Dreamforce 2013 is right around the corner, and I’m excited to say that you, dear reader, will have plenty of opportunity to dive as deep as you like into the Internet of Things. In case you haven’t been paying attention, the Internet of Things is pushing an unprecedented wave of innovation straight at all of us. Dreamforce 2013 is a great place for you to get your bearings on this new trend and to add critical new skills to your developer toolkit.
Whether you’re a hacker, a maker, a techno-fashionista, an enterprise developer
checking out a new set of skills or an executive looking for inspiration, we have something for you, so keep reading. If you’d like to add something to this list, or maybe you have a question, contact me ASAP.
Introducing The Connected Device Lab
If you’re looking to get hands on with IOT technologies (and most developers should be), the Connected Device Lab is the place for you. Located on the second floor of Moscone West, the Lab will be well stocked with structured workshops, open lab time and great equipment. The lab is brand new for Dreamforce 2013!
Structured workshops currently include (links are to the Dreamforce org, registration required):
- Up and Running with the ARM mbed (update! added a second session)
- Hands-On Workshop: Build a Connected Product Solution (and a second session)
- Real Time Crowd Analysis with the Raspberry Pi
- Hardware Hacking 101: Introducing the Arduino (update! added a second session)
- 3d Printing 101 (update! added a second session)
- Rapid Assembly of IOT Applications with ThingWorx
- Getting Started with the Electric Imp
- Sphero, Artoo, Cylon.js & Force.com: Fun with Everyday Robotics (just added!)
- Incubation in Action: Devices on the Salesforce Platform
More workshops are on the horizon — stay tuned.
Open lab times will generally be the last couple of hours of every day, one exception is Wednesday morning. We’ll have several experts on hand to help you get to know the equipment, and plenty of reference material to spark some ideas as well.
Lab equipment inventory includes:
- Arduino Experimentation Kits
- Raspberry Pi Starter Packs
- Adafruit FLORA GPS and Sensor Packs for DIY Tech Fashion
- Red Lasers for … well, because LASERS
- Extra high quality servos, liquid pumps and flow sensors
- Three types of robot kit, the BoeBots, the Wild Thumper and the J-Bot
- Plenty of XBee radios
- Extra sensors, pieces & parts galore
- For anyone who has ever referred to members of a certain profession as being “coin operated”, we will have a coin acceptor for you to use in the creative project of your choice.
- And — of course — popsicle sticks, glue dots and corks so you can add a little flair to your creations
We will also have a large number of fun Internet Of Things related products designed to spark some creativity in you. These include LEGO Mindstorms EV3s (yes, Andy will be stopping by), SmartThings Starter Packs, Nest Thermostats, Roominate DIY Doll Houses, Ninja Blocks, Leap Motion Controllers and Phillips Hue Starter Packs.
And if you want to have the most fun anyone can have with four bananas and a couple of alligator clips, be sure to come by and checkout the Makey Makey. It will blow your mind. Connect it to a Raspberry Pi and use it to control Salesforce and you’ll blow my mind.
//www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=kiUnJ1d8vvw#t=536
Connected Device Lab Partners
The lab is made possible by a great group of partners, each of whom will have additional learning opportunities at their tables. Be sure to stop by!
Our partners include ARM, Xively, ThingWorx, Etherios, 2lemetry, Type A Machines, Axeda, Hybrid Designs, Libelium, Global Cache, Arduino, Grid Connect, All Traffic Solutions and IVM.
I’m not able to share everything these partners will be doing in detail, but there will be lots of fun stuff going on. ARM will be showing off some creative uses of their mbed platform and helping people get started throughout the show. Libelium and Cooking Hacks will have a bunch of their eHealth sensors and Wasp Motes on hand. Etherios will cover their Social Machine and talk about how they’re doing real time shuttle tracking during Dreamforce.
This is just scratching the surface — you absolutely must come by the Connected Device Lab in the DevZone (Moscone West, 2nd Floor) to get a feel for how deep this particular rabbit hole goes.
DevZone Internet of Things Sessions
There are also a number of great sessions in the DevZone that cover Internet of Things related topics.
- Alex Toussaint, Morten Bagai and Reid Carlberg (yeah that’s me) give you a first look at a project in incubation in “Connect Millions of Devices to the Salesforce Platform“
- Tom Gersic gets all nerdy with the OBD-II in “Monitor Your Car from the Cloud: DIY Telematics & the Internet of Things“
- Steve Van Till shows you how improve visitor tracking in “Automate Your Office with Force.com & Brivo Labs“
- Kyle Roche breaks it all down in “Connecting the Internet of Things to Salesforce“
- Jayvin Arora shows you how to connect fitness products to Salesforce in “Drive Customer Success with Connected Products“
- Shoby Abdi knits together a creative approach in “Improve Home Healthcare Outcomes with Force.com & the Internet of Things“
- Dan Harrison applies commercially available tech to modern problems in “Integrate Home and Office Automation Systems with Force.com“
- Adam Justice paints a new vision in “The Office of Things, the Connected Workplace of the Future“
- Etherios shows you how they did it in “Driving the Internet of Things into the Dreamforce App: The Social Shuttle Bus“
- Xively helps us make sense of it all in “Harness Little Data for Big Results with the Internet of Things“
- Pierre Lecointre discusses driver-friendly apps in “Cloud2Car – Force.com and the Internet of Things“
Other Sessions Throughout Dreamforce
Dreamforce is home to a great emerging trends track this year, and many of the sessions are highly relevant to people interested in the Internet of Things.
- Peter Schwartz leads with a keynote “Emerging Trends: Tomorrow Looks Nothing Like Today.”
- Peter Coffee will set the tone at his kickoff “Connecting People is More Than Connecting Devices.”
- Dipen Dhruv will lead a panel called “Current Challenges & Opportunities in the Connected World” featuring leaders from Salesforce, Etherios, ThingWorx, Libelium and Axeda.
- Alex Toussaint and Morten Bagai will help you understand the customer engagement opportunity in “Internet of Things: Connect Your Products, Apps & Customers with Salesforce“.
- Jason DePardo of EMC will present his experience in “Extending the Value of Connected Product Data.”
- Sean Casey talks about accelerating M2M value in “Improving Patient Care with Connected Medical Devices.”
- Girish Jashani will review a case study in “IOT and Salesforce: Driving Business Transformation Together.”
- Charlie Isaacs will help you connect the dots in “Next Generation IOT: Delivered by Salesforce.com.”
- Dipen Dhruv will take you on a guided tour of applications in “Powering the IOT with Salesforce & ThingWorx, from Healthcare to Industrial“
- Pierre Lecointre will talk about apps for your car in “Salesforce for the Car: Real Driver-Focused Productivity.”
- eWorks will share their experience tracking thousands of vehicles in real time in “Salesforce of Things.”
- Chad Jones and David Davies share their food safety monitoring experience in “Unifying Salesforce and Physical Devices: An Internet of Things Customer Study“
- You will learn how to tie it all together in “The Chatter Feed: Integrate Anything, From 3rd Parties to the Internet of Things“
Internet Of Things is BIG at Dreamforce 2013
Over 30 sessions. Great workshops. Dozens of experts. A well-equipped Connected Device Lab.
That’s the rundown of every Internet of Things thing at Dreamforce 2013 which I know about as of today. As you can see, it’s going to be a great show, with lots to talk about in this emerging area.
There’s probably more, so keep your eyes open and drop me a note if you hear of anything I should add to my list. It’s going to be a great show!
See you at Dreamforce!!