I didn’t know what to expect going into the inaugural Salesforce MVP Summit, held in San Francisco this past month. After all, I’d only just been inducted into the program this year. 2013 marked a sharp increase in recognition and support of the MVP program from salesforce.com and from Marc Benioff himself. Heading into the summit, we were all very excited as we knew it was going to be an engaging event. We still had no idea what they had in store for us. 

There are better minute-by-minute recaps out there from my fellow MVP’s, but what I was most impressed with was salesforce.com’s dedication to it’s own message—being a Customer Company or, as we call it at Bluewolf, being customer-obsessed. The message salesforce.com has preached since February is that the customer is now more knowledgeable, empowered, and connected than ever, and a company’s survival and profitability absolutely depends on being in tune with the wants, needs, and complaints of its customers. Salesforce.com defines MVP’s as “exceptional individuals within the Salesforce community for their leadership, knowledge, and ongoing contributions.” In his summit keynote, Peter Coffee—VP of Platform, referred to the MVPs as “the people who know too much.” Salesforce.com put some of its most knowledgable, empowered, and connected customers in a room with executives, product managers, and development teams for what amounted to a no-holds-barred, no secrets, nothing is off the table conversation—and we dished. Sure, there was lots of applause and love and approval, but there was also a lot of frank talk about what needs improvement, what recent enhancements were total failures, and which areas of the company fell short of expectations. They listened and took the punches on the chin and responded honestly. Maybe most importantly, I feel they will use this feedback to inform and validate (at least partially) future roadmaps and decisions.

The thing I was next most impressed with is that salesforce.com really knows how to throw an event. Fun and informative, and with access to so many team members in a variety of roles, they really hit the right mix. The Omni hotel was top notch and it was nice to experience non-Dreamforce San Francisco for once. Everywhere we turned, there was a new food spread and more swag. It was quality, it was classy, it was well-organized, and everything ran on time. 

Also, the rest of you MVP’s are #awesome. Great to meet you all in person after following your blogs and twitters for so long, and my hat’s off to Matt Brown and Erica Kuhl for making this happen.