I’m Back From Dreamforce. Now What?

Whew! Once again Dreamforce proved to be an amazing four days of learning, networking, and peering into the future of Salesforce.

I don’t know about you, but I only now feel like I’ve got caught up on the work I missed and readjusted to my time zone to finally have time to digest all that I learned at DF14. Here’s my plan of attack post-Dreamforce:

1. Expo Hall Vendors

According to Fitbit, I chocked up 36.89 miles of walking the week of Dreamforce–most of that on the floor of the expo hall. Now I’m getting tons of calls and emails from all the booths I stopped by (which was just a fraction of the total booths). I grabbed a flyer for those vendors I felt had the most compelling solution for my needs. I keep these near my desk so that when a vendor calls I can dig for their flyer to remind myself about them. If they don’t have a flyer–well then good luck Mr. Telesales because I’m expecting you to sell me.

I also went through my flyers post-Dreamforce to see which ones I want to learn more about. I try to notate on them while at the booth my initial thoughts so I can recall them later and determine which ones I want to see a demo of.

2. Dreamforce Breakout Sessions

After Dreamforce I like to re-read the notes I took for the sessions I attended. I also check out the Dreamforce section of Success.Salesforce.com to download the presentation.

Due to schedules, it wasn’t possible to attend all the sessions I wanted to. Fortunately, I “Favorited” them so now I can go back to the ones I favorited and download those presentations, read the Chatter comments and, in most cases, catch a recording of them.

3. Dreamforce Announcements

Obviously lots of new products and features,  like The Analytics Cloud, Journey Builder for Apps, Process Builder, and Lightning, were announced at Dreamforce product keynotes. Now that I’m back home I take the time to learn more about these products to see if they are a good fit for me.

4. Dreamforce at User Group Meetings

Despite my best efforts, I almost always tend to miss something really noteworthy or helpful that was shared at Dreamforce. That’s why I love connecting with other users at my local User Group meeting to see what they saw and learned. Be sure to find your local Salesforce User Group today and don’t miss their post-Dreamforce meet-up.

Lastly, I type up all my notes from the vendors, sessions and keynotes into one central document that I can reference in the future and distribute to my co-workers.

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SMT