Tonight’s Fireside Chat between Marc Benioff and Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer didn’t go quite to plan. ZDNet reports that the start time was evidently pushed 30 minutes due to Mayer’s later arrival, leaving Benioff scrambling with impromptu interviews with executives sitting in the front row. From a spectators point of view, he navigated the delay with grace, however, half way through Mayer’s interview, the session was halted when protester emerged from the crowd. By happenstance, the protestors walked right by my seating section, holding a sign and chanting, “Walmart Striker’s Revolution.” After some quick research I learned that Marissa Mayer serves on the Board of Directors as at Walmart. The intruders were quickly escorted out of Moscone South and the incident was over in a matter of minutes. After a few tense moments, Benioff made a joke about the protestors and the Fireside Chat was back on track. 

Benioff and Mayer’s discussion revolved around four topics: user experience, mobile, employee engagement, and leadership. Below are a few notes on each:

User Experience

• It’s all about the user. If you’re not focused on an attractive, simple, intuitive, and interactive product, your organization is doomed.
• Build products for expert users—and make them easy to master. Mayer points to the 98% use case of Xerox: their fax machines are incredibly complex and powerful, but most people will only use the ‘green button.’ You must design for both users. 
• Balance design and user experience. Mayer warned not to overemphasize design from the outset, but rather to incorporate design strategy into the overall process.

Mobile 

• Mobile-first. Yahoo! has adopted a mobile-first mentality,  meeting their users in their preferred environment.
• Ride the mobile wave. Mayer sees mobile as an opportunity to execute a complete platform renovation.

Employee engagement & transparency

• "Dogfooding.” If your own employees don’t use your products, how do you expect others to? Create a program of internal usage and measure feedback.
• The Board v. Employees. Mayer shared that she presents the same slides in board meetings as company-wide calls. This transparency helps creates alignment top-to-bottom throughout the organization.
• "Water finds a way.” Another Mayer quote, this emphasizes that instead of being resistant to change, executives should listen to their employees, who often have a better grasp on the products and company. If you do not set up a system for continuous internal feedback, you’re likely to experience employee attrition and fail to capture innovative ideas.

Leadership

• The CEO clears the way. An executive’s job is to play defense, their team plays offense. The CEO clears the path, does the blocking and allows their team to succeed. 

Stay tuned for more live blogs from Dreamforce ’13!