With Hillary Clinton and Al Gore among the keynoters at Salesforce.com’s annual Dreamforce user conference (can we even call it that anymore?) in San Francisco, you’ll forgive me for the Clinton-era reference in my title (explanation here for you Millennials who might not be familiar with the phrase). By my rough count, more than 50% of Dreamforce keynote time was dedicated to non-product, non-technology, non-SaaS topics, suggesting that that Salesforce.com and Marc Benioff have ambitions to make Dreamforce about much more than a user conference. It’s about the community.
We’ll get back to that in a minute, but first a little Dreamforce by the numbers (because isn’t it always about the numbers?). This year, Salesforce boasted 145,000 registered attendees (even keeping in mind that all registrants don’t attend or attend for just a day, and that there is a free version of registration available, that’s still a lot of people at the Moscone Center). In fact, it felt like the place was busting at the seams. Like other conferences, many of the “real” sessions (you know, the ones in which a customer would actually learn about best practices or new products) were housed in surrounding hotels. Rumor has it that this year’s Dreamforce was visible from the Andromeda Galaxy, quadrupled the population of San Francisco, and consumed as much coffee as Starbucks sells in a year*.
In all seriousness, Dreamforce is a juggernaut of a conference. It’s not a 3-ring circus, it’s more like a 5- or 8-ring circus, but it’s also a spectacle to behold from a marketer’s perspective. And since we’re sure there are cheaper and more effective ways for customers to get best practices training or prospects to research Salesforce.com products, it’s worth asking why some 100,000 business professionals show up? The answer, again, is the community. And unsurprisingly, community was a theme we heard over and over throughout Dreamforce presentations. I often use the phrase “frictionless access to content and community” when describing the dynamics of the hidden sales cycle. And while the crowds around Moscone might represent a bit more friction compared with tapping into your favorite LinkedIn Group, the in-person experience of an event is arguably more powerful. Ask most attendees at Dreamforce, or indeed any well-run conference or event, and they’ll tell you they come for the community as well. Attendees come to learn from one another, perhaps to know that they’re not in it alone. And increasingly, Dreamforce, along with a handful of other events, have become forums for industry conversations in their own right, supporting a broader community conversation.
Salesforce.com seems to be taking this even further, layering in a sense of mission and values that clearly speaks to a large portion of this community, and fostering stronger brand resonance. And yet for some, the appeal of Dreamforce will still be more prosaic. Customers want to connect with eco-system vendors and conduct research for an upcoming purchase process. Solution providers want to tap into the power of this community to drive brand and demand gen (i.e. leads). There’s also a sense from many vendors that they must be present. And still some just want to watch Bruno Mars and party – there’s community in that too.
* While true, none of this is factually correct.
