Salesforce Ventures And The Art Of Event Planning

Recently I went to a conference for Salesforce Ventures portfolio companies. I’ve gone to almost no in-person events since Covid started, and it was really nice to be in a room with a lot of people that had interesting things to say about startups and technology investing and enterprise sales. And one fun thing about the event was how really extremely well produced it was.

As someone who sometimes helps organize meetings and conferences of various kinds. It was a pleasure to see a professional events production team in operation. I remember having the same feeling a bunch of years ago when I got to know and work a little bit with someone on the Google IO event team.

I mean, everything I know about planning events is seat of the pants, general knowledge. I’m an amateur and she was a professional.

One thing I really like about startups is how much room there is for learning new things and wearing lots of hats and treating everything as an experiment. I do think there’s some truth to the idea that sometimes you can know too much and that stepping back and approaching things with a beginner’s mind can lead interesting places.

It’s also just exciting to tackle new challenges.

But I have so, so much respect for deep professional knowledge in pretty much any domain. And as companies grow, they tend to need specialists more and more. For example, a really high performing events production team.

So thanks to the Salesforce Ventures crew for hosting such a useful day of panels and conversations.

Today’s music is Rachel Therrien and a room full of Brazilian jazz greats playing the Dizzy Gillespie Standard “Con Alma.” This is from Therrien’s new album, “Mi Hogar.”