The return of Dreamforce?
Salesforce
Unofficial reports suggest that Salesforce is committed to an in-person Dreamforce in 2021, albeit with substantially reduced numbers. I can’t see this happening. A Salesforce in-person event, yes. Dreamforce in person, no. There’s a few reasons I think this way:
Last year Salesforce promised a re-imagined and virtual Dreamforce, but what we got was the same as most tech conferences during pandemic times - an attempt to run much the same event over videoconference where the chat quickly went out of control and the expo didn’t really work. Changing things materially is hard and can’t really happen quickly. Which brings me to…
We’re already half way through April and everything takes longer than you think it will. Physical events doubly so this year, as everything can be derailed at a moment’s notice, by a new variant or a sudden flare up. An event like Dreamforce needs to be set in stone months out from the start date, not thrown together at the last minute.
I don’t think Dreamforce works without the numbers. Let’s say that 10,000 people are allowed to attend. Will Salesforce make the entire executive and product teams available for 6% of their usual attendees? The ROI on that doesn’t seem to add up.
If the worst happens, does Salesforce want to be known as the facilitator of a super-spreader event?
As I say, I can see some kind of in-person event taking place in San Francisco, but if it were me I wouldn’t be devaluing the Dreamforce brand. With limited numbers, it will be the decision makers who are needed, so why not make it an executive summit? This doesn’t feel like the right time to be a Trailblazer - delaying until 2022 allows a variety of smaller in-person formats to be trialled around the world rather than starting off with the behemoth.
Virtual events continue for Salesforce. The Success Anywhere World Tour popped up in April - while the event has happened, you can still sign up to watch the recordings, and sign up for the next one.
TrailheaDX 2021 is taking place on 23rd June - registration is open.
I finished reading Tameem Bahri’s Becoming a Salesforce Certified Technical Architect - you can read what I thought of it in my review. It’s not a short book and it’s not a quick read, but it is very good!
Other
This week I received an invite to an in-person event at the end of May. The invite made a big deal of the speakers, and the exclusivity. What it didn’t make any mention of was how the venue and event would be COVID secure. Unless it’s the second coming of Steve Jobs, I’m going to need a little more information.
A great post on devops runbooks appeared on the Stack Overflow blog in March. I’m very much in agreement with the idea that you start off with minimal coverage and then evolve as needed. My rule is that once I’ve explained the same thing to people from two different teams, I document it and everyone else gets pointed at the updated docs.
Clubhouse apparently has a valuation of near $4 billion, so reports of it’s demise may be exaggerated. It’s certainly under pressure, as it’s a relatively easy offering to replicated, hence the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Discord, Slack and Spotify all supposedly working on competitors. It’s still an unusual idea - the fact that you have to be present at the time the content is created does add FOMO, although if it turns into MO all the time through lack of discoverability, that will have an impact on numbers. I’ll be watching it’s progress with interest.