Category Archives: Salesforce

A Dreamforce Newbie Survival Kit

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A survival kit for a Dreamforce Newbie

Dreamforce. It is very appropriately named.

Thousands of people dream about attending, and once they get there, they feel this inexplicable force that keeps drawing them back year after year. 2013 will be my third year attending Dreamforce, and if I have my way, it will continue to be an annual pilgrimage.

Here are a few tips that I think all first-time Dreamforce attendees should know:

1. Leave the laptop at home, or if you must bring it to San Francisco, leave it secured in the safe at your hotel room. You will quickly find that it becomes very heavy to carry around with you all day. Opt for a tablet if you have one or even just your smartphone if you are comfortable taking notes on a small device. One side note, I’ve never owned or used one of the newer “Ultrabook” style of laptops, so my recommendation is based on a traditional laptop weighing in at around 7 pounds. If I had an “Ultrabook” I’d probably carry that instead of my iPad simply because of the ease of use due to the full featured keyboard.

2. Wear comfortable shoes. You will walk more than you think. A lot of the sessions are held in Moscone Center, which is actually three different buildings each with at least two floors of convention space. After the first day at my first Dreamforce, I installed a pedometer app on my smartphone to see how much walking I was doing. I discovered that I was walking an average of about 5 miles per day, with the bulk of that travel being between sessions and wandering the Expo floor, since I did not return to my hotel during the middle of the day.

3. Wear layered clothing or bring a light jacket. San Francisco has beautiful weather nearly all year. It never really gets terribly hot or very cold, but with the proximity to the ocean the chances for a breeze are pretty good, and once the sun goes down, the air could get a little chilly.

4. Network, a.k.a., talk to people. Don’t be scared. Talk to everyone you can. The person on your right when waiting in line to go into a session; the person sitting to your left once you get inside a session. When you go to breakfast or lunch (both included in your conference registration) pick a table with a few people and see if they will let you join them. Out of the 45,000 + people at Dreamforce 2011, I managed to sit down for lunch at a table with one of my brother-in-law’s co-workers. (Cue the Walt Disney music: It’s a small world after all!) If you are shy, take the high-tech approach to networking. Bring a surge strip with you and hang out at a charging station between sessions – one surge strip could mean five instant connections.

5. Dreamforce isn’t just an 8am to 5pm event. Sure that’s when all the keynotes and breakout sessions occur, but there are also many opportunities for networking before and after those hours thanks to many partners sponsoring evening parties. Also be sure to check the Dreamforce App for groups like “DF13 Newbie Reunion Breakfast” (Shameless plug…that’s a group that I am organizing)

6. Dreamforce doesn’t just happen in San Francisco. Attend a Customer Company Tour in your area. Look for an event near you at http://www.salesforce.com/events/ . Join a user group in your area and attend the meetings regularly. You can find the user groups at: https://success.salesforce.com/userGroups . The Salesforce.com Community is an awesome way to expand your knowledge, increase the resources you can count on to help solve problems. You might even land a new job thanks to the power of the community. (I did – email me at eric.dreshfield@gmail.com or tweet me http://www.twitter.com/ericdresh if you want to hear more about that!)

7. Dreamforce isn’t just a week during the year. Thanks to the Dreamforce App it’s a perpetual event. Get active on the Chatter! Share your struggles and your successes. Get connected with people who you will meet BEFORE you get to Dreamforce and make friends that will last a lifetime!

So why do so many people attend Dreamforce year after year? In a word, because it is AWESOME!

The MVP Summit is over…so, now what’s next?

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The first ever MVP Summit has come to a close and several of the MVPs have posted blogs with their recaps. They all have different views and emphasis, but there was one common theme being written about. I know most of you are now expecting me to invoke Safe Harbor or Non-Disclosure Agreements here and tell you that I can’t give you anymore details about the discussions at the Summit, so I won’t. There’s no need to keep confidential how the MVPs feel, where their passions lie, or what they expect for the future. That was the common theme between all the posts…passion and future expectations.

This post is all about next steps. Where do we go from here. Before I move forward, however, I would like to take a brief step backwards. Imagine it is 1984. Does society look like George Orwell predicted in his book, “1984”? Fortunately, today’s society isn’t even close to being overwhelmed by totalitarianism. Think about this, though, back in 1984 how many people had a computer in their home? How many people had a telephone that they could carry with them everywhere and actually be able to make a call with it? In 1985, the United States had 340,213 cell phone subscribers, and at the end of 2012, the number of wireless subscription connections in the United States alone was up to 324.4 million! (Data source: CTIA – The Wireless Association). A lot of technology has changed in the past 30 years, and the pace of that change has been increasing exponentially in the more recent years.

