3 reasons why we’re ramped up to be at the Salesforce World Tour in London

By: Mags Rivett, Head of Marketing and Digital, Purple Vision

“World Tour date is set”, my contact at Salesforce told me.  The first thing I did, aside from promising to write a blog, is tell all my colleagues.

The Salesforce World Tour is an annual must-attend for the whole Purple Vision team and one of the rare days we’re all out of the office doing the same thing.  We’re interested in what’s new and exciting in Salesforce and checking out the developments, case studies on show and product demos.  We split the sessions between us and make sure we get as much information as possible.  So it’s a day for our learning – personally and for our business too.

It’s also a great time for us to catch up with our clients and share some time with them. We always invite the non-profits we’re working with so they can catch up with what could be next for them, learn some practical tips and tricks and meet other users.  For our prospects, it’s a chance to learn more about the platform and tools we’re suggesting they adopt and see for themselves why we keep saying ‘awesome’ a lot.  Everyone quickly learns that it’s infectious rather than an affliction.

Preparation is important when heading to Salesforce World Tour. There is so much going on that it can feel a overwhelming if you haven’t done your homework. I asked some of the Purple Vision team what they were looking forward to this year.

The conclusion is that we’re pretty ramped up to be there, and there are three key reasons why.

• I’ve heard the hype…  One of our colleagues is new and while she’s got the ‘creds’ (Salesforce qualifications are called credentials) has never been to World Tour event before.  She’s heard stories and is keen to see if they match the reality. We’re pretty confident they will.  The all-singing, all dancing keynote, raft of new stuff, presentations and case studies will surprise and delight in equal measure.  And when you need a time out, there’s always a drink somewhere close by (snacks, did I mention snacks yet?).  The challenge as I said up thread is seeing it all.

• Introducing the all-new. Our development team are extra keen to see what’s new.  I find it fascinating to see things we’ve been talking about as trends and concepts become real products and tools that we can use (donor journeys are good example here – we used to do these with bits of string, willpower and a spreadsheet, now we can use marketing automation tools like Pardot and the Marketing Cloud Journey Builder).  But it’s not just the shiny and new that’s interesting, it’s the updates and new features to the familiar that matter too.  There’s often a chance to get your hands on tools and have a bit of a play and a look.  And how are other people using the products and tools?  Case studies offer us inspiration that we can take home and apply when we’re back behind the desk.  We’re quite excited by the non-profit stream this year which includes the NCS Trust and RNIB talking about how they’re using Salesforce apps in really quite clever.  I heard mention of augmented reality  ….  I also heard there may be puppies in the keynote, but might have been wishful thinking.

• People, people, people. Salesforce community is more than a product. Salesforce attracts great people and you can meet these people – be they Salesforce staff and partners, fellow Salesforce users, people checking it out but not using it yet, super-admins, developers and the tech teams that build and work with the tool.  The enthusiasm you will feel from the community around the cloud will leave you feeling charged up and ready to roll. If the idea of networking gives you a bit of a cold shiver, panic not.  You have never met a friendlier bunch of people and pretty much everyone is up for having a chat.

We’re all registered and ready for May 19^th at Excel and looking forward to seeing you there too.

PS One final reason just from me.  Last year, I got to meet SaaSy – the no software cloud – in person. You’ve made it as far as I am concerned when you’ve got a picture with Sassy for your social feed and I need to better last year’s pic !