Dreamforce 13 Highlights

Whew! Just got back from an action-packed week at Dreamforce where I was able to test-drive many apps, learn new tricks and see the roadmap for Salesforce.com.

Here are the top 5 new items covered at Dreamforce 13.

1. Salesforce 1. Salesforce 1 is the latest mobile app from Salesforce. I’ve been playing with it since it was released and really like it on my Android phone. It’s got Chatter, Cases, Opportunities and a consolidated “Today” calendar with a handy map/phone feature. For my iPad, I’m still partial to the browser solution but with a few enhancements I can see me using the app a lot more.

2. Salesforce A Like many Admins, I lugged my heavy laptop with me over 1500 miles to Dreamforce–just in case there was an emergency admin issue that my iPad could not handle. Next year it stays at home thanks to Salesforce A. SalesforceA is the new mobile app for Admins Only that makes it easy to see Users records to freeze users and reset passwords. It even has the release notes and quick access to the success community.

3. ExactTarget Marketing Cloud Okay, so those familiar with ExactTarget and Pardot really didn’t see anything too new but what was so exciting for marketing geeks like myself was the passion and emphasis that was placed on the Marketing Cloud at Dreamforce. The future of sales and marketing is digital and social. Seeing the case studies of the possibilities was amazing.

4. Mobile The mobile emphasis started with Salesforce 1 and Salesforce A but continued well beyond that. Salesforce was also busy this year developing an improved Dreamforce app that kept your session schedule, notes and chatter feed at the palm of your hand.

The mobile hackathon featured a one million dollar prize–the largest ever for a hackaton. Some great new mobile apps were developed that hopefully will be on the market soon.

Plus many of the vendors in the Cloud Expo demoed mobile solutions. Even the session check-ins featured magic scanners that they just waved in front of your badge.

5. Women Last but not least, Dreamforce was focused on the FemmeForce to encourage more women in IT and leadership roles. Need evidence of the lack of women? Just look at how the line for the men’s room is twice as long as the women’s. Keynote speakers featured Marrisa Mayer from Yahoo! and Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook. I for one was very moved by Sandberg’s talk about her book Lean In and encourage everyone to read it. It is very eye-opening.

DF13 may have just ended but now the real work begins to test and implement all the new ideas and apps that I discovered. What fun!

ST