My Top 10 Dreamforce 2013 Sessions

So, you have registered from Dreamforce and have been inundated with lots of party requests from vendors looking to get some time with you. Or perhaps you are one of those vendors yourself. Either way, it’s very easy to get distracted at Salesforce.com’s annual conference in San Francisco. Well no worries, I have inspected the various sessions (1768 in all!) at Dreamforce and narrowed down what I think are the great sessions to attend. Keep in mind, depending on your role, some of these may not really be relevant to you, but wanted to provide a larger context to the conference outside of a specific track.

10. Session Name: Salesforce.com + Integrations = Your Success ♦ Date/Location: Moscone Center West, 2011 | Wednesday, November 20th: 10:15 AM – 11:15 AM ♦ Details from DF Site: “You’ve heard it, “If it’s not in Salesforce, it doesn’t exist.” We know that in real businesses, it’s not always easy to get “it” into Salesforce. Join us to find out how some customers have increased their customer intelligence and business process efficiencies through integrations with their back-office systems.”

Hector’s take: No matter your area of experience, this one will be important. Who doesn’t have to integrate SFDC with another system? I attended this one a few years ago and found it very valuable if you want to know common tips and tricks to a smooth SFDC integration.

9. Session Name: Chatter: Rockstar Roll-outs ♦ Date/Location: Hilton San Francisco Union Square, Golden Gate 6/7/8 | Monday, November 18th: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ♦ Details from DF Site: Looking for Chatter deployment best practices? You’re in the right place. Join us as we discuss the most effective strategies for rolling out Chatter, while highlighting customer deployment success stories, and helping you avoid common pitfalls. In just 60 minutes, this session will ultimately ensure that your Chatter roll out is wildly successful.

Hector’s take: Well, what would a list be if I did not include of my 3 sessions. Seriously this is one session I am really looking forward to participating in. If you want to know about how to successfully deploy Chatter to your team or company, be sure to check this one out, especially SFDC Admins.

8. Session Name: Salesforce Platform – Not Just Your Typical CRM Anymore! ♦ Date/Location: InterContinental San Francisco, InterContinental Ballrm. B | Monday, November 18th: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ♦ Details from DF Site: Salesforce is so much more than the most popular CRM solution out there. Join us for a fast but thorough overview of some of the exciting offerings from salesforce.com and learn how they can help you transform your business. We’ll look at how some of our customers are using and extending our solutions, with the focus on Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Chatter, Force.com, Remedyforce, and our AppExchange offerings.

Hector’s take: Over the last several years, I have seen the evolution of SFDC from beyond just a CRM tool. There are a lot more capabilities you can take advantage of and this is WHY Salesforce.com is Forbes number 1 innovative company.

7. Session Name: Mobile Strategy Keynote: Move Business Forward Faster with Mobile ♦ Date/Location: Moscone Center South, Gateway | Wednesday, November 20th: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ♦ Details from DF Site: The mobile revolution connects billions of devices, creating opportunities for companies to deliver timely, location-aware, and highly contextual engagements. Customer companies use mobility to create deeper connections with their customers, employees, partners, and products. Join Kendall Collins, EVP Product Experience; Dan Page, VP Sales Automation at ADP; and Barry Gilmore, CIO, L’Oréal, to learn how your company can address its biggest mobile challenges and create a surefire path to enterprise mobile success.

Hector’s take: As you know, mobile is everywhere and getting some insights as to where Salesforce.com is looking in regards to mobile will be key to understanding where the market is going.

6. Session Name: Gartner: CIO strategies for enterprises to thrive in a new mobile world ♦ Date/Location: Moscone Center West, 3006 / 3008 | Wednesday, November 20th: 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM ♦ Details from DF Site: Join us to hear from leading analyst firm Gartner how companies are going mobile in the cloud. Vice president, Chief of Research and Chief Gartner Fellow will share key insights about how the market landscape is shaping up and spell out what to look for in a mobile platform.

Hector’s take: Much like number 7, how companies adapt to BYOD, mobile and how the landscape affects them, will be critical to long term growth. This one is really great since it gives you input from various CIO’s.