Automobiles are safer and more fuel efficient. Houses are built to withstand harsh extremes in weather while keeping the occupants at their chosen comfortable temperature and conserving natural resources as well. You can cook a meal much faster than before, and you can conduct business from anywhere.

Consider your smartphone, not only can you make a telephone call to anyone in the world, while walking down the sidewalk in your neighborhood, but you can also watch a video, throw some angry birds across the sky, play a word game with people you don’t even know for halfway around the world, and run a successful business. Yes, you read that correctly. You can access everything you need to run a business, right from the palm of your hand. No software required. Login to a secure website, access the apps you need from contract proposals and quote-to-cash, from customer relationship management to customer service, from marketing automation to financial accounting.

The possibilities are endless.

Wondering where to start on this adventure? Visit Dreamforce and register for the worlds greatest technology conference. It’s jam-packed with over 1000 educational sessions that will help you improve your way of thinking, and increase the speed at which you get things done. you could learn how to create an app and make it mobile. You could see how to tap into the power of all that data you have been capturing, as well as see what your customers are saying about you on social networks. You can, in one simple word, transform your business and start a revolution, a non-violent revolution of thought. Don’t forget about promo code D13MVPREF when you register for Dreamforce to save $100.

Welcome to the new you…it’s you, transformed.

History was Made

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Captain’s log – August 29, 2013:

Nearly 90 of the just over 100 Salesforce and force.com MVPs gathered at the Omni San Francisco Hotel officially beginning with breakfast at 7am and ending about 10pm with a social gathering and dinner at The City Club of San Francisco.

In a word, the entire day was awesome. But awesome does not fully do justice to how the MVPs felt during the entire experience. It was a day filled with Safe Harbor statements, lively discussions and demos of things I wish I could tell you about. However, if I told you, I would have to kill you, since those memory erasing flashy things from the movie “Men in Black” have not yet been invented.

Flashy Thing

Suffice it to say, if the preview we MVPs saw becomes reality in future releases of salesforce.com it will only reaffirm your belief that Salesforce.com, its senior management, product managers, and development teams really do some great work striving to provide a world-class, full featured system.

Enjoy the new releases as they come out, and don’t forget to use discount code D13MVPREF when you register for Dreamforce.

Oh yeah…and big thanks to Charlie Isaacs for delaying a vacation by one day to enjoy dinner with a few MVPs. Huge thanks to Peter Coffee for, well, being Peter Coffee and sharing some wisdom as well as his viewpoints in a way only he can do.

SUPER HUGE thanks to Den Mom Erica Kuhl and Den Dad Matt Brown for not only all they did to make this event possible but also all the did by going above and beyond the call of duty for seeing that the first ever MVP summit made the word “awesome” seem to mean about the same thing as “OK” because to describe the Summit as merely awesome would be the greatest understatement of my life!

Bring on Dreamforce…it will be WayBeyondAwesome!

One last thing – the Safe Harbor statement applies here. Please do not base any decisions regarding use of salesforce.com on this post as it contains certain forward-looking statements. For a complete copy of the Safe Harbor statement please visit Safe Harbor

History in the Making

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A few thoughts occurred to me while flying to San Francisco for the Salesforce MVP Summit.

We are on the cusp of a breakthrough.

The MVP program has been around for about three years now, but up till now, the only gathering of the MVPs has been at Dreamforce when most MVPs make the annual pilgrimage. This time, all the MVPs from all over the world were specifically invited by Salesforce.com to attend the first ever MVP Summit. It’s an honor to be included in such a great crowd of people, and it’s an even bigger honor to know that Salesforce.com wants to know what we think about their products and services.

Safe Harbor.

I’m sure there will be things shared with the MVPs at the Summit that they can only discuss amongst themselves, and I’m certain that all the MVPs will honor this. Having had the privilege to see something that is being developed for a future release already, I can say it is incredibly awe inspiring when a company comes asks the users of its products for input, but to top that, to ask about something that’s not even available to the general public…Wow!

Dreamforce.
Register Now!
Don’t forget to register soon, and use promo code D13MVPREF to save $100!

