The Importance of Dreamforce

I harbor an extreme detest for trade shows.  

They are a waste of time.  They are for people that are more comfortable kibitzing around booths than being in front of customers selling.  They are for nose pickers.  Tire kickers.  Trolls.   Blueskyers.   I believe that most people attend trade shows on a perpetual tour—hopping from venue to venue,  Vegas to Miami,  burning company funds, holding endless, useless, conversations, gorging on buffets and drowning in cocktails.   All the while, they are ignoring their businesses, their kids, and their own personal well- being.

There.  I said it.

Dreamforce—salesforce.com’s annual user conference—is the one, lone, exception to my stern conviction against trade shows.  And before you call me a two-faced trade show detester, let me explain.

Salesforce.com launched Dreamforce in 2003, in front of 500 attendees in the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco—hardly your typical tradeshow venue.  At the time, salesforce.com was a private company, with very little revenue, and a grand vision for the “End of Software.”  Little did we know what it would become.  Its lore, since 2003, is both entertaining and telling.

There was Colin Powell’s speech in 2005, referencing Europe as an “emerging” economy (entertaining);  there was the morning keynote that year, when CEO Marc Benioff walked onto stage with an uncontrollable grin, having just learned that Oracle had purchased his nemesis Siebel (telling);  there was George Lucas in 2008, warning the audience that we were doomed to be eaten alive by bacteria (entertaining);   and, most philosophically, there were keynotes in 2003, 2004, and 2005 by Adam Bosworth, from Microsoft and Google, espousing the benefits of iteration and experimentation in software development, playing directly into the hands of the Cloud, where the cost of change is so much lower than that of traditional software (telling).

My favorite Boswirth moment was his “Intelligent Reaction” keynote, in which he referred to old school software companies who “retreated to these places they called campuses, surrounded by lakes and trees, where they wouldn’t be bothered by the ugliness of the real world.”   Four years later, his 15 minute discussion is still a highly relevant and important underscoring of the cultural and organizational shift that cloud computing is enabling across enterprises of all shapes and sizes.

Have a listen:  https://admin.acrobat.com/_a13852757/intelligentreaction/

Over the years, Dreamforce has launched Multi-Force (custom tabs), AppExchange, Apex, and just last year, Sites.  These are all bold features and approaches that have come to fruition—they are never “marketing” initiatives that defy relevance—and it is for this reason that Dreamforce justifies its existence, despite all of the hype of the cloud.  At Bluewolf, our customer’s use original Dreamforce visions on a daily basis.  They are real;  they are always groundbreaking; and if an enterprise is serious about Cloud computing, Dreamforce is the only venue where it all comes together.

One last question solidifies Dreamforce as a “must attend” show:  who else out there, with real Cloud Computing aspirations, has the confidence and commitment to host an annual conference of this magnitude?  No one.  Not Oracle (Larry doesn’t do Cloud), SAP, Microsoft, or Google;  not even Netsuite, Sugar, or Rightnow.  These organizations, in my opinion, do not have the fortitude or the risk profile to stage an annual event that broadcasts a future vision of the cloud’s role in enterprise computing.   And don’t forget, salesforce.com has been doing this for seven years;  they did it when they were private and small; and they are doing it as a billion dollar public entity.

So, I will be there again, for my seventh year, in a few short weeks.  And my colleagues at Bluewolf will be there again, for the seventh year, in a few short weeks.  And we will listen and learn alongside our clients, looking for ways to leverage the Cloud as a means of conducting better business;  selling more, servicing more, and doing more—all tenants to building growing, healthy, enterprises.

Dreamforce is a venue that all organizations should leverage as they look for Clear Success in the Cloud.  Just don’t get caught lingering at the booth with those perpetual trade show junkies.

Eric Berridge is co-founder and Principal at Bluewolf, a global provider of Professional Services in the Cloud Economy.  He is the co-author of Iterate or Die, a popular treatise on agile software development and the business benefits of Cloud computing.  Eric has been recognized as an Ernst & Young entrepreneur of the Year and as CRN's Top 25 Technology Executives.

Salesforce.com did the exact same thing to the Siebel Systems User event years back.  They had a large percentage of the team picket the event, which I believe was at the San Jose Convention Center, with signs that said " no software".   They also tried to pass out pins that said the same thing to Siebel's customers.

It is interesting that salesforce is now on the other side of the fence.  And this time, the social channels exist that can make Sugar's initiative even more powerful.

Hopefully, sf.com does not cry foul play.   What comes around, goes around.

Thanks.

Mark Wallace

VP, Social media

http://commonground.edrnet.com

@mwallcomm