5. Session Name: An Enterprise CRM Journey in the Technology Industry ♦ Date/Location: San Francisco Marriott Marquis, Foothill F | Wednesday, November 20th: 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM ♦ Details from DF Site: HP Enterprise Services is the global business and technology services division of Hewlett Packard’s HP Enterprise Business strategic business unit. Join us to discover how HP Enterprise Services managed to increase sale efficiency and sales productivity by migration from Siebel to the salesforce.com platform, increasing global adoption rates from 15% to 96% in eight months, across a 4000+ global user base. Come discover the approach, best practices, and lessons the team used to make this a successful transformation.

Hector’s take: Great use case happening at HP on how they migrated from Siebal to SFDC. If you are a large enterprise company, you may consider looking at HP’s journey on this.

4. Session Name: Opening Keynote with Marc Benioff and Special Guests – ♦ Date/Location: Tuesday, November 19th: 09:00 am – 11:00 am – Moscone Center South – Main Keynote Room ♦ Details from DF Site:

Hector’s take: Marc’s opening keynotes are always amazing. You can’t miss this one!

3 . Session Name: CIO Panel: How Cloud Platforms Are Transforming IT ♦ Date/Location: Moscone Center West, 3018 | Tuesday, November 19th: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM ♦ Details from DF Site: While the role of IT leaders is being re-imagined, the systems that run their business need to evolve quickly for mobile, social, massive amounts of data, and cloud. Join us to learn how companies of any size can transform their business by building apps faster on the Salesforce Platform. Transform the role of IT from infrastructure support to innovation leaders.

Hector’s take: It’s difficult to get on a CIO’s calendar, but for this session, you have several CIO’s from different areas of the market. Take advantage of this session, if you can, always good to learn from this CIO panel.

2. Session Name: Keynote with Sheryl Sandberg ♦ Date/Location: Moscone Center South, Main Keynote Room | Wednesday, November 20th: 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Hector’s take: I have to admit, I am really looking forward to this one. From the leader of the Lean In movement, Facebook’s COO will surely be speaking to a crowded room. Sheryl has accomplished alot over the last several years and look forward to hearing from her on the Wednesday late afternoon session at Dreamforce.

1 . Session Name: Salesforce Platform Keynote: Next-Generation Apps, Next-Generation IT, and Next ♦ Date/Location: Moscone Center South, Main Keynote Room | Wednesday, November 20th: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM ♦ Details from DF Site: Every decade a shift happens that compels companies to rethink every aspect of their IT strategy. Today, that shift is powered by mobile, social, and open technologies. Join Mike Rosenbaum, Salesforce Platform EVP; Beth Wozniak, President, Environmental and Combustion Controls at Honeywell; Ken Grady, CIO at New England Biolabs; and John Corrigan, VP, Customer Engagement at ACT, to hear how you can embrace these technologies to innovate and move faster than your competition. Learn how to build connected apps for the next generation of devices and bring your entire organization closer to your customers, partners, and products.

Hector’s take: This is number one simply because companies (small and larger) in different sectors of the economy look to where Salesforce.com is going in relation to technology and applications. Several years ago, in my first Dreamforce conference, everything was about the cloud and all I heard about was the cloud at that Dreamforce conference………….and now the cloud is the hot topic in IT and continues to be driving the IT industry. Salesforce.com will continue to innovate and lead in the next generation of apps and how IT works. This session is one I plan on attending and think you should too!

Now you know I have to include my other 2 sessions (have on above as well) I am a part of. Check these out if you can, would love to meet some of you.

Session Name: “Wow” Your Channel: Improving Partner Engagement & Adoption ♦ Date/Location: The Westin St. Francis San Francisco, California West | Tuesday, November 19th: 3:30 PM – 4:25 PM ♦ Details from DF Site: Having a secure, dynamic, and collaborative community to engage with your partners is key to the success of your Channel program. Yet many large enterprises struggle with how to create a captivating experience for their partners in today’s complex and competitive global marketplace. Join us to hear from our large enterprise customers that have created a “WOW” experience for their partners by implementing best practices and unique strategies for partner portal and community engagement

Session Name: How to Manage Large Data Volumes to Deliver a Superior Customer Experience ♦ Date/Location: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, YBCA – Forum | Wednesday, November 20th: 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM ♦ Details from DF Site: Drowning in too much data? How do you use an archival strategy that is right for your enterprise and yet still maintain a holistic customer view? Join us to learn how large enterprise customers’ archival strategies keep Salesforce running smooth and clean year after year to deliver a superior customer experience!

Enjoy DF13

Hector