I have attended slews of tech conferences throughout my high-tech career, some more rewarding than others. My experiences have ranged from “dazed and confused” to fully engaged and satisfied at the end of the conference.

Looking back, I realize the key element to my positive experience was just a little planning, along with being realistic about what I could accomplish. Given that Dreamforce features over 1,400 sessions, it’s no wonder that attendees are often unaware of the wide range of topics and interest areas covered at the conference.

A great example of this came up in a conversation I had the other day with a new employee here who was a Salesforce Admin for more than 7 years and had attended Dreamforce several times. He was completely unaware of the wealth of security training, information, and best practices that are shared during Dreamforce.

Here are some discoveries I made myself when searching for security content planned for Dreamforce 2014:

Innovation in Security

Masha Sedova, Director of Trust Engagement at Salesforce, will be leading a session called “Carrots, Not Sticks: Building Security Awareness Through Gamification,” during which attendees will learn how to leverage gamification, rewards and behavior science methods to drive positive and transformational security engagement in their organization.

Many of our customers are looking for ways to address customer and employee demand for mobile solutions and access. “Managing Application Security in the Mobile First Era” will address security considerations when building and launching a mobile app on the Salesforce1 Platform and strategies to address security concerns when working with mobile endpoints.

Case Studies

Some of the most valuable sessions at Dreamforce include real-life examples of salesforce.com customers. Wells Fargo Bank and Accenture will be sharing how they worked together to develop and implement a cloud framework with Salesforce1, while addressing complex security issues such as data protection, regulatory compliance and data residency, in their session entitled “Embracing the Cloud While Protecting Data at Wells Fargo.” You can bet I will be attending this one!

Other customer and partner sessions will include stories from the Yahoo, Inc. security team and Bell Alliant (Canada).

Security Takeaways

The bulk of the sessions provide the opportunity to learn how to design, develop and manage your Salesforce implementation in the most secure way possible. Developers will benefit from four Secure Coding sessions, where attendees can learn how to leverage the best Salesforce security features in code and take a deep dive into best practices for building secure API endpoints.

But not all sessions are directed at developers or security experts. Additional sessions include “Implementing Single Sign On for Beginners” (in fact there are several session on SSO) and “Hands-on Training: Define Record Access.”

Wondering how to hone in on sessions with security-related content? There are two ways you can identify and plan for these sessions. First, just type “security” into the search field on our Dreamforce Sessions page. Second, and new this year for those who are already registered for Dreamforce, security-themed sessions can be identified using Agenda Builder. Either way, you'll be able to quickly find and save the sessions you would like to attend.

Ready to brush up on your security know-how? We'll see you at Dreamforce!