#df15

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.