While it’s hard to believe, Dreamforce 2022 has come to an end. As an executive focused on client, partner, and employee experience and a first-time attendee of Dreamforce, I wanted to share some of my key takeaways from the four-day whirlwind event that was Dreamforce 2022. If I’m being honest, I was apprehensive, even anxious, going into this week with no idea what to expect outside of a healthy dose of Ohana and a session for pretty much anything anyone could be interested in.
Takeaway #1: Salesforce Knows How to Create an Immersive Experience
I’ve been to many conferences in my career whether it be tech, HR, sales, or education. I can say I have never experienced anything like Dreamforce. Split across multiple blocks and buildings, you could walk for 15 minutes and never leave the Dreamforce Campus. Even more than that, whatever it was you were there for and in whatever role you were, there wasn’t just something for you; there was an entire experience dedicated to you. As a CMT and Retail focused partner, I was able to immerse myself into multiple curated pathways across the industry, ISV, and solution and somehow Salesforce was able to cross-pollinate all of those areas with sub-topics like analytics, customer 360, or operations.
Takeaway #2: There’s Truly No Community Like Ohana
Full transparency (and for anyone reading this who knows me, this won’t surprise them), there are parts of the Ohana that I struggle to understand, as someone who’s always been a bit more reserved and skeptical of a corporate-driven community. After my time at Dreamforce, I’m walking away with a stronger sense of pride in being a member of this community than before I attended. At Dreamforce, everything was built to create community. All the normal barriers that separate our global community, religion, language, culture, gender, and ethnicity, went out the window and you were just immersed in 30,000 people who were genuinely excited to meet everyone there, share ideas and challenges and expand their network. The level of compassion and humanity that emanated from the community was, for lack of a better word, hope-inducing.
Takeaway #3: Customers Are Hungry For a Unified Platform
As a global launch partner for Media Cloud and a leading Salesforce Industries last year, V2’s been on the leading edge of industry-driven solutions across Comms, Media, and Retail since the Vlocity acquisition in 2020. Like any shift in product, adoption, and awareness takes time, but throughout the many customer conversations, I was able to have a palpable excitement for a unified, industry-designed solution. Along with the launch of Genie as a real-time comprehensive data platform unifying any and all streams of customer data, there has never been a better time for customers to see a single-platform solution that can meet their technology needs. Along with Genie, we saw the GA of Salesforce Billing for Industry Cloud, V2’s Data Clean Room Accelerator, and Industry-specific pre-built analytics packages on the CRMA platform.
Closing Thoughts…
As I sit on a plane writing this and trying to put into succinct words how I’m feeling after the last few days, I’m finding it hard not to be verbose. If I challenge myself to put it into a few words, I’d go with excitement, humble, and inventive. I’m excited that I get to be a part of the Salesforce community, was blessed to attend Dreamforce, and get to bring back that experience to share with the amazing colleagues I have at V2 and throughout the Ohana. I’m humbled by the brilliant minds I met across Salesforce employees, other partners, and customers. Moreover, the opportunity to connect, hear from, and collaborate with our Industry partners, such as Chinamayi Bettadapur, Candice Edwards, and Christopher Dean, to name a few, who share the same passion for media and comms innovation and are at the forefront of the ever-expanding Industry product offering at Salesforce. Most of all, I’m feeling inventive and ready to innovate and architect the next evolution of platform extension with my incredible team at V2.
If you want to connect about your Dreamforce experience, or you’re a customer wondering how Industry Cloud could unify and streamline your tech stack, or if you’re just feeling inventive and want to bounce ideas, let’s connect. I know 30,000 people who would agree with me, there may not be any community like the Ohana.
