London's Calling 2019: Europe's largest Salesforce community event.

Now I know why this event sells out every year.

Nestled in London there is a venue called CodeNode which is pretty much purpose-built for having a software conference like this. It has accommodations for 6 parallel sessions, a large keynote room, a bar, a sponsor area, everything you might want. It is modern, clean, bright, and just has a great feeling about it. The team that pulls off this event Francis Pindar, Kerry Townsend, Jodi Wagner, Todd Halfpenny, Louise Lockie, Amanda Beard-Neilson, and undoubtedly others, utilizes this space and pulls off the event like a well-oiled machine. Somehow they make it look easy—trust me I know it's not.

There were more sessions that I could possibly absorb, but luckily they were live streamed and the recordings will be available soon. More importantly this conference gave me the opportunity to meet some extremely interesting people and have deep discussions with them. 

The Salesforce community is global, and London is an important hub on the other side of the pond. Some of these folks I have met in the San Francisco Bay area, but many I had not. Going there and experiencing the community really helped me to connect with and understand the Salesforce community in the UK. The people I talked to were super friendly, diverse, innovative, and driven. There were also a lot of unexpected connections back to the Bay Area. It gave me inspiring, new perspectives.

I presented a session on building apps that leverage the Streaming API. This was really fun, as I was able to use my phone to "remote control" the app we were looking at on the desktop. If you want a solution for Streaming API with LWC give it a look. Here are the slides and GitHub repo:

Besides the nearly 50 sessions of great content, there were these additional highlights for me:

1. The speaker’s dinner the night before. This gave a chance to get acquainted with the venue, a big plus for a first-time attendee.
2. Phil Walton of Cloud Galacticos upped the ante with his “people you should meet” campaign. This time he had cartoon stickers made of 10 of the attendees! This was a fun game, and I got to meet a lot of people who came up and asked me for my sticker to fill their card. 
3. Pies! For lunch they served meat and veggie pies with mushy peas, mash, and gravy. This was an authentic, English treat.
4. It was Salesforce's 20th anniversary on this very same day!
5. Anastasia Dedyukhina, author of Homo Distractus, gave us a valuable closing keynote about how to take back control of our life in a digitally distracted world. She explained the current problem with distractions such as social media, and how we can regain our happiness, productivity, empathy, creativity, and more. A fascinating conversation ensued at the after party!
6. No trip to London would be complete without seeing the local sights. Huge thanks to Radhika Bansal for giving Sikha Baid and I a tour of the city!

Lastly, I want to thank my company, Robots & Pencils for supporting me in my trip to this conference. They are committed to acquiring and retaining the best talent in the world, and they understand the value of being a part of the Salesforce ecosystem. I am grateful and blessed for their support.

The Salesforce community is pure magic. Stay tuned to see where I turn up next!