Imagine a table full of the following Salesforce aficionados: Geraldine Grey, Brad Gross, Steve Molis, Angela Mahoney and Larry Latimer. We were enjoying some frosty brews as we celebrated a successful SnowForce 2015 Community Event in Salt Lake City, Utah. As you can imagine with that combination of people, we could only be up to (no) good! While we worked on our second round of beers, one of us Portlanders asked, “could we do something like this in Portland?” As it turned out, we could, and that is how Forcelandia came into being!
We (Larry and Angela) co-founded the Portland Salesforce Developer Group around a decade ago. We’re passionate about all things Salesforce, and strategically chose to center Forcelandia on the programmatic side of the platform to provide a learning venue for all levels of Developers. We’ve spent years working to open doors for all levels for developers, from those seasoned on the platform to our beloved Adminelopers (Admins who are interested in learning more about force.com development), and view Forcelandia as an extension of our desire to do this.
Our first year kicked off with a keynote from Peter Coffee (whose sage advice included finding a new venue that did not have columns in the middle of the room, but hey – it was a quaint little brewery), speaker Jeff Douglas asking if he could present with a beer in hand (he could) and all leftover food going home to Angela’s chickens (a tradition we carry on today). Our incredible speakers delivered session after spectacular session of topics covering the gamut from Apex to Visualforce pages.
In our 2nd Annual Forcelandia, we doubled the number of participants and did find a place that was column-free when we moved to the historic Kennedy School (also a brewery, because how can we leave those Utah beer roots behind?). Leah McGowen-Hare opened up our event with a memorable talk on overcoming adversity and staying the course. We welcomed speakers from the US, Canada, England, France and Uruguay, and added a third track to cover more content. Celeste Keller and Brandy Colmer also started lending us a hand with this event!
Planning is well under way for our 3rd Annual Forcelandia on August 2nd-3rd, 2017! We are growing into a two day event as we endeavor to keep up with expanding platform offerings, and are thrilled to welcome both Shawna Wolverton, SVP of Product Management at Salesforce, and Principal Trailhead Developer Advocate at Salesforce, Jeff Douglas, as our keynote speakers. Evan Johnson also graciously volunteered to share his expertise with community conferences. Our sessions this year will cover Lightning, mobile, integration, and many other timely topics.
This year, we are offering an add on networking dinner to provide another opportunity to bring everyone together to see what additional magic our Ohana can cook up, because just like that wonderful night in Salt Lake City, good things happen when creative minds get together, and we get the best of the best at Forcelandia.
Please join us for another year of learning, sharing and networking in a smaller environment: ticket sales are officially open for this event!! Hurry and buy your Early Bird tickets at $100 (normal tickets will be $125 once this limited number are gone) and your dinner ticket at the same time for an additional $45 at www.forcelandia.com.