Considering your New Year’s resolutions?  How about “Share my Salesforce Platform knowledge with 100s of other devs”?  The best presentations come from sharing something you are obsessively passionate about.  So, think about the thing you love to geek out on, and put “Present at Dreamforce ’14” on your list, because I want YOU to present at Dreamforce 2014!

If you haven’t presented at Dreamforce, or haven’t even been, let me tell you about 3 developers who had the guts to present at their very first Dreamforce.  Check out their presentations and thoughts on Dreamforce below, and then start thinking about what YOU want to share next year.

KC Shafer, Salesforce MVP

@sfdcaseykcplusplus

What triggered you to submit a session idea for Dreamforce ’13?  I wanted to be a part of Dreamforce, experience something new in speaking in front of that number of people, and share what I thought was a valuable topic for developers.

What was your favorite session at Dreamforce?  Anything in the connected device lab.

What was the most surprising/interesting/unusual thing that happened in your presentation?  How much easier it was than I expected it to be.

Would you present again?  Absolutely, I’m already trying to come up with ideas so I can present again next year.

Anything else you want to share about the experience?  It was a great time, definitely want to be more prepared next year.

Stuart Greenberg, OppenheimerFunds, Inc

@Stu_GuiGumdrops

What triggered you to submit a session idea for Dreamforce ’13? My colleagues suggested I volunteer to present the business aspects of multi-who and multi-what as we applied it in our company. However, when I received an email with a call for papers, I thought a more technical presentation would suit me better. I’ve spoken at conferences before and had a background in stand-up comedy so I liked the idea of presenting at Dreamforce.

What was your favorite session at Dreamforce? There were two presentations that stand out (in addition to the comedy show, of course). The first was from a speaker I already knew from my days at PC Magazine, Dan Appleman. He is a consummate story teller and able to relate technical information in simple terms.

The second presentation was Making Your Apex and Visualforce Reusable by Raleigh Chen. He was very entertaining and had a lot of practical knowledge to pass on.

What was the most surprising/interesting/unusual thing that happened in your presentation?  I was surprised and pleased at the number of people who showed up and were really showing an interest in my presentation. I figured they’d be more burned out by Wednesday afternoon.

I was also surprised that in spite of a bad cough I’d had for weeks including during the dry runs, I didn’t cough during the actual presentation. The expression on my colleagues’ faces when they realized how professional I appeared was worth a lot.

Would you present again?  I’d love to present again. In spite of any nervousness before the event, I love performing for an audience.

Anything else you want to share about the experience?  I think an important factor in the success of the presentation was the process required by Salesforce. The presentation plan and the dry runs were really helpful in organizing and editing the presentation.

Matt Darnall, salesforce.com

@mdarnall

What triggered you to submit a session idea for Dreamforce ’13?  I saw a chatter post that was a call for proposals. I really wanted to speak at a conference this year and dreamforce seemed like a natural fit.

What was your favorite event at Dreamforce?  Greenday concert

What was the most surprising/interesting/unusual thing that happened in your presentation?  Someone got the trivia question before I had actually finished asking it 🙂

Would you present again?  YES.  I had a blast. I did a postmortem on my blog of my experience.

Next Year’s Rookie = YOU?

I’m looking forward to reviewing YOUR session ideas next year!  Please reach out directly if you want to brainstorm ideas: mscotton@salesforce.com, @rockchick322004

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