ICYMI: Top 10 Highlights from Dreamforce ‘14
After all the months of preparation and growing excitement, it’s hard to believe that Dreamforce ’14 is over. Four days packed with breakout sessions, hands-on training sessions, keynote speakers, networking, sightseeing, and parties can go by fast — so in case there’s anything you missed, here’s our rundown of the top 10 highlights from Dreamforce ’14.
10. SaaSy
Our beloved Salesforce mascot, SaaSy, always comes to Dreamforce, but this year may well have been the year of the SaaSy Selfie, with attendees vying for a minute of the lovable mascot’s spare time so they could snap a photo.
9. The Beach Boys
The surprise guest during Marc Benioff’s main keynote on Tuesday, The Beach Boys were just as fun as ever — and the perfect lead-in to launching Wave (see #2).
8. Women in Tech
Although last year’s Dreamforce lineup included leading women in tech like Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, this year also featured powerful keynotes by female leaders including former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Huffington Post founder and CEO Arianna Huffington. Dreamforce ’14 also included an inspiring panel of female technologists, entrepreneurs, and innovators, and some honest discussion from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and co-founder Parker Harris at the conference’s conclusion about how to empower women in tech.
7. Pono
Acclaimed musician Neil Young unveiled Pono, his revolutionary music system, at Dreamforce this year. Lucky attendees who visited Salesforce Community Cloud in the Cloud Expo got to experience Pono firsthand, using headphones and in a uniquely intimate, enclosed space designed to give listeners the “living-room experience.”
8. Tony Robbins
Motivational speaker doesn’t begin to cover it. Tony Robbins’ high-energy, dynamic keynote at Dreamforce had people up on their feet, hugging and dancing and laughing. On top of that, but Robbins also committed to donating up to 1.5 million meals to help fight hunger.
5. Dreamforce Gala
Bruno Mars was epic and full of energy. Cake was just plain awesome. And the city of San Francisco was alive with music, personality, and connections. What’s not to love about Dreamforce’s biggest party?
4. Puls
Grammy-winning musician, philanthropist, and entrepreneur will.i.am used the Dreamforce stage as an opportunity to debut his new wearable device, Puls. It is a wearable “cuff” — don’t call it a smartwatch — that also makes phone calls and connects to the internet.
3. Lightning
Salesforce1 Lightning represents a great leap forward for the Salesforce1 Platform. Here’s how Mike Rosenbaum, EVP, Salesforce1 Platform, explains it:
Lightning is the next generation of the Salesforce1 Platform. OK, so what does that really mean? Well, last year in order to launch the Salesforce1 Mobile App, we needed to build a mobile-optimized UI. But in the great tradition of Salesforce, we took a long-term approach to designing something that would scale. First, we built the Lightning framework and then we built all of the UI using Lightning Components. It took us a little while, and a lot of people scratched their heads and wondered why. There are many JavaScript frameworks out there, so why did we build our own?
Well, this is more than JavaScript framework. If you look at Salesforce and blur your eyes a bit, you can see what it really is — a lot of UI components that are laid out on pages designed to work for any screen shape or size. Our internal dev teams built components for the Chatter feed, search bar, charts, record lists, record pages, edit pages, related lists, and on and on. And these components are laid out in different ways all over the application, on different screens and devices and contexts. It’s going to let us and our customers move so much faster. Because now, we don’t have to recode a component every time we want it to appear on a different page or new device form factor.
Even better, the unveiling of Lighting involved Parker Harris in a superhero suit and drone-delivered Coca-Colas.
2. Wave
Wave, the new Salesforce Analytics Cloud, was — in Marc Benioff’s words — “the huge release” of Dreamforce ’14. It is “analytics for the rest of us,” an intuitive user interface for a business intelligence platform that everyone can use. Wave marks Salesforce’s entry into the $38 billion analytics market and an important next step in the customer success platform.
1. #DFGives
We started Dreamforce with what seemed like an ambitious goal: donating 1 million meals to help fight hunger in communities around the world. We ended it with more than 3 million meals donated, thanks to matching grants from Marc Benioff and Tony Robbins. And that’s just one piece of #DFGives: Dreamforce benefited community education initiatives, and Tuesday’s benefit concert generated an estimated $9 million for UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals. It’s clear evidence that Dreamforce is about not only innovation and having fun, but also about giving back.
That’s it for Dreamforce ’14. See you next year!
