California Dreamforcing

Sep
21

Wed

Posted By Amy Grenham on Wednesday, September 21, 2011
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A couple of weeks have now passed since the incredible event that was ”Dreamforce 2011”, now officially the largest conference in the enterprise software industry, and it feels like the right time for some reflection and feedback. Our most experienced Force.com developer, Christopher Lewis, and my good self were the lucky ones able to attend from Desynit.

Before attending Dreamforce ‘11 I had some idea of how social media was shaping the way that we all interact with the business world, at work and at play. This trip has changed my view, and if you can bear with me to the end of this blog entry, hopefully I can make my point.

For me the experience started a week or so before the event when my family (wife and almost two year old son) travelled to San Francisco for a holiday and also to celebrate my brother Tom’s 40th birthday. I’ve got to be honest, like the majority of parents with young children, I wasn’t entirely looking forward to the long flight over, particularly with my son sat on my lap for the duration. It would be nice if airlines would take more notice of the problems faced when travelling with young children, at a minimum guaranteeing them first option on seats with appropriate space instead of being entered into the lottery of arriving early enough at the airport. That said, to my surprise, the flight passed without incident and we arrived a little weary but ready for the travels ahead.

The first few days were spent in and around San Francisco with trips to miniature railways, discovery centres and funparks (there was obviously activities for the kids to do also). Like all good parents we took some embarrassing photographs of my son and nephew to humiliate them with when the first girlfriend comes along. These we shared with family and friends on facebook alongside a few tweets containing the highlights of our vacation.

For the main event (40th Birthday party) we headed off for an overnight stay in Yosemite national park a truly jaw droppingly beautiful place. The trip itself threw up some issues with the need to hire an additional car as the one we reserved would not accommodate our party size and requirements. Hey ho, these things happen I guess. Anyway we stopped off half way in Modesto at a surprisingly nice freeway hotel which we happened upon via google maps. Great sized indoor pool for the kids to play in and a jacuzzi to help heal driving sores. The lodge in Yosemite was a lot of fun and there was fortunately no bearjacking incidents during the stay. If I had to be critical I’d say that like many of the hotels we stayed in during our trip there was no availability of cribs for our son but we had prepared for that.

Upon return from Yosemite I had a couple more days with my family to explore the sights of San Francisco before dropping them off at the airport for the uncomfortable ride home (I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay my wife for making the trip back with my son on her own). Once again it would have been nice if the airline could have been more responsive to the needs of a four month pregnant woman with a two year old child in tow, but there you go.

Anyway, we finally reach the point to all of this, so I thank you for your patience this far and please read on. Dreamforce ‘11 is now upon us and I’ve hooked up with Chris to attend the opening keynote speech with Marc Benioff. Probably the best couple of hours of my professional life I’ve spent in many years. The products and features being unveiled were mind blowing. Highlights for me included Chatter now open to customers, Heroku, touch.salesforce.com and the casually slipped in data residency option for database.com which opens it up to customers who wish to host at their own data centres. I’m going to quickly gloss over how great and informative the breakout sessions were and also how much fun the entertainment and social aspects of the conference were (it was Metallica for goodness sake, need anyone say more). Instead I’m going to give you my take on the “Social Enterprise” by borrowing a bit from Marc’s own analogy of the hotel in Boston.

Imagine if prior to my trip to the States I had tweeted that I was concerned about travelling from London to San Francisco with a four month pregnant wife and a almost two year old infant. In addition I may well have put up some Facebook posts on the need to drive in comfort from San Francisco to Yosemite with three adults and two infants in child seats. To cap it off I could have tweeted and posted that I would be requiring hotels in San Francisco, Carmel and Yosemite which could provide cribs for infants. In the new world of the social enterprise I envisage the following taking place :-

Airlines picking up on my concerns and providing me with information on what facilities they can provide to alleviate my concerns.
Car hire companies telling me that the car I’d booked was inappropriate and suggesting and booking alternatives via some kind of instant messaging tool on my smartphone
Hotels reading my posts and having cribs ready and set up in the rooms which I booked

Looking after your customers is what will differentiate any company in this most competitive of climates. The first step to provisioning that is understanding what your customer want and listening to them. I can personally imagine the need for a Social, Open and Mobile platform across all business and industry sectors I have been involved in.

However, there is still one important thing to remember, just as when I got back home I had to print off some photographs and snailmail them to my Auntie Margaret together with a postcard with some abridged details of our trip (can you believe some people still aren’t on Facebook) , we must remember to provision for our legacy systems. Just as with my Auntie Margaret, they are not going to disappear overnight (thankfully) and still hold an invaluable repository of information and a wealth of processing functionality. I just need to work on an Auntie Margaret REST API now ;-).