Dreamforce 2012 - The Big Picture and Takeaways

Another Dreamforce has come and gone.  As in the past, I came home and needed a day just to get my head back on straight and my feet back on the ground.  I'm going to do two things in this blog post.  First I'll talk about a few major themes that I picked up on in the messaging from Salesforce.  Second I have a few tips to share about coming back from Dreamforce and making the most of the experience.

Business is Social

Yes, it's a pretty buzzword laden term, but hear me out.  People working together is what gets things done, and now tools are being created AND USED to make this happen.  Chatter is one way to tie people together, but it also fits into a larger ecosystem of "socializing" your enterprise applications.  In the past, social components were always an addon that required users to learn additional systems and replicate data in more places.  With Chatter and other platform level social tools, this is no longer the case and it's all happening in one place.

Thinking out to the larger enterprise picture, more and more companies are investing in social infrastructure to both increase their employees effectiveness, and interact with customers.  Remember when people used to write a physical letter to a company?  And 10 years ago that became email?  Now those communications are coming in through Tweets and Facebook Messages.  Listening technology is finally catching up.

It's a Trust Revolution, Baby!

I've never heard the term Trust Revolution until Benioff's main keynote.  At first I thought "Great, more buzzwords", until he started painting a picture of what this means.  I picked up on two themes - First, a trust revolution is that providers of cloud technology have proven the technology.  Cloud tech is now trusted and reliable, and in many instances (Especially Salesforce), transparent.  Check out trust.salesforce.com to see how Salesforce outlines system status.  It's the best in the business.

The second theme with the Trust Revolution is that with many cloud applications, there has been a lack of interoperability between them since we are effectively using many vendor's infrastructures.  Initially, many vendors tried to be "everything to everyone", but the focus is shifting back to a "best of breed" approach.  With this new focus, there have been HUGE gains made in federated login and identity management.  Salesforce annouced that they will now be an identity provider and is actively working with many vendors to implement support for it.  Imagine, log into Salesforce and also login to all of your enterprise applications at the same time.  It's truly turning the browser into your operating system.  Exciting stuff, although potentially more forward looking than some of the other things at the conference.  If you're interested in this, talk to your account executive to get information on timing of releases.

Mobile - Still a Big Deal

Mobile is still HOT.  Salesforce gave touch.salesforce.com a lot of love during keynotes and product demonstrations.  Touch has been a bit quiet since last Dreamforce, it turns out they were digging in and really making the product more robust to "re-release" it at this year's conference as generally available.  

At Red Argyle, our mobile app developers are chomping at the bit to start implementing touch solutions so this is great news, as we now can start building native, touch enabled applications that will work on any modern browser, on any device.

Marketing - BOOM!

Salesforce unveiled a new cloud, called the "Marketing Cloud".  It combines a few key services that Salesforce has acquired over the past year.  Radian6, Site.com, and Buddy Media into a potent marketing engine to drive enterprise scale messaging.  And being Salesforce, this is all incorporated right into the core Salesforce platform, instantly combined with and adding to your data.

There's a big shift going on and Salesforce is leading the pack bringing this offering to the market. They believe that marketing budgets will exceed IT budgets within 5 years and they are making a play to get ahead of this. I can see the truth in this statement, as IT infrastructure diminishes and the need for social engagement increases, there could very well be a shift of spending into marketing activity.

OK So Now What?

Every year I get back from Dreamforce and feel like I have a Post-Dreamforce hangover.  The week was such an emotional high, so much fun, and so much magic, that coming back to the desk is like going from color back to black and white.  I'm here to tell you - It does not have to be that way.

In my experience, the only half of the value of a conference happens from attending, the other half comes from properly applying what you learned while there.  Whatever you're doing right now, stop and think hard about the feeling of total awesomeness you had last week and bottle it up.  Literally, remember hard what it felt like and hold on to it.  Now the challenge is strategically tapping into that feeling throughout the year to keep the energy high.  Of course there are some practical things to help with that.

#1 - If you made friends, keep them!  Linkedin/Follow/Friend anyone that you had great conversations with.  Even reach out to them and have a chat.  Surrounding yourself with like-minded Dreamforcers will help you keep the energy high.  Another often overlooked thing is that session presenters are MUCH more available than you think and they present because they're passionate about the topic.  They'll be happy to talk to you if you have questions.