Wait a sec, I’m an MVP, and you want me to what?

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This past April I was named Salesforce.com MVP. I was quite thrilled with that honor, in fact I’m still not sure I fully understand how I deserved it.

Now I have been invited to San Francisco along with all the other MVPs for a day full of meetings with Salesforce.com management. I will be talking to the very people who are shaping the future of cloud computing…the movers and shakers. Wow! That’s pretty incredible. Hopefully I won’t pull a Wayne and Garth when I meet Marc Benioff.

Wayne’s World…We’re not worthy!

I’m really excited to be headed out to San Francisco at the end of August. There are three main reasons why I’m so excited.

1. I get to meet a lot of key people at salesforce.com. These are the people who decide what new functions get released and when. They are the movers and shakers of cloud computing.

2. The community… I already know many of the MVPs thanks to me being a user group leader for the past three years and having attended the past two years’ Dreamforce. But now, I’ll get to meet all the MVPs I may not have meet yet.

3. Its San Francisco…I’m from Indiana. Need I say more? OK…I will say more. Without the support of my family (who may not fully understand what I do everyday) and my manager, and the entire team of people I work with everyday, none of this would be possible.

So…off to the MVP Summit I’ll go. And then I’ll start the real countdown to the big show, Dreamforce. Its bound to be way beyond awesome this year! If you haven’t registered yet, use promo code D13MVPREF and save $100 ! See you there!

Are you looking for some Salesforce.com training?

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As the leader of a Salesforce.com User Group since 2010, my biggest challenge has been finding content that provides relevant and helpful information to the members of the group. Our last meeting we had presentations by two business analytics partners of Salesforce.com. The group told me they wanted more analytics, so I began searching. That’s when I discovered Stony Point.

I recently coordinated and participated in Stony Point’s Introduction to Salesforce Analytics – Reports, Dashboards & Snapshots (SPRD-101A) course, along with several coworkers and many other members of the Southern Indiana Salesforce.com User Group. The entire experience, from the first interaction via email to the culmination and completion of the training session was outstanding. Stony Point provided great customer service, responding very quickly to my many inquiries about course cost, detailed curriculum, and scheduling the on-site training to our convenience.

I was equally impressed with the facilitator they provided us with. Beth Ann began the class by introducing herself, giving us a brief history of her qualifications and then asked the participants to do the same. She then dove right into the course. She did a great job making it very interactive, calling each student by name as they had questions, or when she was asking for real-life use case examples. She kept everyone engaged in the training session by injecting humor and some of her personal experiences.

The audience she was teaching at this session ranged from the true novice, who had never logged into Salesforce.com before to full blown certified Administrators and Developers. Nearly everyone indicated to me after the class that they gained knowledge of things they felt they could take back to their organizations and implement. It was a great success, and worth every penny.

I highly recommend Stony Point for your Salesforce.com training needs.

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About Stony Point: Stony Point is a leading provider of Salesforce training for end users, administrators, developers and consultants. Stony Point develops and delivers training classes throughout the world for customers of all sizes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. All classes are conducted by a live instructor, offered publicly and privately and students may attend either virtually or in-person. Please visit StonyPoint for complete details on what they offer.

Moving forward

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A few thoughts occurred to me while flying from Chicago to Philadelphia recently.

Some organizations (and size doesn’t matter here) do a great job with customer service but meeting their customers where they are and communicating with customers in the manner I which the customer chooses. A few examples of such organizations include: Habitat for Humanity; Enterasys Networks; American Airlines; KLove Radio, Starbucks, and Salesforce.com.

Of particular interest from that list, at least to me, is Salesforce.com and Enterasys Networks. Why, you might ask? Because both those organizations focus more on B2B interactions, where the final customer may not even realize that Salesforce.com or Enterasys is involved at all. They both provide a backbone for their customers, who I turn rely on the stability of that backbone (or platform, if you will,) to in turn, provide excellent service to their customers.

So why the focus on customer service? Because in some form or another, we all provide customer service. At my job, I am in a role where I support Sales Representatives and Management, but that doesn’t mean what I do on a daily basis has no impact on my company’s customers. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Without the work I do, our Sales Reps might not make the best decisions on how to conduct their business, which in turn affects how our company’s customers view our products. Without customers, wait, make that without satisfied customers, the company can not thrive and grow. I worked in the corporate accounting office for a major shoe retailer for a few years, and we had a saying, “If you did not sell a pair of shoes today, what did you do to help someone who did?”

