The magical experience that a child feels during their first time at Disney World is filled with characters to meet, things to see, rides to enjoy, and a feeling of overwhelming excitement. Similar to the way that a trip to Disney World can be life changing for a child, Dreamforce is that experience for today’s business innovators.

Salesforce did a remarkable job making Dreamforce into a cultural experience to remember.  Just like at Disney World, there were so many things you wanted to see and experience at Dreamforce and it was hard to do it all. The event was hallmarked by a variety of businesses, countless learning opportunities and demos, and opportunities to donate and give back to a variety of causes. Between the quality of branding, the nature design of the venue, and Michelle Obama’s speech that filled every single overflow room to maximum capacity, Dreamforce truly was a magical experience.

While there was so much to see and learn at Dreamforce, three major things stood out to me during my time there. First of all, there is a lot of technology that has already been developed for different industries that solves many problems in the child welfare world. One of the most impressive technologies I learned about was Map Anything—an app that has the ability to take all the places you need to go in one day and provide you with the fastest route to get there. This will be a huge innovation for WHS when transporting clients and scheduling home visits. Secondly, I learned that the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a true digital revolution of every industry, is upon us and WHS can participate in this without barriers. As Wolverine has already developed the most advanced system for managing the care we administer to hundreds of children throughout the state of Michigan, we are prepared to lead the way in revolutionizing the child welfare industry during the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Finally, my last takeaway from Dreamforce is that Salesforce is the future of workflow and business operations across the globe.

After experiencing the magic of Dreamforce as a business innovator, I can say that Wolverine Human Services is now the leader and pioneer of information systems in the child welfare system. As such, WHS is forming a new company in 2018 to offer this platform and solutions to other agencies as well as to begin directly impacting and developing government child welfare information systems.