In my last post, I shared my excitement about attending Dreamforce for the first time. Now I will start to dive into the various reasons why, starting with education. After all the hype and hoopla surrounding the event is put aside, the primary reason I am going is to expand and reinforce my skills in the Salesforce ecosystem. Social sessions are in hot demand and as a practitioner of Radian6, I will definitely attend a few of those. Of course, what you do with all that big data coming in from social networks? That’s where core competencies of Salesforce like workflow and validation rules come in so you can be sure I’ll take in my share of the “nuts and bolts” sessions.
Starting on Tuesday, I have filled up my agenda with a ton of bread and butter topics focusing largely on security and sharing, workflow and validations, and 7 Habits of Highly Successful Admins. This last track includes one speaker in particular that I am really looking forward to hearing, Mike Gerholdt, the Button Click Admin. I have picked up a couple tips from his blog, including some great tips for newbies like myself on how to make the most of my Dreamforce experience.
As I mentioned earlier, I use Radian6 to help my clients and employer understand the strategic and pragamatic value of going social. One prerequisite in this role is understanding that the landscape is constantly changing and what you know today could be irrelevant tomorrow. With that in mind, I will be attending plenty of Social Enterprise sessions including Getting to Know the Community on Wednesday.
I’m jacked up to continue the social theme on Thursday with a session on the not so mythological ROI of being social. It’s not all about how many followers or friends you have. In order to show an accurate ROI, first you must define your goals and what metrics show legitimate and repeatable results. This session has examples from real companies, not theoretical use cases. Class is in session!!
On Friday, September 21st, you’ll find me spending a lot of time at the Hilton in Union Square with some hands on sessions. The last of my Hands-on Training sessions is the one on how to Automate Your Business Process w/ Visual Workflow. It’s great to be social, but even better when you can do something about all the knowledge at your fingertips.
There are so many sessions, I couldn’t possibly attend them all. After some tough decisions, I focused on the topics that would have the most immediate impact on my daily activities. With a plethora of product managers and community experts on hand, if I can’t learn something new at Dreamforce, then shame on me. I strive to be the best at everything I do so I can never learn enough. Maya Angelou sums it up perfectly, “When you know better you do better.”
Which sessions are you most excited about? Stay tuned for my next reason to be excited about attending Dreamforce!
Chris,
Thanks for the mention! There is so much to see and do at Dreamforce that it can be overwhelming, but the most important part is to just enjoy your time there and soak up the atmosphere. I promise you will connect with so many great people that when you come back solving problems will be much easier!
Thanks for the Radian6 shout out, Chris! We’re glad you’re looking forward to Dreamforce as much as we are. See you down there 🙂
Zoe Geddes-Soltess
Community, Salesforce Radian6
Mike and Zoe, great that you are connecting with Chris and the CoreMatrix team! Chris, keep up the good work!
Thank you all for the positive feedback! Mike, really looking forward to connecting with people at Dreamforce, including you! Zoe, can’t wait to hang with you and the Radian6 crew. Always a pleasure Ernie!