The bags are almost packed.  I’m nearly ready to go.  Before I pack up the laptop for the trip, I thought I’d pass along some info on where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing at Dreamforce, just in case you’d like to find me among our newest 15,000+ friends.

New Attendee Orientation

Tuesday night at 5 PM in N134 is the New Attendee Orientation led by Tom Wong.  I’m going to be giving a few tips to the new attendees there and if you haven’t been to Dreamforce before, you really should plan to attend this session.  I’m not saying you should attend on account of me, it’s all the other stuff you’ll get out of it that I guarantee will be worth the effort to be there.

The Dreamforce TweetUp

Held in the Expo Tuesday at 6 PM, there will be a meeting of a whole bunch of Twitterers who have never seen each other in person before.  I’m excited because though I’ve been on Twitter for more than 2 years, it’s only in the last year that I’ve found it to be an invaluable business resource.  Yes, I said a business resource.  Come find out why Twitter is home to slew of activity about the Salesforce community.  If you don’t use or understand Twitter, stop by and see why you should consider trying it out.

Wednesday AM Keynote

Without a doubt, this is the keynote everyone goes to see.  I’ll be seated in the Press/Blogger section, madly Tweeting away.

“Increasing Speed to Value with the AppExchange”

Wednesday evening at 6 PM, I’ll be in the Campground Theater giving a half hour talk / Q&A about AppExchange apps that give some great value at no or low cost.

Speakeasy in the Cloud

My blog sponsor, Appirio, is pretty well known for the parties that they’ve thrown at the last few Dreamforce events and this year will be no exception to that.  This year, it’s being held at the Old San Francisco Mint.  If you don’t have an invitation to this event, there’s a waiting list you can add yourself to.

Birds of a Feather

Thursday at lunchtime, I’ll be found in the Insurance Industry area of the lunch room, specifically meeting with other Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliates who use Salesforce.  I’m really looking forward to meeting those folks.

Cloud Crawl

Salesforce threw a mighty fine gig at Temple nightclub last year and once again, I’m going back.  This one is Thursday night and will likely be a pretty late night.

“There’s an App for That; Boost Sales with the AppExchange”

This is a Sales track breakout session Friday at 9:00 that I’ll be on a panel for.  I’m sharing the stage with some great sales people who have found some incredible value from the AppExchange apps they use.  Come find out what those apps are.

Between all that stuff, I’ll be attending breakout sessions, stopping by as many of the Expo exhibitor booths as I can and hitting some other parties from great companies like Model Metrics, Informatica, Reside, InsideView, Genius, and others.  To add more content to the blog in the coming weeks and months, I’ve got numerous interviews planned with some interesting executives.  You’ll hear more about those later.

And now, I’m off to finish zipping up the suitcase and get some sleep.  If I’ve never met you before, I hope to meet you this year at Dreamforce.  If we’ve met before, it’ll be great to see you again.  And if you’re not able to make it to Dreamforce this year, fear not.  You can put Dreamforce 2010 on your calendar right now.  It’s December 6-9, 2010 and it’s once again in San Francisco.  I look forward to making your acquaintance there.

Anyone who knows me reasonably well knows I’m a Disney fanatic.  Whether it’s my coffee cup, my Goofy winter hat, reading blogs about it or going to the theme parks each year, I enjoy Disney all the time.  Their theme for 2009 has been “What will you celebrate?”  The goal is to get people in the park to celebrate anything; a birthday, wedding, anniversary, first tooth, or whatever.  This past summer, my wife and I went to Disneyland for our first trip without kids.  That was celebration enough, but since it was over my birthday, I got in the park free that day.  ($72 is worth celebrating if you ask me)

I felt inspired to take Disney’s question and adapt it to Dreamforce 09 in San Francisco this year.  I want to ask you, “What will you take home this year?”  While the trinkets and booth giveaways are great fun, that’s not what I’m talking about.  (Though I would like to thank Manticore for giving me a pen last year that has become my favorite)  What I want to know is what inspiration are you going to take home?  What seed of change is going to be planted in you that you’ll bring home and begin transforming your organization?

The inspiration for this question came from a video created by Jenna Baze (@Rather_Geeky) for the Dreamforce video contest this year.  Her premise; “Send me to Dreamforce so I can get my nickname back.”  She explained how she gained nicknames like AJ (Awesome Jenna) and Ozzie (Wizard of Oz) over the past year and half for the wizardry she did with Salesforce.  Business has changed though and maybe the systems haven’t changed to keep up with demand.  Jenna wants to go to Dreamforce to be inspired, learn a ton, and return to claim her nicknames back.

Jenna’s story is exactly why so many people need to attend Dreamforce.  I know in tough economic times, it’s hard to justify travel, time off work, and the cost of entrance to the conference.  Ironically, it’s in the toughest of economic times that people should be investing in sending people like Jenna to Dreamforce.  The insight gained, the connections made, the skills attained all add up to what I believe is one of the greatest returns on your Salesforce investment the whole year.

So while it’s great to hope for the nifty laser pen or the flying monkey to take home, there’s much more to be gained at Dreamforce than just that “stuff.”  Think about what you could bring home from Dreamforce that won’t run out of ink or batteries.  Think about what you can do to become a hero at your organization.  The ideas are there for the taking.  You in?

Interested in checking out Dreamforce 09 in San Francisco but tough times have you strapped for cash getting there?  The Dreamforce planning team has the answer for you.  It’s a contest they’re running on YouTube until September 25 and three lucky winners will be winning a fantastic VIP package that includes

• Entrance to the Dreamforce Conference
• Hotel Accomodations for 3 Nights
• $1,000 Voucher for Travel Expenses
• Front Row Seats for Keynotes
• Lunch with Marc Benioff and Colin Powell
• A Backstage Pass for “The Band”

This is a new thing this year and I’m anxious to see all the videos that get submitted.  It’s all happening on YouTube so head on over there and watch Tom and Jeanine describe the contest, click Video Response, and submit your reason why you want to come to Dreamforce.  It sounds pretty easy.  Good luck!

Dreamforce is the annual user conference of Salesforce.com, and even though it doesn’t start for another seven months, now is the time for a great deal on passes to this year’s conference.  The dates for Dreamforce 09 are November 17-20 this year, and it’s held in San Francisco.

Just contact your Salesforce Account Executive before the middle of July when registration for Dreamforce officially begins and you can pick up passes for just $599 each, half off last year’s regular price of $1,199.  I have to say that even at $1,199, it’s a great bargain for all the information you can take in, all the people like you that you can connect to, and all the insight into the next features coming to a cloud near you.

Unsure if you want to go or if you’d get anything out of it?  Check out some of the keynote sessions from last year and any of the 250 breakout sessions held last year.  I haven’t heard much of any details about the conference yet, except that they’re expecting 11,000 people this year, and they’ve changed which days of the week the conference is held.  I’ll certainly give you more info as I get it.  WIll you be one of those 11,000?  I hope so.  The experience is truly worth it.