Dreamforce (#DF14) is an amazing event that runs from October 13-16, 2014 in San Francisco, CA. It features some well known keynote speakers (Hillary Rodham Clinton, Al Gore, Tony Robbins, Marc Benioff, and more) as well as a concert by Bruno Mars. I have posted my thoughts about Dreamforce before, but I wanted to spend a moment to talk specifically about being a developer attendee at Dreamforce.
Community
One of the biggest advantages of going to Dreamforce is to experience the community on a grand level. To be honest, from my personal perspective, this is the most valuable thing about Dreamforce. Salesforce has a huge community spanning from the Developer Boards, Salesforce StackExchange, Salesforce Success Community, Salesforce Developer User Groups, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. By interacting with this welcoming community, you can engage and learn more than you could possibly imagine. On top of that, being active can have great positive effects on your career. I wouldn’t be where I am now without interacting with the community. On top of that, engaging in the community ultimately provides great value for your company. It shows they hire knowledgable developers and it allows them to showcase your talents with little effort on their part.
Where does Dreamforce play into all of this? Dreamforce provides a venue for personalizing this interaction and meeting fellow community members. It allows you to reinvigorate your passion for the community. It inspires more interaction and more appreciation. Go to Dreamforce and try to meet as many fantastic people as possible.
DevZone
While Dreamforce is sometimes viewed as a large marketing or sales conference, it is also a large developer conference. It is important to remember that. Dreamforce dedicates a large amount of time and space to developers in the DevZone (#DevZone). The DevZone typically features a large array of books, hands on demos, developer specific products, and a multitude of different theaters for presentations. I have found this to be the best place to engage with others as you will more than likely find people you recognize just interacting with some of the exhibits. I spent almost all of my time in the DevZone last Dreamforce and you will most likely find me there again this year!
Education
Finally, and maybe the largest selling point from an employer’s perspective, Dreamforce provides an unparalleled means of education around the platform. There are so many available sessions that literally anyone of any skill level will find value here. On top of that, Dreamforce is almost always coupled with a large announcement (Salesforce1 last year) that changes the way people interact with Salesforce. Typically Salesforce prepares very well for these announcements and has a good amount of training materials available for anyone who wants to learn more (and you will!). Learn from Salesforce experts and fellow developers cool, new interesting things that are now available to you.
I will be speaking on October 13th, capping off a great first day of Dreamforce and FinancialForce’s Community Day at a special #DF14 edition of FinancialForce DevTalks. My talk will focus on ApexMocks, a fantastic new unit testing framework that provides Mockito like functionality in Apex. If you are looking for something to do Monday night, feel free to RSVP and come hang out with a great group of fantastic developers. I hope to see you there!
Important Note: It is important to remember that these thoughts are my personal opinion. As with any opinion, it may or may not reflect the opinion of any organization I am associated with.
