Dreamforce 2012 is next month! As I was planning my trip – this will be my fifth Dreamforce conference – I remembered how overwhelming it was the first time I attended. Every year there is a huge increase in attendance, and it is getting more and more difficult for newbies to enjoy the experience and get what they want out of it (or even know what they want to get out of it). You could just show up and play it by ear, but if you think about what you want to learn and plan accordingly, you will leave with far more knowledge and inspiration. For those who are new to Dreamforce, or who have attended in the past but didn’t get much out of it, I’d like to share some helpful advice.
Register for as many breakout sessions as possible, as soon as they are posted online. This is more important now than it was several years ago, because many sessions will fill up almost immediately. As soon as you receive an email telling you that the sessions are available on the Dreamforce website, sign up for as many as possible. There won’t be a ton of them at first, so you will want to check back every week for new sessions and rearrange your conference calendar accordingly. Also, look for sessions whose names start with “Hands On” – these are really useful because you get to walk through actual exercises instead of just watching a demo.
Sign up for a 1:1 Success Clinic. Make sure to get one of these on your calendar, and quickly – they fill up as fast as the breakout sessions do. The 1:1 Success Clinic is a personal appointment with a SFDC employee, designed to provide answers or solutions for whatever you may be struggling with. When you schedule it online, be prepared to give them details on what you would like to discuss. Bring your questions/issues with you – and keep in mind that you will only have 30 minutes. I’ve found that this is only enough time to resolve one or two things, so ask the highest priority question first. My 1:1 Success Clinic has sent me home with great ideas each year, so don’t pass it up – it could be the best learning experience of your entire week!
Know where you need to be, and when. Keep your schedule with you, as well as a map of the conference meeting rooms. This gets easier every year with the handy Dreamforce app, and they also include printed maps in your conference materials. If you are attending a “Hands On” session, get to the room early so you can get a computer station. The Moscone Center covers several city blocks – and last year it was not large enough for all of the sessions, so some of them were across the street at the Marriott. If you will be running from one side of the conference center to the other, wear comfortable shoes. And if you want to save your sanity, do not wait until right before the first sessions to pick up your materials – do that the night before.
Take notes. There is no way you will remember everything that you want to remember. Take tons of notes during your sessions, and keep a list of to-dos for when you return to work. If you are like me, some of your notes might not make sense later – but Dreamforce will post recordings of the sessions after the conference is over. Re-watching my favorite sessions always helps me remember what I liked about them and what I wanted to implement in my own database.
Beware the Cloud Expo floor. Okay, it isn’t as negative as it sounds, but the Cloud Expo requires some planning as well as the rest of the conference. Almost every company with a booth in the Cloud Expo is going to contact you if you let them scan your badge – and some of them will call you and spam you incessantly. Keep that in mind before you go around snapping up free pens, keychains, zip drives, mouse pads, and entries to win whatever piece of technology they’re giving away this year. If there are some products you want to look at, use the Cloud Expo map to locate the ones you are truly interested in. This strategy has saved me a lot of time-wasting calls that usually end with me saying “Sorry, I only stopped by your booth because I wanted a free stuffed animal, don’t call me anymore.”
Mingle! The entire Dreamforce conference is designed to be a learning experience, and you will get a lot out of the sessions, the keynotes, and the 1:1 Success Clinic. But I have doubled my knowledge simply by meeting people and discussing my challenges with them. If you are there with co-workers, don’t walk around in a pack – break away and make some new friends! There are evening events and lunch groups that make it easy to meet people like yourself. No matter how well you know your job, someone else’s perspective on Salesforce is always valuable. And you might even have some fun.
I believe you can get your badge on Monday, 8:00am-6:00pm (Moscone North).
Also, to comment on the expo scanning- if you stop by our Marketo booth you’ll end up scanned :-). That said, if companies are using marketing automation, you shouldn’t be called unless you are a relevant prospect. Lead Scoring should take care of that. So why bother to scan people that don’t buy? Well, everyone that is scanned at our booth will get daily updates about parties and events, as well as a chance at prizes, post-event swag offers, and if a Cloudforce or other Salesforce related event comes to your local town, we’ll invite you to the event we’re hosting there. Membership has its privileges ?
You’ll be happy to know though that from what I understand Salesforce is not giving phone numbers to sponsors this year, even if they scan you. This should mean less phone calls ?
Thanks Maria, that’s good to know! ?
Thank you so much for posting this. This is my first year attending and it appears very overwhelming considering most of the sessions are spread throughout downtown SF. When you referred to materials, can u expand on that? Also can the badge be picked up Monday night?
Thanks for the expo tip too
Thanks Veronica! I’m pretty sure that we can get our badges on Monday – but I didn’t see anything on the website about it. Once you pick up your badge, they should point you in the right direction to pick up your materials – the materials usually include a booklet with detailed info on the sessions and sponsors, as well as maps of all of the conference areas. And they usually give you the materials in some kind of nice laptop bag. ?
I got my IT department to create me an alias email address just for dreamforce. I signed up with that email address and that’s what I give to all the vendors. It allows me to sort my chatter digests and everything dreamforce related (especially spam) very easily. I can also determine where a vendor got my email from in this way.
I know it’s not practical for eveyone, but if you can swing it, it’s been very handy.
Barry, that’s brilliant! Thanks for the suggestion.
I will be a first time attendee and I’m looking forward to it. Is there a “newbie” track? I am the SF administrator for our Sales/Marketing/Client Relations departments. I’m afraid selecting my sessions will be a challenge!?!
There is usually an orientation the night before the conference actually starts – I don’t see one on the agenda so you might want to email Dreamforce and find out. And once the sessions are available for registration, they should specify whether they are beginner, intermediate, or advanced (they did last year). If the sessions do not specify level of knowledge, look for ones whose names start with “Hands-on Training” and “Intro to…”
Thank you! This will be my first year and I want to make it meaningful and not wasteful. Probably the most difficult aspect to this, is the old adage, “you don’t know what you don’t know” so picking the right sessions and workshops is daunting.
It’s very daunting – I usually find that there are some I don’t have time to attend because I’m interested in so many of them. What’s your area of interest? Sales, Marketing, Administrator…?
What do you think about having an iPad or some other type of tablet? Helpful or not?
Very helpful! The Dreamforce app is great, definitely bring your tablet or smartphone.
I tried to find the Dreamforce app but was not able to do so. Any ideas on how I can get the app?
Kurt, I hear that the iPhone and Android apps won’t be available until early September.
Thanks for sharing this, I joint dreamforce 2006 and this year get chance come again.
This is great info! This is my second year and I wish I had this info last year…
I am so taking your advice and running with in in the right shoes
Also – Don’t be afraid to have open sessions where you take a few minutes of free time to yourself. I have found that the networking and mingling time is just as informative as the actual classes themselves. Also, all the classes will be posted on youtube within a few weeks of DreamForce.
That’s so true! Thank you for adding such a good point.
Thank you for this helpful information, it’s my first year and I’m extremely excited! ?