Salesforce World Tour NYC Recap

Did Dreamforce just happen in New York City?  For those that have never been to Dreamforce you might of thought so.  What was once a one day event turned into a three day conference called “Salesforce Connections” which was filled with nonstop learning sessions, events and special guests.  The first two days (which I did not attend and will not spend too much time on) focused solely on the Marketing Cloud and was being labeled “The Digital Marketing Event of the Year”.  The likes of Coach K and Seth Meyers graced the stage helping drive home Salesforce’s message on how to avoid being "Uberized".  Day three and labeled “Salesforce World Tour” brought the focus back to the whole platform.  Here is a quick recap of day three of the mini Dreamforce conference or what some people call “Dreamforce East Coast”. (I may have just made that up.)

Logistics

• Date & Time:  June 18th, 2015, 8:00 am to 6:00 pm
• Venue: Jacob Javits Center, New York City
• Attendance: Reported over 20,000 over the 3 days
• Sponsors: Over 100 ranging from industry solutions to consulting partners

The Keynote

As usual with any Salesforce event it started with a keynote led by the President of Salesforce Keith Block. Though it is very disappointing we didn’t get to see Marc Benioff, the guest speakers did not disappoint.  To kick-off, Salesforce entertained us with “The Roots” (Jimmy Fallon’s house band) and graced us with the presence of “The Captain” Derek Jeter for a quick Q&A session. As a diehard Yankees fan, this was worth the travel in itself, but I digress.  After some Boston/New York rivalry humor, Mr. Block asked Mr. Jeter to provide his insights into how he worked to achieve greatness which set the tone for the rest of the show.  “Being prepared slows the game down,” as Mr. Jeter put it, and the same goes for businesses.  

In a world where everything and everyone is connected it can take an “Uber” of a second for another business to come in unnoticed and take away your marketshare or worse make your product or service obsolete.  Here comes the Salesforce “Customer Success Platform” armed with CRM apps and an open ecosystem to save the day.  With the “Customer Success Platform” businesses can increase revenue by 36%, customer satisfaction by 45% and all can be accomplished in a 55% decrease in time to deploy.  Pretty powerful message and they used the rest of keynote to help drive it home with quick videos and demos of how giant enterprises like Barclays, Merck and Coca Cola are accomplishing it.

The Best of the Rest

Once everyone could catch their breath from the Derek Jeter sighting, customers and prospects were invited to walk the expo floor and attend breakout sessions. The expo floor was pretty jam packed (maybe a little too packed) with half of the floor dedicated to Salesforce and the other half dedicated to Salesforce partners, which is always great to see the up and coming apps being offered on the AppExchange. Amongst the Salesforce product demos was the Admin Zone which is really a useful place to visit at any Salesforce event if you are an Admin or power user of Salesforce.  The Admin Zone is a little different than the other Salesforce booths in that it is staffed by volunteers from the Success Community; this is a real testament to Salesforce’s goal to empower the community. The breakout sessions provided a wealth of knowledge on topics ranging from nonprofit success stories to integration best practices.  I did not get to attend any of these but from what I heard they seemed informative and worth the time.

As someone who has attended other World Tour events this year, I have to say this was the best one I have seen and I’m not just saying that because I love Derek Jeter.  It would of been even better if Marc Benioff was there (no offense to Mr. Block) but Salesforce did a great job of keeping the energy high and the message was on point.  If you cannot attend Dreamforce, I would highly suggest you look to attend a World Tour near you.

Please feel free to comment below, on the Salesforce Success Community, on our Facebook page, or directly at me on Twitter @Salvatoriello