My experience as a developer and Dreamforce first-timer
Since I returned home to Spain, everyone has been asking me, “how was Dreamforce?”
It’s a difficult question to answer – it’s not easy to summarize all that I experienced and felt during those four magical days. However, as many people have said post-DF, it was the best Dreamforce ever… although if you take into account that it was my first time, maybe you won’t believe me.
In theory, I was ready to go. Like everyone else, I had an agenda with all the sessions I wanted to attend. Once you arrive though, the agenda tends to go out the window and it all starts to become a bit crazy. There were so many sessions, mini-workshops, workshops, talks… so much so that sometimes it was difficult to make a decision. And this was only at DevZone!
While in one session, I often had the feeling that I was missing something somewhere else, but it is impossible to be in two places at the same time. Heeding some good advice, I made a note of the sessions that seemed interesting to me and I will make a point to watch recordings of them later.
Most of the talks were given at the Community Lounge. Everything in this area was very informal, so you could just turn up at any time, sit down and listen. Not to mention, this is where we had a truly historical event, Carolina Ruiz ran the first workshop in Spanish ever at Dreamforce – Intro to Building Salesforce1 Mobile Apps.
Another area for Developers was “the library.” Considering we work with computers and all the documentation is already online, I wondered why Dreamforce had a place like this. Believe me, the queue was huge all day. It seems like we all still like the feeling of paper in our hands. Additionally, it was an awesome place to present Andy Fawcett’s book, “Force.com Enterprise Architecture” and hold his book-signing event.
Not everything is about your role though. It doesn’t matter if you are a developer, administrator, marketer or Salesforce customer. There are sessions for everyone to enjoy, inspiring keynote speeches and presentations on new Salesforce features like Wave and Lightning!
Dreamforce was also a great opportunity to hear how Salesforce makes your daily work easier. Hearing how Salesforce is ready for the future, as well as feeling all of the speakers’ passion, I felt so proud to be part of the Salesforce ecosystem. We are just a seed in the Salesforce world, but they truly understand that the community is made with all of our seeds put together and they don’t miss the opportunity to say thank you for this.
I’m really happy to have been part of Certinia.com’s representation at Dreamforce. To answer the question everyone is asking: Dreamforce charged my batteries. It was an amazing opportunity to learn, share, practice and, most importantly, talk face to face with all the people we know via Twitter, blogs or just a phone call. Can’t wait for Dreamforce 2015!
