DreamForce 2013 Wrapup

This year I made the trip to San Francisco for Salesforce’s annual DreamForce a five day conference that trumps all other conference.  Every aspect of the event was amazing and WOW 120,000 attendees.  The leadership speaker series, the trainings, the networking opportunities, and the parties were all great. My highlights and most memorable moments were getting to meet a couple of vendors that I only get to speak with on the phone including one who is located in France. But it wouldn’t be a good DreamForce without good entertainment and SalesForce raises the bar in this aspect as well the opening Keynote featured Huey Lewis and The News followed by an evening concert with GreenDay and Blonde. One after party I attended had MC Hammer DJing it. As well 100’s of parties across the city. So many parties that a marketing company crested Partyforce a app to track all the parties happening throughout the week. It’s even got checkin functions and leaderboard. The speaker lineup this year focused on women in technology (WIT) and Marc Benioff the CEO of Salesforce had two amazing speakers join him for on stage discussions on Tuesday he was joined by CEO Marissa Mayer of Yahoo their conversation lasted for about hour and a half and focus on changing the focus and culture at Yahoo.  It was very insightful and I took away from it a lot.  One thing she said that I’ll remember is how she has stays organized with a never ending priority list. The other thing that stuck with me was a comment she made regarding work life balance stating she lived her life a Vince Lombardi quote “His priority is God, family, Packers” or something like that. The next night Marc was joined on stage for a discussion with another amazing leader in the technology industry Sheryl Sandberg the CEO of Facebook.  Sheryl has recently released a new book called Lean In which all attendees received a free copy of.  In the book she talks about closing the gap on gender diversity. It was quite interesting conversation her and Marc had the take away from their fireside was being more conscious of my communication with female coworkers…..I guess. Over the next few weeks I’ll read her book Lean In and maybe I’ll rewrite a couple of post about it and my thoughts regarding. All my crazy pictures from the week long adventure can be seen at https://plus.google.com/photos/105588147711118968857/albums/5951051845514062977?authkey=CM7cnL-j1I_GMw