Collecting gems often involves an adventure, some might even say a quest.
Salesforce World Tour 2023 at the ICC in Sydney this month felt exactly like that.
After navigating airport-esque security, being ushered through the entrance doors, walking down three flights of stairs and entering The Campground, it was like landing in another realm (including Bears, Goats and Einstein roaming around).
A realm complete with its own map and aptly designed for building your own adventure as one navigated the offerings of the day, alongside the thousands of trailblazers, partners, colleagues and customers. The generous amount of things to do ensured there was always something relevant to choose from, including sitting on a campground bench to take a pause if required.
From the sessions, presentations, demos and hands-on learning available to explore, here’s a collection of my top three gems from the event:
1. I was able to listen to several inspiring women throughout the day. This is my favourite gem, as it’s actually several and could be a blog post on its own. I got the amazing opportunity to meet each one of them in person; Pip Marlow, Rowena Westphalen, Taksina Eammo, Rebecca Aichholzer, Vickie Jeffery and Anne Fitisemanu. I walked away from each of their talks feeling uplifted, positively shifted and in appreciation for their humanness within a digital world.
2. Seeing a transformative implementation I was honoured to be a part of with the Arcturious team, up on the big screen during the “How to scale up your customer service (without scaling up your headcount)” discussion with Adam Bouris from who is elijah. Jaime Lee Mervin steered the talk through the informative territory, especially for businesses thinking about whether to use Salesforce and weighing up the investment. A sentence Adam said that really lit up for me was, “the value comes from understanding the costs it will remove from your business”, in their case, also 2x the investment made on day 1. Which can be applied to any investment one might be contemplating.
3. Finding a spot to sit on the faux grass to tune into the invaluable “I wish I knew this earlier” conversation and getting to hear Patrick Westbitt’s morsel of wisdom around the importance of having a North Star, “it allows you to prioritise ruthlessly”. While some might find prioritisation an innate skill, some of us need reminding to be more ruthless with where we express, share and direct our energy and attention.
The list would not be complete without mentioning the pleasure of seeing some of the Salesforce crew, catch up with awesome clients and meet with our partners.
And one more gem that needs particular noting, is Mitch Tambo’s live performance of his song, Heal. Do yourself a favour and play this for your ears.
A special thank you to Allen Madden, Gaigal Elder, for Welcome to Country. And making sure we all remember to laugh.
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