “I can’t make Google Hangouts work,” and follows up asking “are you on your phone, your tablet, or your computer” and researches the answer. Really the job of an Admin is to understand the people problems behind tech, and that takes sharp listening skills.
Thread: “Innovation” is such a buzzword nowadays. How do you think about this idea and make it real and/or applicable for your clients?
Emma: In my experience, innovation works to solve existing problems. It’s meant to answer basic questions such as, “What is a problem we’ve been trying to solve that we haven’t been able to?” Or, “How can we do this thing differently and decrease friction to make it happen?” Or, “What’s something we’ve never done because we don’t know where to start?”
When you’re being innovative, you need to first get specific. You need to define the problem, make clear why you need to solve it, and explain the benefit to your organization once it’s solved. To help get you into this mindset, it can often times be easier and more effective to invite someone new and impartial into the room.
When I talk with clients about innovation, I start with simple questions. I’ll ask what’s working in Salesforce, what’s not, and what’s unknown. I often ask clients to tap into their feelings about things – “What frustrates you the most?” – because it can be so clarifying. Something that evokes an intense feeling is often where we can start.
Thread: What are some of the most important questions you want an organization to ask itself ahead of moving forward with a big new tech project?
Emma: Similar to innovation conversations, it’s critical to define the who, what, and why of any project. Who is this tech solution trying to help? What is the project working to solve? Why are we doing this? And when you define why, you’ll then start to nail down the priority, timeline, and all the stakeholders involved in the project.
Next, you must ask the question, “Who’s going to manage this new tool/app/software after it goes live?” Remember, all tech problems are people-centric, so you will need a real person to own the technology work moving forward. Ownership should not be split between multiple people – I have never seen it work when everyone and no one owns the technology.
If no one in your organization can own it, then make sure you’re budgeting for an outside consultant to own it. Digital assets are like houses. You have the upfront cost of buying the house, and then you need to do annual maintenance on it, and that costs money. If you’re not ready to pay for maintenance, then do not buy a house.
Thread: What tech trends or tools are you most excited about and would encourage small nonprofits to watch?
Emma: I would love to see small nonprofits leverage and habituate the use of free project management tools like Asana or ClickUp, to create templates of how people do key duties of their jobs. In the nonprofit space there are so many critical and recurring tasks that live in our email/calendar/brain. This makes it impossible to teach anyone else how to take over those responsibilities. It’s so much better to codify a project or task in project management software!
Thread: What resources, professional networks, or conferences do you want more people to know about?
Emma: First, BossedUp was my springboard into leadership. This group of women really encouraged and allowed me to explore other career paths or ideas beyond what I told myself I could do. There’s so much out there, and we are so much more complex and dynamic our current job title. Likewise, Women in Technology became my Salesforce squad. They encouraged me to get more involved in the Salesforce community, to own my technology skills, and to pursue a pivot into technology consulting.
Going into more tech-oriented resources, everyone using Salesforce should take a look at their Local Salesforce user groups and the NPSP Community. There’s online support and in-person meet-ups, which are so helpful for connecting with people working on similar problems and helping you figure out a solution – for free!
Two others to mention are Pep Up Tech and Amplify. Pep Up Tech provides motivated, under-served students the access, skills, mentors, and confidence needed to begin careers in tech and help diversify the industry. Amplify empowers underrepresented voices in the Salesforce ecosystem to be fearless leaders in technology. Both groups fuel my fire and remind me that social justice missions exist in every sector. It’s amazing the community these groups are building!