Here is one of my favorite stories from the Tao of Programming to start the week:

There once was a man who went to a computer trade show. Each day as he entered, the man told the guard at the door:

"I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting. Be forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered."

This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully. But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself.

When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes, but nothing was to be found.

On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the guard saying: "I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even better." So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail.

On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his curiosity no longer. "Sir Thief," he said, "I am so perplexed, I cannot live in peace. Please enlighten me. What is it that you are stealing?"

The man smiled. "I am stealing ideas," he said.

Why am I sharing this you might ask? Well, a few weeks ago I attended the eBay Developers Conference where it was very obvious that e-commerce is still a massive space of innovation and opportunity. The e-commerce space has always been facinating, but with the boom of smart phones, tablets, padlets, and what ever other gadget comes our way, the desire and ability to purchase goods is easier than ever. 

Building e-commerce applications on the Force.com Platform is a huge opportunity to tie in, not just storefront (typical e-commerce) activities but ordering, provisioning, invoicing, campaign management and more. 

So back to why the story from the Tao? Tonight we are hosting another of our regular Developer Meetup events. This event is a little different however as our good friends at Paypal are hosting the event and we will be dedicating an entire track to building e-commerce sites with Force.com Sites and the Paypal toolkit for connecting the clouds.

If you are new to the platform, don't worry we haven't forgotten about you either. The other track for the evening is especially designed for folks wanting to get hands with the platform as we give you an overview of Force.com.

Check out the singup page, and we hope to see you there!!