What persuades 60 people to come out on a cold, icy, transport-disrupted December night? Read on!

The Dutch version of this article can be seen on the Salesforce NL blog. My thanks to Salesforce for their help with the translation. You can view the full English version below.

What persuades 60 people to come out on a cold, icy, transport-disrupted December night? Read on!

Christmas Eve (ok, 12th December actually)

What do you do to warm people up on a cold night? Speed dating obviously! This was no ordinary speed dating however, this was Salesforce speed dating!

For 4 minutes people were asked to describe the best change they’ve ever made (or told someone to make!) on Salesforce, then they had to find someone new, that they hadn’t spoken to previously and spend another 4 minutes discussing a different topic. After a third round they were released from their pains and some got back to playing table football, in the far corner, uninterrupted. The point was simple: we wanted to give people an excuse to talk to each other; people that they never spoken to before, to find new connections and perhaps even to learn a different perspective on Salesforce. All in a 12 minute slot. Well, it would have been 12 minutes, but the person running the activity was enjoying chatting to their partner too much and lost track of time!

Back to the main event: In the crowd you had Salesforce administrators, developers, end-users, consultants and partners; as well as all sorts of family members (couples and parent/child pairings; though no siblings that I know of). Even our host, WeWork, didn’t escape as their employees use Salesforce too: they picked up new knowledge during the evening and won a raffle prize for their efforts.

It was a motley crew, experienced professionals there to share wisdom; some there to problem solve challenges at their workplace; others bought along by either friends, not always knowing why(!); many wishing to get more into the platform, having just started out; and others just wanting to be with their mates. Hopefully everyone had a good time, but next year will be even better of course! You can read the rest of the feedback here.

The past year

The above are just some examples from our All-Netherlands User Groups Christmas party, but there’s plenty more that goes on during “normal” Salesforce user groups. Last week was particularly busy: we also had TrailheadDX examined at the Rotterdam User Group on Thursday, with a partner explaining how it is going to save them hundreds of hours of product testing time. Just this Saturday morning, 18 people (15 women and 3 men) came along to form the inaugural Women In Technology User Group, telling inspiring stories, discussing challenges, and setting the agenda for the next few monthly meetings.

Over the last year we’ve had a reporting masterclass, IoT Cloud demo, Circles of Success, plenty of product demonstrations, international speakers amongst many other activities as well as lots of pizza and curries. We’ve grown from 3 official groups to 7 groups plus 2 Trailhead Saturday groups (where you can hone your Salesforce skills in the company of others); and there are more groups popping up – something for everyone, whether local, ex-pat or visiting. Hopefully you can join us for the next stage of this exciting journey?

To find out more about your local groups, please visit https://events.salesforceusergroups.com or have a look at the list here:

• Amersfoort User Group / @amersforce
• Amsterdam User Group / @amsterdamsales1
• Amsterdam Women In Technology Group / @amsterdamwit
• Netherlands Developer User Group / @nl_sfdc_dg
• Netherlands Non Profit User Group / @nonprofitnl
• Netherlands User Group / @susergroup
• Rotterdam User Group / @rotterdamug

And Trailhead Saturdays! (for complete Salesforce novices, through to the experts!)

• Amsterdam (meeting every two weeks)
• Den Bosch (also meeting every two weeks)
• Den Haag (coming soon!)

p.s. The Amsterdam User Group has a Lightning Special on 24th January with Chet Chauhan (VP Product Management, Salesforce) and Simon Driscoll (Scottish User Group)!

The Dutch of this article can be seen on the Salesforce NL blog. My thanks to Salesforce for their help with the translation.