That sums it up very nicely. Everyone in an organization, no matter what their role, does something that helps shape the final consumers view of the company and the products or services the company sells.

I think it was Sam Walton who once said, “There are two rules in business: Rule #1 – The customer is always right; and Rule #2 – When the customer happens to be wrong, see rule #1.”

We all know that in a perfect world, that works, and we also all know that our world is far from perfect. However, if we all strive for excellence and have as our goal to exceed our customers expectations, we will all be much better off.

Remember, everyone has a little awesome inside, you just need to let it show!

Thank you, part two…and a preview of things to come!

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You know that song “Hook” by Blues Traveler?

“It doesn’t matter what I say
So long as I sing with inflection”

Hook by Blues Traveler

I’m not so sure I agree with that statement. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of Blues Traveler, and I do hope they make an appearance at Dreamforce 2013, but, in my opinion, most times it really IS what you say, and not how you say it.

In my last post, I thanked colleagues, friends, coworkers and others in the Salesforce community who have inspired and influenced me. In this post, I extend those thanks out to the ecosystem and feel the need to express gratitude to partners who have helped me on this journey over the past 4 years from rookie Salesforce.com business analyst to Salesforce.com MVP.

Forest Yule from Silverpop, thank you for having faith in me and my crazy ‘Midwest Dreamin’ idea for a regional user group event. I appreciate all the support you have given me, and continue to provide to all the Salesforce user groups.

Darren Cunningham from Informatica, Al West from Apttus, Mary Beth Kush from Acumen Solutions, Andy Thoe from Bluewolf – thanks go out to all of you for your support of the user group community.

Cast Iron, DocuSign, NextGen Consulting and JAUST Consulting Partners – Thank you all for your support to the user community as well.

Without all of you, Midwest Dreamin would have remained an idea in my head.

A lot has changed since May, 2011, and I wish I could have made Midwest Dreamin an annual event since then…but there’s always tomorrow – so…be watching, be on the lookout, there very well could be a Midwest Dreamin 2014.

A few thoughts…from a newly appointed Salesforce MVP

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It’s been an awesome few weeks for me. I’m working a job I love, for a manager who fully supports my efforts as the leader of the Southern Indiana Salesforce.com User Group, and who gives me credit, praise and recognition at work (when I deserve it, of course) and who helps keep me on track with priorities as needed.  I have a great, loving family, and my church home is really making a difference in many lives.

I received an email on April 10th from Matt Brown, Advocacy Program Manager at Salesforce.com that started with: “Congratulations! You have been selected to be a member of our exclusive Salesforce MVP™ Program.”

Wow! I certainly was not expecting that to show up in my inbox…at least not for another year or two. Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely thrilled to have been named a Salesforce MVP™, but I worry that I won’t be able to function to the high standards that have been set by other MVPs. It was great timing for such a nice surprise…it was my birthday that week, and I had planned on attending the Salesforce.com Customer Company Tour in Chicago on April 18th. That would have been a great event, even without the new title, but having it and being able to get a nearly front row seat for Marc Benioff’s keynote address made it a totally awesome experience!

I think the MVP title is beginning to sink in, and thus it’s time to thank a few people, who may or may not realize they have played a role in this:

Pauline Mulvey – www.linkedin.com/pub/pauline-mulvey/1/8b8/9a2


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Thank you very much, for without you taking a chance on me back in 2009, I would not have gotten involved with Salesforce.com. You gave me my start by hiring me as a Business Analyst, and suggested I get active in a user group. You supported my journey as I traveled to user group meeting in Chicago, St. Louis, Nashville, and Indianapolis. You gave me support as I decided to start a local user group in Evansville, and allowed me to attend Dreamforce!

Denise Carbone, www.linkedin.com/pub/denise-carbone/1/a27/180

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Gina Skocilich, www.linkedin.com/pub/gina-skocilich/7/956/449

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and Cecile Horsky – Thank you all, because due to your amazing hospitality when I attended my very first user group meeting in Chicago on March 4, 2010, I continued to seek out other meetings to attend. You ran a great meeting and set the bar high for other user groups. It was a very memorable experience.

