Navigators On the Road: Midwest Dreamin’ 2024

Midwest Dreamin’ celebrated its 10th anniversary last week in Minneapolis, and I was happy for the opportunity to join in on the fun! There are now a bunch of Salesforce Community Conferences on the annual calendar, but this one holds the distinction of being the longest-running, and being closest geographically to my hometown of Des Moines, Iowa.

I attended Midwest Dreamin’ two years ago, when it was my first time at a Salesforce conference, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I remember being particularly surprised at all of the vendors set up between session break-out rooms, with plenty of staff on hand to explain the many advantages and best use cases of their unique solutions. This year I was better prepared, and even knew a few vendors in advance, like Apsona and FormAssembly. There was still a steady buzz of conversation around each of the tables, although I admit that I am more comfortable learning from the scheduled sessions than from impromptu vendor drop-ins.

One aspect that was new this time was that I was not just an attendee; I was chosen a few months ago to be a speaker! During my session, I shared some Tales from My Salesforce Job Search Journey. After a State of Iowa government reorg last year, I was let go from my position, and chose to search for a new Salesforce-specific role as a consultant. I learned a lot along the way, about the latest technology for conducting interviews and testing applicants’ technical skills, about how to stay positive and continue to learn even when I lost the regular structure of a standard work week, and about how to look for the less-publicized positions to give me a better chance of standing out from the other applicants. I thought it would be worthwhile to share some of that knowledge with any others who were in a similar position, or considering looking for a new role. Based on the attendance and positive feedback I received, I think I was right! And I appreciated the effort that the conference organizers put into prepping, supporting and thanking speakers.

The biggest difference was that this time I was with a whole different set of people. I got to meet the two founders of my organization in person, after working with them for the past three months. Dustin Cole and Hayley Tuller are just as fun and knowledgeable as I expected, but it’s a more intense experience when we’re together all day long for a few days instead of collaborating on work-focused video conference calls for an hour or so at a time. I also learned that they’re the most-likely-to-close-down-the-party kind of people, with plenty of energy left for a happy hour or two with clients and vendors and fellow conference-goers. This must go along with working for a fully-remote organization; we do our in-person work-based socializing and networking in concentrated bursts! And having a fellow Navigator in my passenger seat meant I had better navigational assistance for driving around downtown Minneapolis than I usually have with my teenage sons, even if we did wind up seeing the same fire station (with some great-looking native plants!) a few more times than planned. One of those wrong turns was definitely my fault.

All the opportunities to learn new things and meet new people are what make conferences worthwhile to me. I think the sweet spot is when you find a session with information you didn’t know, but that wasn’t beyond your capacity to absorb and implement. I found a couple of great sessions, starting with how to implement Experience Cloud for a nonprofit organization that needed a quick turnaround on being able to accept applications and award grants, presented by Ally Anderson of Harborcoat Consulting and Madeleine Lee of Action for Healthy Kids. I ended the day with another great session on how to use outcomes-based reporting in Nonprofit Cloud, by Jamie Van Nostrand and Lou Bialon-Crane from RSM US. Skye Tyler’s session on using Data Fetcher with reactive components in Flows was more of a stretch, but it’s energizing to be in a roomful of Salesforce enthusiasts who are excited to follow along with an interesting demo about a fictional dog adoption use case. I already have plenty of experience with improving and maintaining data quality, but I attended a session or two on the topic anyway, primarily to get ideas for potential future presentation proposals. Then I was able to share some ideas with the group, and make a few more connections with others who are just getting started with using Salesforce and hadn’t yet heard of a Zeros dashboard.

I enjoy being surrounded by other people who enjoy learning, and are excited to share what they know, whether it’s about databases, or nonprofits, or just some great book recommendations. If you enjoy that stuff too, then consider joining me at the next Midwest Dreamin’ conference, which is already scheduled for July 16-18, 2025!