Last week, the UK hosted Agentforce World Tour – two back-to-back conference days in place of just one, bringing Salesforce’s much-loved TDX event to London for the first time.
It’s also the first time these distinct conferences have come together as a combined event. What did the community make of this new dynamic – is it a winning formula? And do they think that TDX will be back in London again next year?
Two for the Price of One?
So not literally – both events were free to attend after all. Two days to learn, connect, and upskill feels like a bonus, but did those who came along to both conference days see real value in back-to-back events? And on the flip side, it would be interesting to understand what motivated attendees to attend one day over the other – a naturally smaller target audience of ‘builders’, a simple case of capacity and logistics, or a lack of interest and/or perceived value.
“I like that it’s two days – I could go and see all the keynote stuff and just get an overall [view] for the first day. I remember from last year leaving, seeing things on LinkedIn and thinking: ‘Oh, I didn’t ask, I didn’t see those people’. This has given me the opportunity to do more of a deep dive [this year]. [TDX] has been slightly quieter, which is more conducive to learning, sitting, concentrating – which has meant I’ve actually been able to go to a reasonable amount of sessions, which I never usually do. [Usually] I sit in on the sessions, but I don’t retain anything.”
– Kerry Townsend, Salesforce Consultant
“Having a TDX session is good. The community here really likes the kind of session where you can walk away with actionable items, tangible things where you can go: ‘Right, on Monday here’s my list. What am I going to start researching?’ Rather than just: ‘I pitched this idea and it’s the art of the possible – wonderful. But what about my customers right now?”
– Todd Halfpenny, Salesforce Technical Architect
“There’s always a vibrant community. You get to see that a lot when you come to events like this. To be fair, it’s not just TDX and World Tour, but the Nonprofit Community Sprint this week – a lot of people from the ecosystem are coming and putting in work to help other organizations, particularly nonprofits and education, to really develop solutions that help them in the future. So coming to stuff like this is really good – you just get involved.”
– Mark Jones, Salesforce Consultant
“I loved World Tour because it was huge, grand, and was so much about networking. And I love the fact that at TDX, I have the time to deep dive, to sit in on sessions, to actually do some hands-on work, because yesterday I didn’t get a chance, aside from the keynote.”
– Maya Weintraub, Principal Programme Director
There’s a real sense of ‘getting stuck in’ at TDX – getting your hands on something real and coming away with more knowledge and skills than you had when you arrived. Community is another sentiment that comes up time and time again – the opportunity to connect with people in real time, receive much-needed context, and collaborate in person.
Perhaps, with a two-day event, these opportunities are more pronounced, with less urgency to squeeze in meaningful conversations between sessions.
“I think one of the challenges for these last two days – which I’ve loved having here – has been the fact that people didn’t really understand what World Tour was and what TDX was. I think [Salesforce] is trying to put two events together without actually putting them together.
“Personally, I think that attendance at TDX has been less than people would anticipate. I think that’s because people didn’t understand what was on what day, and so most came yesterday because it was a traditional World Tour day and can’t necessarily take two days out of the office. I’m not convinced that having them together is the greatest thing to do. I think they need to review that.”
– Louise Lockie, Salesforce Consultant
It feels like this Agentforce World Tour has been a game of two halves. Is finding its true ‘identity’ part of the challenge going forward? Attendance numbers will tell part of the story, with audience feedback (in terms of the perceived value) filling in those all-important gaps.
It will be interesting to see Salesforce’s stance following this initial event. Is combining the two conferences an exercise in logistics? After all, by booking two consecutive days, you already have your audience in one place. If that’s the reality, the overall messaging or driving force behind the event may lack a little cohesion.
Top-Notch Community Sessions
Inevitably, it’s the sessions that do the talking at hands-on events like TDX, which gives the builders of the ecosystem a unique chance to explore and experiment in real time. Here’s what attendees had to share in terms of their top sessions.
“The highlights have been the quality of the sessions, as always. The sessions driven by the community themselves are the most powerful ones because it’s the real problems that people are seeing and sharing with each other. Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in marketing messages from the top down, which was the World Tour side of the two-day event. But here at TDX, it’s all about learning, sharing, and empowering everyone else.”
– Rob Cowell, DevOps Advocate
“Some key takeaways are the talks about governance and security on Agentforce, because some people I’ve been speaking to have said that was missing initially. Pieces around data cleansing, which has just focused on the core elements of really focusing on your use case and what’s relevant for that particular use case – take those wins and then build momentum. I went to a consumption session, which was useful, but left me with a number of questions.”
– Kerry Townsend, Salesforce Consultant
“I really enjoyed an early session at TDX: Salesforce Channels for Slack. The new features are rolling out – it’s really good to see how it’s going to work. Some of the potential pipeline ideas and how you can link it to things like quick actions and work with your Salesforce records directly in Slack in a way that we haven’t been able to do since it was purchased all those years back.
