Defrag’s early bird rate expires on Friday. Normally, what follows that sentence would be a laundry list of hyped up speakers, topics, parties and reasons that you simply must be at the “can’t-miss” event of the year.
But I’m not gonna do that. Instead, I’d like to talk, just briefly, about the single most important reason you should come to Defrag: the community. Somewhere along the way over the last 6 years, a community formed at Defrag. It’s really kind of a magical thing. It’s not something I can create or control or direct. It exists independent of any efforts that I put into the agenda or sponsorships or whatever. It is because it wants to be. And it’s awesome.
For whatever reason, we now have a group of people that come to Defrag every year. It’s their “brain clearing” week — they sweep out the day to day of their work world, and use the conversation at Defrag as a reboot. Defrag gives them things to think about, but more importantly, it gives them a depth of interaction. That depth of interaction is the reason that you’ll see people on Twitter saying that Dreamforce is a “warm-up” for Defrag. It’s a special thing, and I have zero idea how you replicate it.
Defrag doesn’t scale. It can’t be duplicated. It isn’t a product, or a free expo pass, or a venue that you attend for one keynote before heading back to the office. Defrag’s a retreat, a reboot, a reason to lift your head up above the day to day.
If you’ve never been, I hope you’ll take a look at the agenda, ask around a bit, and then choose to join us. But don’t delay, because early bird registration ends Friday.
