What a week that was! With all the anticipation and excitement in the run up, it never fails to blow my mind how fast Dreamforce flashes by when you’re there — 2022 was no exception. With 40,000 in-person attendees, and 120,000 more tuning in via Salesforce+, Salesforce once again showed their ability to execute events to a meticulous standard. The three-year break only seemed to ignite the community’s excitement to get back to meeting in-person, and it was so worth the wait.
There are countless lessons to draw on from the week, but these are a few of mine:
DevOps is here to stay
DevOps was a huge talking point at Dreamforce this year. We had sessions from DevOps experts, the DevOps Center team promoting the move away from change sets, customer success stories, and countless conversations at vendor booths. Every time I walked by the Gearset booth it was swamped by folks waiting to see what’s possible — a sight to behold!
Salesforce is making a concerted effort to improve their DevOps experience with DevOps Center and DX, and the community is still demanding improvements. Salesforce customers are eager to streamline their processes and get more value from their orgs. The area is evolving. The conversations this week proved customers are still deciding what route to take, be that Salesforce DX, DevOps Center, or partnering with a vendor to achieve maximum ROI. We’ll start to see this space fill with more success stories, learnings, and areas for improvement as it really takes off and customers begin to expect more.
The ecosystem needs more Architects
First and foremost a huge shoutout to Blanca Leon-Carter, DevOps Architect at Slalom for being awarded the coveted Golden Hoodie during the Architect Keynote this year! Blanca is a great ambassador for Women in Tech (and DevOps!) so it was awesome to see her recognized.
There was a lot of content this year around the new Salesforce Well-Architected frameworks — not just talks, but interactive workshops too. A lot of effort has gone into these frameworks by the Architect Relations team at Salesforce with a view to showing folks in the ecosystem what they can achieve with effective working methodologies and design principles.
For me, Well-Architected brings clarity to what a Salesforce Architect is, while acknowledging that its definition was becoming blurry, Well-Architected seeks to change that. It also shows encouragement for more folks in the Admin and Developer tracks to consider the possibilities of what they can achieve, and have them look at how the skills they have could make them fantastic Architects. Architects are in high demand, and Well-Architected is a fantastic resource to build that talent pool.
DEI is high on the agenda
Not just a buzzword! There were a huge number of community campfire sessions and talks around diversity, equality, and inclusion topics. Everything from burnout, creating inclusive spaces, and bringing your authentic self to work. Salesforce created a space this year where the community could talk openly about their experiences and share learnings to make sure we bring a completeness to our organizations that uplifts everyone. Culture is more important than ever, and companies demonstrating and building inclusive cultures are going to see tremendous benefit.
The community is strong
I count myself extremely fortunate to be able to share these amazing conference experiences with hundreds of Trailblazers, many who are now friends and advisors to me. And I’m not alone in that experience. However, there is certainly more we can still do as a community to welcome new or more introverted members to these spaces. I’d love to see the community step up and facilitate more of this, and after Dreamforce we’ve already seen an effort from community leaders to figure out how to do just that.
A lot will happen between now and next year. I’m very excited to see how the ecosystem makes the most of all the exciting new platform developments announced this year too, such as Salesforce Genie, Hyperforce, and improved Flow experiences.
This was a fantastic Dreamforce for me, and I hope those of you who attended had an amazing experience too. For those of you who couldn’t be there this time, but are considering it for next year, I would wholeheartedly encourage you to take the plunge and see what you can learn, absorb, and see just how much fun you can have.
Roll on Dreamforce 2023!
If you want to know more about our experience at Dreamforce, how we’re helping Salesforce customers achieve better ROI from their implementations, and how we could do the same for you, reach out to our DevOps experts for a consultation. We look forward to talking to you!