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Golf’s one of the things in this world where I can be absolutely terrible, and fail oh-so-frequently... but am still not at all dissuaded, anxious, defeatist. I still have an outrageous amount of fun, and look forward to the opportunity to fail, every time. 

It’s a game where every successful shot - while only a tiny contribution to the overall outcome of the round/day - is celebrated. The bad shots are just as frequent (at least in my shoes), but their sting is temporary as every stroke is an opportunity to have another one of those shots that just feels right.  

Reflecting on the week that was Dreamforce, it’s hard to imagine it’s over. Bittersweet to say the least.  It was a marathon and a sprint. 

Dreamforce was without a doubt an incredible week for me personally and professionally.  So much fantastic content and the opportunity to spend time with friends and colleagues.  On top of it all, it was a chance to celebrate an anniversary of sorts with my all-too-lovely better half, a little less than a year after meeting for the first time at Dreamforce last year.   And while I could fill pages on that, without going too far down the personal rabbit holes, I’ll just simply say it was a week of so many feels on so many levels. 

From a professional standpoint, being only my second in-person Dreamforce, I tried to approach it in the spirit of mindfulness, with intention and a personal agenda of appreciation.  I made it a personal mission to connect with community members that were a source of inspiration, assistance and encouragement to me in my Salesforce journey.  After being in this space for this long, I really felt a need to acknowledge and thank so many people, that without their own knowledge of it, had helped me find the things that bring me the most joy.  

For years, I really had been so remiss in not sharing that gratitude. For so long, just following people in the twitterverse from the sidelines, or worse, just adding people to lists incognito so they wouldn’t be notified and wouldn’t expose my neophyte fandom.  Seriously - there was a time I really did go out of my way to avoid engaging, to avoid being noticed.  Shyly sitting in the background, watching and learning...  

This year, there were no sidelines.  

I was blessed with the opportunity to lead a (brief) session on a customer success story, staffed the company booth in the Foundation Zone, and generally made an effort to put myself out there with more meetups and parties, meeting customers, and striking up conversation with fellow attendees at large.  

This year, the effort was there to come out of the shell, to be vulnerable, to be genuine.  An effort to connect with people in the most real sense, without tempering my enthusiasm and nerdiest of tendencies and fanboyesque sentiment.  

And it was a riot. 

I honestly struggle with events like this, often affected by the ultra-introverted and socially anxious sides of myself. For as much as I’m able to be outgoing and confident speaking to groups and strangers when I’m wearing my consultant, sales, or training hats, I still struggle putting myself out there when I don’t have that mask to put on. 

The New Salesforce has been unveiled, and the Salesforce Lightning Experience was on display at viewing parties across the world Tuesday night.  What a spectacle. Spectacular spectacle.  

Huge.

Taking in the release announcement from home, spending time over the last day letting it sink in, reviewing the Trailhead modules, and playing in a pre-release org... I’ve just been feeling altogether giddy.  It feels like the first time.  Love at first sight... again.  

Love at first sight doesn’t do it justice. The Salesforce Lightning Experience is so much more than a re-skin or UI update as many “new look” posts in the news mainstream are saying.  

Don’t get me wrong.  It’s sexy as hell.  But it’s what’s on the inside that really matters.

The Lightning Experience has the potential to change the way people work in the Sales Cloud, and in Salesforce in general. And that goes beyond individual users.  Notes and Tasks are more usable, and more in-focus in the Sales Cloud as emphasis is placed on action and velocity in selling.  Report charts can be added to your list views - providing data and metrics in context.  The pipeline board is a beautiful representation of data becoming actionable. That feature right there is a technical marvel that I’d love to get a behind-the-scenes tour of -just awe-inspiring.

We even have a revamped Setup menu - so for the 3rd time, need to re-memorize where things are.  Or skip the memory and use the quick find.  Or skip the memorizing because it’s alphabetical (!).  And the Objects are grouped in the Object Manager. And it’s pretty. Did I mention the pretty already?  

It's not a look and feel, it's The New Salesforce.

Like anything new, we might not have all the bells and whistles production ready right away, and with any shift of this size, there’s going to be a departure from the old way of doing things.  Strongly recommending that if you haven't yet, check out the Trailhead modules on the new Lightning Experience that the brilliant team have put together to guide you through the features of the new experience - as well as its current version 1 limitations (talk about transparency!) to get clear definition of what existing features are not yet compatible with the Lightning Experience, as well as detailed fit gap analysis checklists, etc. 

It’s a really impressive enablement package.  Really, the entire experience, from the platform, the supporting content, to the coordinated viewing parties and the worldwide broadcast - it’s all been incredible this week.  It’s always incredible to see and feel the community’s reaction to huge announcements like this - and from the #struckbylightning hashtag trending, and the general sentiment I was observing - the excitement is real.  Giddy, I am. 

It's hard to imagine Dreamforce has come and gone and we've been back at it for a couple weeks already.  What a blur.  An amazing blur, on so many levels.  

It was my first Dreamforce.  Despite the years of working intimately with salesforce, as an enthusiast in the twittersphere and Success Community, sadly, I'd yet to participate in person.  I made my list and checked it twice.  I had to be there this year.  

What's more, it was my first as an active member of the Salesforce Foundation family.

After years of implementing, optimizing, designing and building in the private sector, I embarked on the new opportunity to learn, grow, and do what I love to do in a way that gives back, surrounded by people so passionate about customers and their missions.  

This was the year.  

I read the tips, heard the warnings.  But no amount of planning could have prepared me for the experience. 

My days were fuelled by coffee, content and conversation (all in copious amounts).  I packed my calendar with sessions, and found myself geeking out about something new every day... and really, haven't stopped geeking out weeks later. Seriously, Process Builder is just so damn sexy. 

Beyond the days, the evenings were punctuated by the most incredible people and brought the opportunity to shake hands, break bread, and tip glasses with individuals who have been nothing short of SUPERHEROES to me in this professional journey with Salesforce.  

In Dreamforce, I had the opportunity to take in with wonder all that makes both the Salesforce and Non-Profit communities the most exciting and rewarding places to live and work.  

From the "you are really here" wave of emotion that took me over the moment the lights dimmed in the Main Keynote, to Kid President's pep-talk speaking directly to my soul, to being brought to tears in the Non-Profit Kickoff as I watched incredible customer stories, or filling with joy in hearing about the Salesforce Foundation's incredible contribution to the San Francisco Unified School District and the profound impact it has had on students, teachers and administration there... 

I had the opportunity to take in a fireside chat with Laura Arrillaga-Andressen on philanthropy and using technology to enable giving.  I was immersed in the discussion around how we as individuals have the opportunity to affect change and drive action on issues that matter to each of us personally.  Then the conversation really washed over me.  Lost in introspection, reflection, projection; spiralling in thought as I often can.  I can't even recall a ton of the detail from the second half at all... but I can't shake the feeling of genuine joy that I took the steps down this path.  

Through it all, you can't help but feel a deeper connection to the world around you and beyond you.  Marc Benioff said it best in his keynote, "Nothing is going to make you happier in your life than giving".