Jeanine Thorpe – www.linkedin.com/pub/jeanine-thorpe/1/403/79a

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Thanks for the inspiration and guidance with getting me started as I organized the Southern Indiana User Group, and for your generous assistance while I pulled off Midwest Dreamin’ 2011. (Too bad 2012 didn’t work out, and with my recent job change, I don’t think I will have time to pull of a 2013 version, but I going to do my best to make it happen again in 2014!)

Rhonda Ross – www.linkedin.com/in/rhondaross

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Thank you. You called me a “Rock Star” in the Salesforce Community back in 2010, which helped my management decide to send me to Dreamforce! You have helped me grow in my Salesforce knowledge, and have inspired me to take it to the next step.

The Road2DF (2011) cast and crew – http://www.road2df.com/the-crew

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Even though I did not know most of you when you took your journey, thank you for taking it. I enjoyed the ride vicariously. It gave me a vision of things to come and energized me to keep moving forward!

Zachary Jeans – www.linkedin.com/pub/zachary-jeans/28/378/184

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Thank you for taking your Tour2DF (2012) across the country and back again. Many thanks for rerouting your journey simply to spend two hours with me! You are truly an inspiration. May all your wildest dreams come true!

To all the User Group Leaders and Co-Leaders (Way too many people to list individually) –

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Thank you for being the evangelists and experts that you are.  Thanks for helping to spread the “Cloudy” word. You all inspire me !

To all the MVPs who have come before me (Way too many awesome people to list individually) –

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Thank you for everything you have done to help me in my journey since I first became involved with the Salesforce Ecosystem in late 2009. Your willingness to share ideas, answer questions, suggest new features, answer questions, teach others, answer questions, present at Dreamforce, and answer questions, is awe-inspiring. Did I mention answering questions ?  (I think I owe someone a beer still.)

Erica Kuhl – www.linkedin.com/in/ericakuhl

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It has been an awesome journey getting to this point, and I know the best is yet to come! Many thanks for all your help and support, past, present and future!

And finally, thanks to my wonderful wife who may not always understand what I do for a living, and how that relates to me running a user group, but she’s always there for me and our family, and I know I wouldn’t be where I am today without her love and support.

I will close with a couple things: 1 – Who is DF13Ready? (Besides me, that is!) And 2 – who thinks there should be a Trek2DF for 2013? (Besides me, of course!)

Stay strong, and be awesome!

What can you do with Salesforce (dot)com ?

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Some friends of mine who really don’t know much about what I do for a living keep asking me to explain my job. That’s not an easy question to answer. I’m an analyst, and for those of you who are analysts, you can understand why that’s not an easy question to respond to. For those who are not analysts, I’ll try to enlighten you.  An analyst is someone who analyzes thing. Too simple ?  Yes.  Way too simple.  In my case, I tell people that I spend my time looking at data trying to determine the story it is telling. And it really doesn’t matter what kind of data you are looking at, or even what the source is. All data has a story to tell that can reveal some fascinating things about the nature of business, of people, and of society in general.

I have been an analyst for many years and in many industries: higher education; small-box retail; big-box retail; an airline; and a ‘mom and pop’ consulting firm, just to name a few. The one thing I found that was consistent among all that, is that people have a need to understand data and what it means. They want to know more, and more. In today’s terminology, I suppose I could say I am a Data Scientist.

By now you are probably wondering, how does all this tie into Salesforce.com…please bear with me just a little longer. I promise to make the connection.

When I started writing this post, my first ever blog post, I had an agenda in mind. I wanted to compare my career as an analyst to the cloud computing / CRM giant, Salesforce.com. But as I kept writing, I kept coming back to one theme: Asking an analyst what they do, is a lot like asking “What can you do with Salesforce.com ?”  The answer to that question is really quite simple: You can do almost, if not everything your business needs to do to succeed with Salesforce.com or an app from one of the scores of Appexchange partners.

Perhaps the best response to that question is truely a better question: “What can you not do with Salesforce.com?” And personally, I think the sky is the limit…the possibilites are endless, so jump in, sit down and start driving. I can’t tell you where your journey will lead, but I can promise you it will be a facinating ride!

So much for a deep, thoughtful, analytics-based reply.  Perhaps in my next post, I’ll delve deeper into the numbers.  Actually, I won’t, since my next post is almost ready.

Here’s the teaser to have you come back to read the next one:  Passion, what matters most and a Fiat 500 crossing the country in preparation for Dreamforce 2012.

Thanks for taking a moment of your day to read my historical first blog post.