It’s Day Two of Dreamforce and we’re off and running again…needing extra coffee this morning after a late night at our Fillmore party, featuring X Ambassadors which was SO. MUCH. FUN. But there are panels to participate in and sessions to check out, so here we go!
We toted our Blue Bottle lattes over to the Marriott first thing in the a.m. to check out Deloitte Digital CMO Alicia Hatch and National Creative Director Nelson Kunkel joined by James Toney, senior vice president of technology and innovation at 20th Century Fox, and Chris Jacob from Salesforce to talk about Data vs. Brand – the Future of Technology in Marketing. The gloves came off as Nelson and Alicia (playfully, and with love) sparred from opposing sides of the fence, with Alicia and Chris squarely in Camp Data and Nelson and James firmly on Team Brand.
Both sides of the debate made great points, with James pointing out that you can use data to understand the opportunity, but constructing the story and understanding value is the most critical element when it comes to winning the consumer. Chris countered with the belief that brand is the North Star, but data drives the decision-making. Each camp made great points, and we left feeling that you need both to really make an impact. We also learned that teens like tacos, even at 7 a.m.
Fan favorite Robert Schmid, Deloitte Digital’s chief technologist and self-described “Mr. IoT,” led a breakout session on Driving Sales with IoT Cloud: Turn Every Connected Device into a Sales Machine. We learned that it requires not just different technology, but different thinking. We need to be thinking big, starting small, and scaling fast.
The big happening of the day was Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff’s keynote. The big theme this year was Artificial Intelligence and IoT using Salesforce Einstein, which is an AI layer built into the Salesforce platform. He also reinforced the importance of Salesforce’s core values of trust, growth, innovation, and equality. Throughout the keynote, he talked with many brands about the work they are doing using Salesforce products.
With a full day of sessions and wrapped up, we headed out to Dreampark to catch U2 play live at Dreamforce’s big party of the week. Thanks Salesforce and U2 for the great show! Check back tomorrow for news and updates from our Deloitte Digital team here on the ground in San Francisco, out in full Dream-force. Don't forget to follow along on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook!