Dreamforce as the World Burns

I attended Dreamforce.

I had the honor of viewing former Vice President Al Gore's 30 minute session on sustainability titled "The Future of Our Planet". Given that the future of our planet could be wrapped up in 30 minutes, I figured the talk would be a little bleak.

I once attended a free 30 self defense class for women in NYC. It consisted of 10 minutes of actual self defense techniques and 20 min of frightening statistics, New York Times articles on rape and murder, and a custom youtube playlist of security camera recordings depicting women getting physically assaulted in broad daylight on the streets of NYC. His talk went a little something like that.?

He discussed the many, many "once in a thousand year" events that we've had over the past few months. The heatwaves in Europe were mentioned, the floods in Pakistan, the hurricanes, fires, melting ice caps, etc. Al Gore strikes me as a smart man, so the fact that he thought at one point in time 'What do people need to hear? What can I say to move the needle' and the answer was 'We should tell them that things are bad and getting worse' is concerning. If we're still trying to convince people that this is pressing, it's too late.

Nay, you mustn't be so pessimistic you say! Well, nobody ever said fear tactics don't work. I left that stadium feeling upset, but overall eager. But after every booth duty, that eagerness died down like it always does, so I rationalize like I always do. There could be a company out there that's using my tool to build an application that's helping! I tell myself this, very well knowing that since I'm a Product Marketer, it's my job to be informed of customer use cases. None of them are remotely close to this fantasy rationalization. I reapply my lipstick and continue talking at my booth.?

About 10 feet in front of me, a tall white male in a suit drops to the floor and begins convulsing. It takes about 3 seconds for conversations to come to a complete stop, for us to process what we're seeing, and react. One person — only one person — screams for help. Suddenly everyone screams. But it took one to break us out of this loop of "This is happening, this is bad, and this bad thing is happening now." Slowly, everyone cautiously crept back into their conversations until it was like nothing ever happened. Chaos for one person in front of us stopped us dead in our tracks, but chaos happening to millions as seen through a phone, we carry on.

I'll take a moment here to address the individual, because I am using my experience as a metaphor, not him. My experience includes holding witness to a very serious event that was inflicted over a real person so to them: I am thinking of you and your well being often. I hope you know how deeply you were and still are cared for by so many people in that room.?

There was a familiar intensity to the combination of panic and complete and utter uselessness I felt in that moment and I worry that I live at the crossroads of those emotions every day. As a twenty something year old human on this planet, how could I live anywhere else? The event passed as quickly as it came and instead of processing, I prepared for a presentation I was giving the next morning. Publicly representing young #latinasintech on a platform temporarily outweighed the need to feel my feelings. So like everyone else, I focused on my own path. I continue to work to one day own a home that won't be swept away by national disaster, to fill it with children without immense guilt. For once, I'd love to finish work and not feel like trash over the fact that I wasn't directly influencing the adoption of nuclear energy today.?

But I continue living in my bubble as the world floods. I reapply my Shiseido sunscreen at least 3x a day as the world burns. And at parties, I have to explain that my toxic trait is endlessly criticizing the few climate solutions we actually have. Al Gore praised our commitment to electric cars, but said nothing about the damage to our ocean floors so we could obtain metals to keep up with demand for said cars (check out The Daily's episode: Promise and Peril at the Bottom of the Sea).?

I've been asked a lot about my first #Dreamforce experience. It was powerful to see passion. I'm so, so incredibly proud to work at a company that cares in a time when so many don't. It's their open dedication to #sustainability, their initiatives, investments, and sustainable products like Net Zero Cloud, that made them intriguing to me in the first place. I suppose I've been asking, am I personally doing enough and I think I already know the answer. Maybe that has nothing or everything to do with this week, but I'm grateful to #Salesforce for providing the opportunity for me to pose the question.?