The Chicago World Tour was much larger than I expected, which is good because I won’t be able to attend TrailheaDX or Dreamforce. There was also lots of swag that I managed to snag through vendors or Salesforce activities. The event was a good rundown of what is currently happening in the world of Salesforce.
This was my first time attending a World Tour event. First arriving at McCormick Place and noticing all the staff just directing people through this massive structure, I knew this event would be an impressive one. Walking into the main show room, everything was decorated in their typically themed forest environment. The atmosphere was vibrant with all the colors, costumed characters, food trays with food cups, and very chatty sales reps scanning your badges.
The big event of the day was the keynote, which felt like one giant sales pitch the whole way through. Nothing new was showcased. Salesforce was patting themselves on the back a good chunk of the time. They even brought in their customers to have them pat Salesforce’s back as well. For me, the best aspect of the keynote was their dedication to keeping the platform innovative and continuously providing more value. That value being new tools for me to use to create a better product as a developer.
The keynote was also pleasantly notable in that all the speakers were women. These are leaders within Salesforce. I really appreciated that, and am glad they didn’t highlight that fact either. It’s always important for the tech industry to highlight women in leadership without tokenizing them.
A lot of the topics that relate to me (development and Salesforce DX) were just broadly covered in the event. I didn’t learn a whole lot from these sessions that I haven’t previously researched while at work.
The 50 or so vendors there actually provided me with the most value. Not only did I get free swag, I got to learn about potential opportunities that could benefit the orgs I work on. However, I’m not a fan of the sales reps’ endless emails and phone calls I get after these events.
I would suggest that others go to a World Tour event if they don’t have much opportunity to keep up to date with Salesforce in their free time. Also, the event is free, so any complaints I’ve made above are minor.
I would like to see events like Dreamforce get out of San Francisco and take place elsewhere, like World Tour does. The city is far and very expensive to stay in. I’m sure a lot of technical Salesforce folks would love to attend, which would provide a ton of value to the eventgoers if it were more accessible.
Adam McCardle 