If there would be competition about the most awaiting conference of the year, YeurDreamin would win. They started the planning a year and half ago, team grow and grow bigger to around 10 people, who regularly met and planned together, did fantastic job in drawing attention and at one point it even looked like they will draw the famous Steve Molis to present. Which didn’t happen at the end, but there were so many other great speakers, that it wasn’t problem.
At the end 350 people met at Amsterdam for a day full of learning in 5 parallel tracks, each session lasting between 20 – 50 minutes. And I (with my colleague Adam) were lucky enough to present as well.
Before the conference
I just found out that I bought my tickets in November last year, that’s how in advance they built momentum.
Several Slack channels appeared along the way, I was lucky enough to be invited even to the one where they planned the whol event. Awesome insights. Then another for speakers and one more for attendees. Plus community created WhatsApp group, so there was so many channels to monitor, that at the day of the conference I gave up and just enjoyed myself.
Dinner for speakers was great, I met a lot of new people and had time to chat with those, I didn’t see for a while. Just not enough time, I forgot to ask so many questions I wanted to.
The conference
Badge, shirt and printed agenda plus warm welcome was the first we got when entering the venue. Backdrop for selfies en route to the main hall, with something for breakfast and plenty of sponsors to talk with. Surprised how many of them they got at the end, I just wish to have at least half of them for CzechDreamin.
And then kick off the day. Crazy video call with Rene and Zayne, which just a minority enjoyed – those who follow the cats‘ story on Twitter. And shortly after we went for all those great sessions.
I enjoyed how to build meaningful connections with David Liu and Stephanie Herrera. It is all about sharing, giving back and then other will consider you an expert and want to meet with you. Plus a lot of other benefits from simple sharing knowledge.
Sadly I missed Christine’s tips for solo admins, luckily every single session has been recorded and presentations will be provided as well, so I need to find some time to check it out. Because she is awesome every single time.
Just a quick look into Ines’ session about Social Studio and off to the discussion about war for talent, which continued on David’s note – year of experience doesn’t matter, it is about involvement, ethic and everyone needs to look beyond the CV.
I feel I know workbench so I skipped Louise’s session, I completely missed Melissa’s session about recipe for impact first NGO and went to Keisha’s talk why Pardot is the next big things for your career. It is easy – as an Salesforce admin you know all the automation and power of platform and just need to learn a bit of marketing mumbo jumbo. This mix of technical and marketing people is hard to get (which I can confirm as I’m one of them) and you will be wanted.
And somewhen during the morning we delivered with Adam our session about Salesforce DX and practical experience with it. We spoke about the good and bad and got a bunch of questions later on during the day. Crossing my fingers for all of you to switch to it and see the benefits.
Experience with Salesforce DX on real project from Martin Humpolec
Lunch in Dutch style – bread with cheese plus salad on side. I loved the simplicity, for CzechDreamin we will probably serve bread and salt 🙂
During every single break I tried to see sponsors – to learn what they offer or get some for CzechDreamin. QualityClouds do awesome things to monitor code quality and other things, Copado support DevOps, Elements.Cloud is not about documenting your SF org but about teaching users how to use it as well, PDF Butler looks like great competitor to S-Docs and DocuSign Gen, introhive we use at PwC and it is great how it can find the relations between people, SharinPix doesn’t have to be introduced – they do awesome things with pictures – and Duplicate Check is here if the standard one doesn’t work well enough for you.
Afternoon is here, I’m skipping the musical and am off to David’s presentation how admins can code too and how he prepared 15 weeks long training plan to anyone willing to learn.
I also enjoyed playing a „bingo“ at Elements.Cloud presentation – have you seen any of these at your clients? I feel I saw at least half of them, definitely need to find time (finally) to play with this app.
Going probono is a big topic at Salesforce world and its 1:1:1 philosophy. I agree with Trisha, that free probably isn’t the right approach, because what is free isn’t good enough, I like when NGO pays for your work, doesn’t matter how much and in which form. Trisha travels world to help NGOs and I cannot wait to have her at Prague and have another great chat with her.
Dan Appleman stopped by at Prague shortly at the beginning of June for our BBQ user group and now we met again. He spoke about tests, why they are important even though you do the click-not-code approach and much more.
And with that it was over. Actually not yet, as the next was awesome key note by Ladies be Architects. 4 ladies, 4 stories, all connected together, that it made sense. This key note also made YeurDreamin the first dreamin conference, which had key note speaker from the community.
Over. Over? Not at all, price drawing, time for dinner and chat with others. I learnt that The Customer Link sent everyone who did a certification from the beginning of the year to YeurDreamin (anyone plan to do the same for CzechDreamin? We might give you some discount!), I spoke with Don Robins, catch up with Barry Hughes again, Ines and Helen Garcia, Jessica Langston made it to Amsterdam as well. For some reason I missed Meighan Brodkey and I forgot to mention plenty other, who I spoke with that day. Yeah, still call myself introvert.
Salesforce Saturday
I had no plan for Saturday morning, maybe some sightseeing. But the weather was really bad, so when I learnt about Salesforce Saturday, I went there. Cafe, plenty of people from the community, who either have a chat or do some trailheads. I didn’t bring computer, so I had a chat with a few and finally had time to say hello to David Liu.
YeurLeadin
Saturday afternoon was dedicated to conference for community group leaders. We started with a small survey, which showed that every group is different, on average we are getting anything between 1 – 60 attendees on our meetings.
Then we learnt how to engage with local Salesforce offices and other partners, that success managers might be the right contacts and how awesome cooperation they have in Netherland.
Sadly I missed Aaron’s presentation how to grow the group, but with 270+ members in Prague Administrator Group we just need to make sure more people attend our meetings. Actually we still need to persuade partners and Salesforce to spread the words to other customers, as I still wish to see more of them, as I really think there is value in it for them.
Debate with Jessica about everything around community group, about the advisory board, all the good and bad. That half an hour went by super quickly, as everything these days.
Ankit had a great talk about giving event a theme, because then it is easier for you to find speaker and because people know why they should come. And you can also have several different views on the same topics. Exactly the way I prefer it as well, so our next meeting will be about … will see, but it might happen at the beginning of September.
Piers spoke about working with volunteers, about V2me, which is alternative of V2MOM and is really about „what is in for me“. Amanda spoke about effective event manager and the important part Excel plays in it 🙂
And final word from Jessica again about the future of community group and much more. Sadly no recording here, so what I don’t remember is forgotten.
Party, chat, food, cake, drinks. Luckily the nights are warm in Amsterdam and light till late, so I made it to the bed just before midnight to get some rest and fly back home on Sunday.
What is in for me?
I was really happy that Adam made the presentation with me and that he saw what these events are about. Now he should spread the word inside PwC, I’ll do my best to organise CzechDreamin and I really hope that I’ll see more and more people from Czech Republic on these conferences. Because there are a lot to learn and share.
If you need to know what should be your next stop, check this article from YeurDreamin – Salesforce Saturdays, Trailblazer Community, Ohana Slack, CzechDreamin, French Touch Dreamin or InspireEast if you want to meet people before Dreamforce.
See you somewhere?