Dreamforce Now, Sleep Later

Dreamforce ’13 comes to a close, but man, what an event! The city of San Francisco swelled 15% with the 130,000 visitors but Salesforce and the city handled it very well, all things considered. Putting off a show of this magnitude requires an event planning staff with pretty exceptional skills, so kudos to them on this one.

The Progress team had a great time and we’re coming away really jazzed about the event. A massive thanks goes out to Drew Brophy (Twitter @drewbrophy) who live painted the background of our booth during the show. I will admit that I was really nervous about this one; you never know how these things will turn out, or how people will react. But the reaction blew even my best expectations away. We had just an insane number of people (including some Salesforce staff!) tell me we had the best booth at the show. Folks would stop, admire, take pictures, come back to see it unfold, engage, and smile. Here’s a sketch that Drew and I collaborated on to give you a sense of how this started:



The final result was amazing, especially when you see it live in all its 15’x7½’ glory:



Based on the attention Drew received, I’m pretty sure we’ll see more live painted booths next year. Drew rocks. Btw, he was also the first guy to traverse the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon (225 miles) on a standup paddle. Check it out here. That guy is unique, cool, and just a genuinely nice dude – book him.

What else happened at the show? Well, Data Connectivity was a huge need for folks. Progress’ famous Sumit Sarkar’s (Twitter @SASinSumit) session on Salesforce data connectivity was sold out again for the second year in a row. And my own session on the Dev Zone floor was also jam-packed. And it’s not because of the Dion Picco brand, I can assure you. But check it out – great to have a packed audience:



I had some great discussions with some of the greatest companies in technology over their concerns, and data connectivity is a major headache for them all. And our newest product, Progress Easyl, hit the right chord with so many folks. People are tired of the traditional data integration solutions that rely on expensive ETL and MDM deployments that are far too rigid, expensive and complex. The self-service and simple nature of Progress Easyl will disrupt the established solutions, and I have a long list of folks just waiting to get their hands on it.

I’m sure I’ll have more to write on Dreamforce ’13 once I rest and reflect. For now, the entire team is walking away proud, happy, exhausted and excited. I want to personally say thank you to the team for all the hard work on this event, especially Becki Murison (Twitter @RebeccaMurison), who really went beyond in making this event so special.



See you at Dreamforce ’14!

Continue reading...