Don Fluckinger: Hi I'm Don Fluckinger, senior news
writer for TechTarget and I cover the technologies
of customer experience. And I'm here with Liz
Miller of Constellation Research. Thanks for
joining us today, Liz.
Liz Miller: Oh, hey, thanks for having me Don.
Don Fluckinger: Our topic today is reaction to the
Dreamforce keynote, which we both just watched
today. What do you think of that whole experience?
Liz, they seem to be very long on vision and short
on product news.
Liz Miller: Yeah. You know, I don't you know, I
yeah, I think it was very long on vision. But that
is what the Salesforce dreamforce keynote is all
about. Right? For those of us who have experienced
it live, it's a party. It's pompoms. It's the
inflatable beach balls being tossed around the
event. Every once in a while. Wild, crazy
protester wanting to shout at mark, right. So
every once in a while, you get those moments kind
of a slap today. So that was a bummer. But I think
that's what we've come to expect from Salesforce.
We expect that opportunity for Salesforce to throw
the biggest party as a giant thank you for their
friends and family. So I think Salesforce is
trying to rethink how they present content. We see
that in Salesforce plus. I, I agree with you that
there were probably weren't the big, like, boom,
here's a whole new cloud announcement from sales.
Right? Right. Like it was like, here's the
stainability Cloud, which is cool. Like, I'm like,
Hey, I'm, I'm here to save the planet. Like
that's, that's cool. That's great. But it wasn't
like a here's the CEO cloud like BOOM!
Don Fluckinger: Last year, Marc Benioff did his
keynote alone. And he said it both in the keynote
and an earnings call the day before. This is not
the dreamforce we wanted, but this is a dreamforce
we've got and he was like so bummed out. And...
Liz Miller: He needed a hug! I think I actually
tweeted that, Don, like last year, I took a
screenshot I was like, Is it just me? Or does
anyone else feel like Marc Benioff needs a hug? It
was it was cold and rainy. I don't know if you
remember the right out alone in a street in a
manmade forest. Right. And they had like the
inflatable characters, and it was like, Marc was
just like, this isn't what we wanted. Right? We
got it was so like, wow, this is really like some,
Could Brett Please clap. Just give mark a hug.
Because this is getting sad. And you know what,
this year, and I tweeted this again this morning,
too. When I was watching it. I'm like, if this
isn't Marc Benioff in his natural habitat, right,
with a front row of people with the pom-poms,
like, like with a blocked off street and, you
know, fans to just build off that energy. I don't
know what it is, like, if he's in a zoo. That's
his zoo. Like that's his habitat.
Don Fluckinger: And I feel like that's why they
did -- they went through all the hoops of bringing
just 1000 people it's not 180,000 that we're used
to seeing, but they got they got this, this quorum
to make Marc Benioff you know, feed off that
audience reaction. It was just enough to get him
going.
Liz Miller: Yeah, but I think the whole company
kind of feeds off of that, like if you think it's
part of their culture, they feed off of the
excitement of the people who use them and love
them the most, right? And there's nothing wrong
with that, to be honest with you like feeding off
the joy of the community isn't it's kind of why
you invest in a community to begin with.