#2 - Go back through your agenda and organize your notes.  If you didn't take notes, make some right now.  Write down three takeaways from each session you wanted to attend and three action items that you can followup on.  Did you see a product at a session that looks interesting?  Schedule a demo, did you learn a great new formula?  Take a note of it and implement it.

#3 - The other sessions are coming.  Over the next few weeks, Dreamforce will begin releasing them to Youtube.  Recommend reviewing the session listing and picking out all the ones you wanted to attend but couldn't and make your own list that you can then sit back and review session content.

#4 - Schedule time to dream.  On your calendar, schedule an hour of Dreamforce followup/education per week for a year.  Make this your "special happy time" to do the above and keep making small progress every week.  I'm a big fan of "Getting Things Done" system and identifying a few actionable items per week will keep you moving forward.

Alright, I hope this was a helpful roundup and followups for you regarding Dreamforce.  I'd love if you had any other thematic observations from the conference to share or actionable followup items, leave a comment and don't be shy!

Garry

8 Not So Glamorous, but Important Things You Should do to Prepare for Dreamforce

I presented today's Red Argyle logistics meeting to prep our staff for Dreamforce.  Tom and I have been to three, with Dreamforce 12 being our 4th Dreamforce.  However, both of the staff that are attending are about to experience their first.  We found ourselves going back to basics, and I thought "I should put this out there to help any first time Dreamforcers".

1)  Arrival Logistics - Get Them Sorted

What time should your flight arrive?  What method of transportation are you taking?  The BART Mission St. stop is in the neighborhood of the Dreamforce campus and costs under $15 to get there from SFO.  A taxi will set you back about $40 to drop you off at your hotel.  Do you know exactly the name, street address, and reservation number for you hotel?  Have supporting documentation ready in case there's any issues at the establishment.

2)  Get your Badge as Early as Possible

Arriving early?  Go pick up your badge.  Trust me, you'll thank yourself when you see the lines on Tuesday morning.

3)  Get your Schedule on Paper

Wifi and Cell coverage are hit or miss with 50K+ people all sharing the same internet in a few block radius.  I like to print out a 1 page cheat sheet and tuck it into my badge pocket so that if I can't connect, I always know where I need to be next and when that is.  Also check out the maps of the Dreamforce campus so you understand the proxmity of the different buildings.

4)  Security, security, security.

This is a big one.  People lose stuff ever year.  I have a slightly OCD Ritual, I always keep the same items in the same places and check them every time I make a move, which is often during Dreamforce.  Cell phone, wallet, laptop, chargers all in their correct places before walking away.

On your devices, password protect all of them.  Put your name on them.  Tape a business card to your laptop, on your phone, take a picture of your business card and make it your unlock screen background.  If someone finds your locked phone, they know how to find you.

When walking around at night, be aware of your surroundings and buddy up.  There's plenty of like minded people about who will be happy to walk with you to keep everyone safe.  San Francisco is a safe city, but you can never be too careful.

5)  Dress

Dreamforce is pretty casual.  Wear comfortable shoes that can handle long walk and a sudden monsoon.  It rains often, hard, and unexpectedly in San Fraicisco.  I always pack an umbrella or rain coat as well.

6)  Germs

I've been to 3 Dreamforces and got sick at two.  Take every precaution possible to avoid germs!  Wash your hands zealously and use hand sanitizer before eating.  It's crazy, there's 50,000 people to shake hands with, just be careful and hope for the best.  Tom likes the homeopathic Oscillococcinum herb to help boost up his immune system.  Again, you can never be too careful!

7)  Pace Yourself

You can't do it all.  Do your best but don't spread yourself too thin.  You'll be back and will have more chances to enjoy it  :)  I also do something a little unconventional.  Between around 4-6 every day I take a powernap/regroup time for myself.  Go back to your room and sleep for 30-45 minutes.  Your body will thank you and you'll feel a lot better for the evening's activities!

8)  Departures

If you're flying out, give yourself a TON of extra time.  You should be leaving your hotel no less than 3 hours before your flight is scheduled to leave.  Traffic is unknown and I've waited in line for over an hour in airport security.  Also, check flight status often due to the erratic weather, I've had many changes.  Best to stay on top of it.

Hope this is helpful and gives a little more insight and helps you be as prepared as possible for this year's Dreamforce!