“I think Salesforce Channels in particular is a really good step in the right direction. When Slack was first purchased, a lot of good stuff happened, but then it kind of all quietened down a little bit, and now we seem to be going back to where we were 2-3 years ago, when a lot of innovation was happening. I think we’re in a good place for Slack.”
– Mark Jones, Salesforce Consultant
“I have to say I’m not a very hands-on practitioner. So I love the fact that they have recurring sessions on what Agentforce is from scratch. What are the capabilities? I also enjoyed the Hackathon, and I did a hands-on creation of an agent myself. It made me sit and do it – at home, I would probably do other things.”
– Maya Weintraub, Principal Programme Director
“I quite enjoyed the roadmap session on Nonprofit Cloud. It was good to get a glimpse of the working machine that is Salesforce and understand where they’re taking the product in the next three, six, 12 months. I also attended a community campfire by Emma Keeling – her ‘warts and all’ story about how she went from an accidental admin to an MVP. I think that was really great because, ultimately, it left me feeling like, if she’s able to do it, anyone else can do it if they forge the right path. That was a big takeaway.
“Another key takeaway: agents are great for automating manual actions and repeatable tasks, but we need to design with agents responsibly, and we need to ensure our agents aren’t biased against particular groups of the community. I wish I had a magic answer to actually define what that means and how you can stop that, but it is definitely something I’m thinking about now as a result of the past two days – how to make sure that agents aren’t making decisions based on bias.”
– Tom Bassett, Salesforce Solutions Architect
Will TDX Return to London?
There certainly seems to be an appetite for a hands-on event of this scale in the UK. It goes without saying that the flagship TDX event in San Francisco isn’t the most accessible in terms of attracting a global audience, and hosting a TDX event in London opens things up in Europe.
While the number of attendees was significantly smaller on day two of Agentforce World Tour (perhaps an anticipated drop due to the nature of the event), there were plenty of positives to take away.
So will TDX be back next year, and if so, what shape might it take?
“Maybe. I don’t know Salesforce’s view. It would be nice to have something like this. Whether it’s a two-day event or a split thing, I don’t know – but I’ve really enjoyed it so far.”
– Todd Halfpenny, Salesforce Technical Architect
“There’s a different vibe between the two events. It’s the first time for TDX here in London. It’s a lot smaller than the original TDX in San Francisco, but I think that and say: we want bigger, we want more! We suck this stuff up. We absolutely love it. And more plushies, and stickers, and badges, and all the great things that we love about being in the Salesforce community.”
– Rob Cowell, DevOps Advocate
Take note, Salesforce – swag!
“I caught up with a lot of community members. It’s been lovely to see a number of the US community team, product managers, and influencers [come] over, which you don’t usually get for just a World Tour. I hope they do [TDX]. I hope the limited number of people does not deter them. I really enjoyed it.”
– Kerry Townsend, Salesforce Consultant
“I feel like the atmosphere between day one and two is completely different. Day one was super packed with lots of people everywhere. Day two has a much chiller vibe. I don’t know if it’s because developers are more chill than everybody else! It does seem like two parallels – two completely contrasting events that just happen to be on chronological days.”
– Tom Bassett, Salesforce Solutions Architect
“Personally, I’ve had a wonderful couple of days. My sessions have been very well received, which obviously is good for me, and it’s been great seeing people. I think for people who don’t get over to the States as much, to San Francisco, this is a little slice and insight into that, which I think is good.
“I think [what’s] putting people off, and I think it might have contributed to the lower numbers today, is that it’s all about Agentforce. There isn’t any beginner content here. [TDX] assumes a lot of knowledge, which I guess is the TDX thing, but we still want people to learn. There are still junior developers out there that are not ready for Agentforce.
“I will have opportunities to give this feedback, and I will give it, because I want there to be more of these. I want more technical content, but I think [Salesforce] just need to manage it a bit better to attract the right audience for people to feel that they understand what they’re attending. We’re not all ready for Agentforce, and even if we are, there’s still all the rest of the org that we have to manage and all the other skills we have to upskill.”
– Louise Lockie, Salesforce Consultant
Final Thoughts
To quote the survey promo ads dotted around the conference: feedback is a gift. Salesforce have asked for meaningful feedback, and while not everything can be actioned overnight, the sentiment that feedback is not only welcomed but proactively encouraged has been reassuring to see.
As the first of its kind, it’s been useful to hear attendees’ thoughts about the Word Tour/TDX combo – Salesforce will certainly want to know what’s gone down well, and what can be improved for next time. As far as first impressions go, there has been a lot of positivity. And while there will be some inevitable fine-tuning to do ahead of a potential ‘sequel’, a community that is actively providing feedback is a community that is engaged and invested in its future.
The force in the Salesforce ecosystem is strong – as always, it’s community feedback that fuels innovation.
