Supermums at Virtual Dreamin’ 2020

The first-ever Virtual Dreamin’ was a global Salesforce Community event held on May 16th and 17th – 24 hours of online sessions, with a format designed to ensure that geographical location would not be a barrier to participation in such an awesome learning opportunity. The founders of Virtual Dreamin’ planned this event long before COVID-19 began to impact our daily lives, but how timely it was! They have set the bar high for forthcoming virtual events, and helped us all see how much we can grow together, without leaving our own homes.

Community events like Virtual Dreamin’ come together because of the passion, dedication and commitment of volunteers in the Salesforce Ohana, along with the support and participation of awesome sponsors, and after such an amazing event, we certainly want to send a lot of thanks and #Trailheart to all of them. This was a free event, and we hope you took advantage of it. Because of the value of this great event, sponsors and participants felt inspired to donate to Mercy Corps to help with COVID-19 relief efforts. We can’t wait to hear how much was raised from this great event! We love it that got to save expense by staying home, not traveling to an event, and still help an important cause.

Supermums’ Brooke Bracy (USA Training Manager) had the opportunity to have two sessions at the event, and was thrilled to see some of our Supermums alumni and volunteers in attendance. If you want to catch those sessions, you will be able to watch them, and all of the other sessions at a later date on the Virtual Dreamin’ YouTube channel. There are already several great videos to check out there, but with time all of the recorded sessions from the event will be added to the channel. Brooke’s two sessions focused on being a multiplier (BAM!) and on business analysis being an essential key to becoming an awesome admin. You may wonder what a multiplier is; according to Sarah Joyce Franklin, a multiplier is someone who amplifies and empowers those around them, which is so well-aligned with our mission at Supermums to empower mums (and others!) into flexible, well-paid work in the Salesforce ecosystem.

We were grateful to see that this session resonated with others in the Ohana. Mani Anand summed up her favourite sessions (which lined up well with some of ours—and we were happy to be included!).

Brooke likes to end this session with a call to post a #thankyoumom tweet if a mom/mum in your life has helped make it possible for you to attend the event (as is often the case for Brooke!)

Virtual Versus In-Person – How does it compare?

In Brooke’s second session, she told why business analysis is the hidden superpower for admins – one of the reasons it is included as an important part of our admin course, and as a key skill in the consultancy skills course!

With the interactive platform Virtual Dreamin’ used to conduct this event, it felt a lot like an in-person event in some ways, you could interact with other attendees, attend fun events like the AppExchange Demo Jam, and feel face-to-face with the presenters. Also, events like this makes event attendance more accessible for a wide variety of reasons. That being said, if our new way of life (or at least our present way of life) is going to move all of our networking and learning activities online, we need to plan accordingly.

• If you would arrange with your spouse or family for ensuring your children are taken care of for an in-person event, you will need to do the same to get the most out of an online event. If that isn’t an option these days, do what you can! For example:
  • Scour through the event schedule ahead of time and know which sessions are “must sees” for you, then make a careful plan about how you can be focused and ready to learn during those sessions.
  • If sessions will be recorded, try to find out if any parts of the event are NOT recorded, and ensure you prioritize attending those.
• They will likely allow Q & A during the session, so think ahead about what questions you may want to ask (and be sure you listen to see if they are likely to answer it during the session).
• Is there anyone you would like to connect with from the event? Attend their session (where they will likely share the best way to connect) and send them a connection request with a brief, but meaningful note about what your takeaway from the session was.

Ultimately, your circumstances and personality or learning type may determine whether you prefer in-person or online events—or a bit of both! But for 2020, let’s make the most of all of the online events coming our way! We hope that all companies are taking from awesome events like this, and the current world situation, that working remotely can absolutely work!

As MVP Bhavana Singh told us:

“If we’ve learned anything from this pandemic, it’s that you don’t have to be in an OFFICE to get work done! The talent you “need” can do their job from any location.”