Garry (and Tom)

Getting the Most out of the Dreamforce App

With Dreamforce around the corner, the "Dreamforce App" just received its annual refresh.  This article is for those who just registered, or have attended DF10 or DF11 and have not visited the org in a while.  If you haven't, it's worth the trip back.

I think there is something special about the Dreamforce App, and it makes Dreamforce special.  We are given a private, event-centric social network.  This is HUGE if you think about it.  You have become part of a massive conversation about Dreamforce, Salesforce, San Francisco, and many other fun and peripherally related topics.

The goal of this blog is to give you a few places to check out, things to do, and jump start, or rekindle your participation in the application.

Starters - Setup your profile!

Since the Dreamforce org is a social environment (like Facebook, but probably better), it's worth a few minutes to setup your profile so that other people know who you are.  Even if you're an old hat to Dreamforce, it's worth a few minutes to refresh things.  To modify your profile, click your name in the upper right hand and click "My Profile".  

From there, click the pencil icon to modify each section and mouse over the picture to upload a new headshot.

Once your profile is in order, it's time to move onto the next exciting part of getting into the Dreamforce App:

Following Stuff

Since the Dreamforce App is based on Chatter, all the same rules apply as normal Chatter settings.  There is a recommendation engine which shows on your homepage, it's worth giving that some attention and following some people.  Just pick a handful to start with, it'll grow organically later.

 Now that you've followed a few recommendations, the next thing to explore are groups.  Groups can be found by going to your Chatter page, and following down the left column, you will see the Groups icon.  Click that to go to the groups listing.

A few of my favorite groups:

"Awesome People" - Lightweight group that has general conversation and usually an "Awesome question of the day".  (Disclaimer - it's my group)

"Challenge Us" - Group for a bunch of Salesforce Ninjas to problem solve.  Great techs in there eager to help people out.  Highly recommended.

"Dreamforce App Feedback" - Got problems with the Dreamforce app?  Answers can be had there.  Salesforce is a social enterprise and I'd wager you'll get help there faster than any other channel.

Set your Preferences

There's a lot of notification options with Chatter and Direct Messages.  It's best to set your preferences early so you don't find yourself annoyed and turned off by too many emails.  To set your preferences, click your name, go to setup, click "My Chatter Settings", and click "Chatter Email Settings".  From there, you have a granular listing of each activity and group, and how you want them to email to you.  It's worth spending a few minutes on this, believe me.

Okay, so I did all of this, now what?

Now you actually need to go out and talk to people.  I would recommend a 5-10 minute workout each day.  Here's a few things you can do: 

• Go answer the latest question on the #Awesome People group
• Ask a technical question to the Challenge Us Group
• Update your status and declare your undying fandom of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (Did I mention they are playing at Dreamforce?)
• Search for people with similar interests to you and follow them
• Browse your feed which should have some conversations based on who you followed and respond to a few.
• Just go like some posts.
• Share a photo of something great you did last weekend.

The Dreamforce Application is only in its infancy now, over the next few months, we will see many updates and changes.  While I don't know the specifics, based on historical events, you can expect the following:

• Interactive Agenda Builder
• New Mobile version to build upon this version
• A crecendo of activity which will peak the week before dreamforce.  

What are you waiting for?

Join the conversation, be involved, make friends, and never be alone at Dreamforce.  We're all in this together, and if you spend a few minutes a day in the app socializing, you will have the most fun, most productive Dreamforce ever, and that's a promise.

If you have any other ideas or tips for Dreamforce app users, please comment below, I'd love to hear them!

-Garry

Save the Date - Cloudforce, NYC 10/25

I have not seen anything official come through from Salesforce.com yet, but they are hosting a Cloudforce event in New York City on October 25.  I would wager the marketing/registration will go live in the next week or two.  Due to the increase attendance, Salesforce rented Madison Square Garden!

Not sure of the specific details, but it will include an updated "Welcome to the Social Enterprise" keynote, a trade show and a few sessions.  

Who should attend?

• Current Salesforce Customers
• People Interested in Salesforce
• People interested in Cloud Technology
• Awesome People
• My Mom.  I'm not kidding, I'm trying to get her to come down.

We'll post an update once Salesforce posts some details.

