Today our biggest developer event ever kicks off in full and those who have seen the new DevZone know that it unlike anything Salesforce has ever produced before. Everything has expanded this year: we are occupying more space, we have more sessions, we have more events, we have more material and (of course) we have more developers showing up this year.
What should you know before you roll in this Tuesday?
The Breakout Sessions Are Off To The Races
In some of the preparation prior to today, I’ve heard old axioms like “Dreamforce begins when Marc hits the stage” and that Tuesday is more of a slow roll into the weekend. That would be a dangerous assumption on previous years, but this year you’ll be easily missing out on some of the best sessions of the week. As we’ve mentioned during some of the Dreamforce Hangouts – this year we have such a broad range of topics the agenda is full not only on introductions to various parts of the platform, but a huge portion of deep dives into specific technical areas as well as real-life experiences from partners and developers. If you have not scoped out your day of breakouts, better do it now before those rooms fill completely (and they are filling fast).
A Whole New Library of Workbooks and Mini-Workshops
Developers love being able to get a hold of the printed workbooks at Dreamforce, and this year we are offering not only a full set of updated material – we are taking the whole learning experience to a new level by offering a range of Mini-Workshops to gibe those who have been wanting to get a jump start on the Salesforce Platform the kind of experience you can really only find at Dreamforce. Social, casual, free and informal – Mini-Workshops are broken down into sections with a brief introduction followed by 30-45 minute tutorials. Learn the Salesforce Platform piece by piece as you build your own application in the cloud with the assistance of fellow developers and Salesforce staff. The workshops will be held multiple times over the span of Dreamforce, allowing people to learn the components of the platform when it fits into their schedule.
The Stadium Kicks Off
All Hunger Games jokes aside (again, see the previous Dreamforce Hangout), the Touch Stadium is going to offer a brand new venue for highlighting parts of the Salesforce Platform. Developers who enter the stadium will be showing off code samples and at times be battling it out with other developers to try and showcase competing technologies at the same time. It will offer developers a much different perspective on creating applications than the standard session format in a less formal, more interactive atmosphere. If you aren’t trying out the new tutorials, meeting partners, and on your way to a great breakout session – swing by the stadium to see some code on a completely different kind of stage.
To follow the events of the day and keep pace with everything DevZone 2012, follow #devzone on Twitter.