Beloved reader, this will be my first Dreamforce conference experience. It’s interesting, but as I have talked to past attendees and combed through articles from other people’s experiences over the past few months, it has become very clear that preparations for this event are comparable to training for a marathon (hydration and lots of steps) or going into an escape room with a need for sharpened senses and fully caffeinated awareness. (Moscone to Marriott to Metreon, oh my!)

 

Rest assured that I am training, reader. Imagine your favorite 1970s or 1980s movie protagonist engaging in a beautifully sequenced training montage. Picture me rigorously session-scrolling through the Salesforce Events app with one hand whilst the other is gripping a heavy weight and performing a biceps curl. The next sequence has my laptop secured with electric tape on the back door of an open truck bed as I run behind the vehicle on an elevated country road, performing step-by-step instructions for a hands-on Data Cloud workshop. In the closing sequence, with a tear running down my cheek and my head purposefully nodding in motivated agreement, picture me binge-watching the most inspiring content ever crafted by humans in two-hour bursts throughout the summer, just so that I can mentally prepare my brain and spiritually prepare my heart for the main keynote.  

 

With enhanced mental gains and a peak physical prowess in tow, I am ready to provide you with the five Dreamforce sessions I’m most excited about during my inaugural trek to San Francisco. 

 

 

 

 1. Integrate Your Website With Data Cloud and Einstein Copilot

 

Why we recommend it: I have talked about Pato Sapir’s sessions over the years, and the sentiment remains the same: Your boy brings value to all his conversations. No fluff or walking away feeling like you wasted 20 or 40 minutes. Eliot Harper carries this same value-add reputation as well, and they have combined forces to create a mega-useful session for all interested in both tools. 

 

This is an intermediate-level workshop to show how to connect a website to Data Cloud to stream insights, how to take that ingested data and make it actionable, and then create prompts with Einstein Copilot. In a conference where the dominant topics throughout the week will be Data Cloud and AI, this covers both and shows you how to do it! Like a diaper floating in the ocean, I will absorb within a setting in which I am not familiar.

 

2. Automate Any Workflow With Flow 

 

Why we recommend it: In 2024, I have been fortunate to attend both the Salesforce World Tour New York and Salesforce Connections conferences, and from past articles you’ll learn that I will forever and always gravitate toward hands-on training. The Dreamforce session builder limits you to a max registration of two hands-on training sessions with limited seating, but they are worth scheduling as soon as you’re able. It is also important to stay within proximity of the building they’re conducted in and loiter up to an hour before the session so that you can get a pulse on how fast the waiting line is forming. A hands-on training that wasn’t part of the previous World Tour and Connections conferences was this Automate Any Workflow With Flow session, which intrigued me.   

 

To get a little Dr. Seussian, Matt doesn’t know Flow. For Matt to know Flow and automate his workflow (doesn’t rhyme but stick with me), Matt must go to the show to learn Flow and say “WHOA!” without the use of code (close enough) and then share what he knows with his bros, fo sho (“for sure” for those who just rolled their eyes). The workflow show is not in Moscone (close enough), so move your toes to learn Flow and become a pro!  

 

 

Reserve your seat

 

 

 

3. Explore the Health Cloud Data Model 

 

Why we recommend it: So, this recommendation is a little different and possibly alienating to industries not involved with the healthcare/life sciences realm, but I am genuinely interested in this hands-on training for several reasons.    

 

As a parent of kids with severe allergies and sports injuries and high school acne and all the things that require appointment scheduling, I have long felt like the whole process could use a tune-up. I don’t know what’s going to happen six days from now, let alone six months from now. I have to come in just to get a prescription or EpiPen® renewed? Follow-up appointments two weeks from the initial visit create more stress by having to pull my kids out of school and get them back in time for a test or lunch versus the intended purpose of providing relief for a parent by confirming your child’s health improvement. Have you ever attended a meeting and thought to yourself, “This could have been covered in an email”?  We fortunately live in a time where parents have a real-life solution for that, through the emergence of virtual visits, secure photo sharing and new HIPAA-compliant technologies that continue to transform the industry. 

 

Huge full-service health systems that span across all medical needs can now apply some smarter analytics when collecting data from urgent care visits and primary care physician visits and allergist visits and dermatologist visits and sports rehab visits, etc. Behind the scenes, I am expecting a unified profile that should tell a meaningful story, understand my scheduling preference and behaviors, and hopefully help smart people better predict my health future. 

 

This session will allow me to get a closer look under the hood at the Health Cloud data model, and how close (or far) we are from these realities.   

4. A Conversation With Marc Benioff and Special Guest 

 

Why we recommend it: Sorry, I’m new. What kind of special guest are we talking about here? An unnamed celebrity? A C-level trailblazer? A former politician? AM I THE SPECIAL GUEST? MOM?!? There are SEVERAL of these sessions nestled in the session builder, and I am supposed to accept this and act all nonchalant like this lack of knowing who the guest will be isn’t going to tug at my inquisitive soul. I have yet to attend any in-person session with Marc Benioff, so catching him in a smaller setting with enter name here sounds like a blast! I will be attending one of these and hope to report back to you later, reader.   

 

 

5. Dreampitch: AI for a Better Tomorrow  

 

Why we recommend it: I am not sure if I’m legally allowed to cite the famous show about wealthy billionaires who listen to sales pitches of aspiring entrepreneurs and refer to themselves as sharks, but I am a fan of it! Like a real-life shark speeding toward a dropped bucket of chummy goodness, you can imagine how fast I hearted and scheduled myself for this session!  

 

The format is designed for entrepreneurs to pitch their AI solutions that bring GOOD to the world and help people, not those scary AI ideas that put apocalyptic thoughts in my head.  Judges then provide feedback like, “Not kind enough!” and even folks in the crowd get to vote! Lastly, famous actor of screen and stage and now entrepreneur Edward Norton is one of the judges! I will be there to seek inspiration and possible equity share. 

 

Reserve your seat 

 

 

 

ATTENDING DREAMFORCE? Build your session agenda today and meet up with Matt and the Devs United team!