-Garry

Dreamforce Recap - Platform Enhancements

Since Tom and I are deeply involved with multiple Force.com development projects at any given time, my favorite part of the Dreamforce Keynote focuses on platform enhancements.  I'm going to give a high level overview of each bullet point of the press release, what it means for Red Argyle, and what it means for You, as well as a link to some snazzy information.  We're going to still be following up with a few more blogs, there's too much to cover in one post!

Before I totally geek out, I'll review what the Force.com platform is - Force.com is "Salesforce.com without the sales", or the suite of infrastructure that Salesforce offeres developers to deeply customize.  Database schema, user interfaces, social plugins, and integrations all fall within the auspices of Force.com.  Okay, shall we proceed?

Chatter Connect -

Chatter connect is a suite of enhancements that extend Chatter.  It allows 3rd party ap developers to deeply integrate Chatter into other applications such as Instant Messaging applications, web portals, intranets (yes, even Sharepoint!).  

What this means for Red Argyle - When crafting solutions for our customers that need to be social, our level of effort to "socialize" applications suddenly became much, much lower.

What this means for YOU - Want to ditch Google Chat and have everything within Chatter?  Want to add Chatter Widgets to your intranet?  - It is now possible!

Touch.salesforce.com - 

The line is blurring between what is mobile and what is.. uh.. "unmobile".  Maintaining a multitude of mobile apps for Blackberries, iPads, iPhones, Androids... etc, has become unweildy.  Salesforce decided to take this head on and leverage HTML5 technology which makes a mobile user interface ubiquitous.  UI, now being based on HTML5 standards will enable companies to take the jump to mobile with ease.

What this means for Red Argyle - In the short term, we probably will not be full scale embracing this addon due to its lack of support for VisualForce components, although they are "coming shortly" from what we were told.  However, we are very excited about what opportunities this application will offer, in the future we will be able to incorporate gestures into our UI designs.  Exciting stuff.

What this means for YOU - As you continue planning your corporate IT strategy and using Mobile technology, consider using touch.salesforce.com as a way to distribute mobile data access.  It could potentially save a lot of effort and budget by using Touch instead of developing your own custom mobile applications.

Here's a great video demonstrating Touch functionality.  Even supports some offline ability!

Visual Workflow Cloud Designer - 

Salesforce has been quietly imporoving a technology called "Flow" which is a visual workflow process within the force.com platform.  One big hurdle for many is that it only worked in the past with a 3rd party flow designer application which had to be installed on a local machine, and it would not work on a Mac, only PC.

What this means to Red Argyle - While this is not rocking our world, it does make our lives easier.  Less software to maintain, no more messing around with parallels and 3rd party app installations to use Flow.  Moving forward, it's a great enhancement and another demonstration of Salesforce's committment to the cloud.

What this means to YOU - Using Salesforce Visual Workflow just got that much easier for you, and more importantly, for your users.  Your administrators will find it much easier to deploy and train on this in the future.

Here's a decent video describing what Visual Workflow can do for your organization.

Siteforce - 

Siteforce is now added as an extension to the Force.com platform.  In short, Siteforce is a web content management system for managing all a company's websites from within Salesforce.  It is now generally available and native to the force.com platform.

What this means to Red Argyle - Going with the theme fo these releases, Salesforce is giving us more options and more ways to solve our customers' challenges.  Siteforce is a great tool and for some, will be a great way to get content posted to the web, allow non technical staff to post content, and rapidly develop and prototype deeply integrated websites.

What this means for YOU - If you have Salesforce, it just also became a content manager.  It is fully possible that you could, from your Salesforce.com instance, manage your internal data AND manage your public facing website & data.  AND, since they are both running out of the same salesforce database, there is no more integration required, they are already ONE database.  This could offer a lot of flexibility where deep functionality is required between the public side and the internal side.

Here's a video demonstrating the Siteforce authoring environment

Conclusion -

This blog post only covers about 25% of the news from Dreamforce.  Tom and I will be circling back with other enhancemnts that we are exccited about, particularly in regards to the Social Profile, Database.com, Data.com, and Heroku.  We're excited about all of this, and want to share our thoughts.  Overall, we were impressed by what Salesforce brought to the table this year and we now have the most robust, flexible, and fast set of tools that we have EVER had available to help you solve your business challenges.  Stay Awesome!

Garry