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In case you hadn't heard, October saw the biggest and best software event on Earth take place in San Francisco and I was lucky enough to be there - my fourth Dreamforce as a salesforce employee. I wanted to share some personal highlights and lessons but here are the links to the keynotes - they really are worth watching!
My role at Dreamforce was threefold: to help out however I could with customers ( especially those who have travelled from APAC); to understand and internalise the innovation and excitement that salesforce.com and Dreamforce embodies, so I can transmit these to my team of brilliant recruiters; and finally to have fun and give back.
Now that I think about it, I find it reassuringly congruent that my three goals mirror the values that salesforce as a company stands for; customer success, innovation, and philanthropy.
More than 150,000 people registered to attend Dreamforce in person this year, and more than 3 million people watched online. Those of us fortunate enough to be on site couldn't help being almost overwhelmed by the scale, the buzz, and the atmosphere; Dreamforce is more rock concert than industry event, and it's a million miles away from 'traditional' technology conferences. Actually, it also includes plenty of rock stars and after parties: the Beach Boys introduced and played during Marc Benioff’s keynote; Will.i.am was ever present; Neil Young had a fireside chat with Al Gore; and Bruno Mars and Cake played an awesome nightime show to a rapturous reception of happy dancing people on the steps of San Francisco town hall.
But as always, the serious business of innovation was a key theme, both in terms of rapid and groundbreaking product evolution, new product launches ( both from salesforce and will.I.am), and hundreds of partners and customers showcasing new methods, techniques, software, hardware and services. Take Wave for instance, the new analytics platform from salesforce.com - nicely summed up by my colleague and friend Deeps Da Silva here.
As well as Al Gore and Neil Young, we were also graced by the presence of Hillary Clinton and Arianna Huffington . My colleague Wendy Johnstone wrote about both of them and her posts are always worth reading.
There was plenty of philanthropy going on also - 3 million meals were donated to feed the hungry (yes, you read that right !) ; the gala benefit with Bruno Mars raised oodles of cash for the UCSF children's hospital, and thousands of enthusiastic conference attendees from all over the world joined salesforce staff to donate their time to compile night time kits for vulnerable children and pack food for struggling families.
I encourage you to watch the videos from Dreamforce and to consider locking in a spot for next year, there really is nothing like it...
And what better way to get there than to consider salesforce, the worlds most innovative company four years running (Forbes) and recently named Australia's #3 best place to work (BRW/ BOSS) as your ultimate career destination?
