Dreamforce 2013 – a Developer’s Diary - 10/2012

Something really amazing happened 3 weeks ago. The most productive week of the year, Dreamforce 2012. I had only heard of Dreamforce before, this being my 1st time attending, and had heard rumors of its grandeur . I now know why it’s so famous! I could literally see all the hard work and dedication the Salesforce guys (and gals) put in to make this event a grand success. It is no wonder Forbes chose Salesforce.com as the most innovative company and Marc Beinoff as the most successful entrepreneur!

First off, let me thank [topcoder] for making my dream of going Dreamforce come true. If it wasn’t for the idea of Code Your Way to Dreamforce, I wouldn’t have even thought about attending DF12. It wasn’t just conducting the competition either, but too the way they treated the winner (me… of course.) as a VIP throughout Dreamforce!

In a nutshell, Dreamforce for me was like a carnival. With all the keynotes like magic shows, and the presenters as the magicians. No doubt the best magician is Marc Benioff, his speech was not only mesmerizing but also inspirational.

My most memorable moments were at Developer Zone however. It was like a roller coaster ride with all sorts of sessions, mini-hacks, trivia, un-conference, etc. And most importantly, everyone there was a developer-nerd-hacker-genius! Needless to say, it was overall really fun. It is also where I ran into my fellow Code Your Way winner, Naveen Gabrani!

A few highlights from the week had to be:

• The keynotes – I attend only 2, main keynote & developer keynote. To wrap them up in just one word: AWESOME.

• Topcoder Developer Meetup – Thanks to the meetup happy hour I can now connect faces to the Twitter handles of the Topcoder team as well as my fellow CloudSpokers and chit-chatting about… politics. What else would we talk about after all.

• Appirio After Dark Party – Again, thanks to Topcoder for getting me a special VIP pass for the party. I got to enter without standing in queue and had special ultra VIP lounge access. Here I connected with more developers, and shared stories. Over drinks of course!

• Developer Zone Mini-hacks – Felt really good to sit down in middle of the madness at Dev Zone, break my knuckles and hack some code, plus I won a Nexus 7!!

• Developer Sessions – I attended more than 10 different developer sessions, and all were rocking.

• Last but not least, beautiful San Francisco! I loved walking the streets of downtown SF and taking it all in!

I want to also give special mentions and thanks to Daniel Llewellun, Dan Appleman, Pat Patterson, Sandeep Bhanot, Cory Cowgill, of course the whole Topcoder team, as well as many more! You’ll have to excuse my bad memory!

Overall, it was a great and unforgettable week. Way to go Salesforce, and way to go Topcoder!! I can’t wait to do it all again next year!