Blazing Trails

The Kanesh Archive, a 4,000 year old collection of tablets discovered in Northern Iraq, reveals that customer service is nothing new. Over 4 millenniums ago, textile merchants would keep records of their sales transactions and customer details! In this eye-opening conversation, we welcome Harvard professor, Gojko Barjamovic, and his partner, Agnete, who reveal that these ancient clay records include orders, detailed feedback and requests, and even expense reports for the traveling salesmen! Who knew Quickbooks (or other software) had a great-great-great grandparent?

We went into today’s episode with a big question: when a truly novel product comes to mind for an existing company or just some individual who might end up on Shark Tank, how difficult is it to find out if anyone wants to buy it? So, our correspondent Jane Marie came up with a new product and spoke to the founders of Kirrin Finch, a women’s clothing line that is designed to look like menswear. With their guidance, we take our new idea and go on the hunt for our customer, if there even is one.

How do you create novelty around one of the oldest businesses on the planet? Well, King Arthur Flour is focusing on customers and their wants and needs. Whether it's with recipes or the kind of flour home chefs want, their north star is always, “how do we best serve the baker?” With the help of King Arthur and home pizza oven designers from Breville and Ooni, we talk about how technology in baking is changing the game for pizza lovers.

LAUNCHING OCT 26: Meet The Customer is a six-part series on Blazing Trails taking you through the history of the relationships between businesses and customers.

The automotive industry is in the midst of a historical digital transformation. Today's vehicles are computers on wheels and customers who used to shop exclusively in the showroom can complete transactions online. Tune in to hear Harald Krüger, the former chairman and CEO of BMW and Jessica Geutner, Vice President of Strategic Customers at Salesforce discuss what companies need to do to navigate this uncertain terrain while balancing profitability with research and development as well as environmental initiatives.

We're concluding our Dreamforce 2022 coverage with Bono, an original Trailblazer. The lead singer of U2, cofounder of (RED) and ONE talks about his upcoming new memoir ‘Surrender,’ what fuels his passion for music, art, justice and life.

Our Dreamforce coverage continues. Today we’ll hear Pivot, the award-winning podcast by Vox Media come to life with co-host Kara Swisher and Stewart Butterfield, President & CEO of Slack. Stewart shares his thoughts on the future of work, the metaverse and what’s next for Slack.

We're kicking off our special coverage of Dreamforce 2022 with a great conversation between former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers and Salesforce Co-Ceo Bret Taylor. Inflation and economic pressures are hitting every industry. Summers shares his perspectives on how the economy got here and what to expect moving forward.

Brevity is confidence. Length is fear. That is the manifesto of Smart Brevity, the latest book co-authored by Jim VandeHei, founder of Axios and Politico. It aims to teach everyone how to communicate effectively and be heard. Whether you work at a Fortune 500, a small business or an organization, you'll want to tune in this week to hear VandeHei share his tips on how to say more with less.

Can the largest Black-owned bank in America undo years of economic inequality? Tune in this week to hear CEO Kevin Cohee and President Teri Williams of OneUnited Bank discuss how they are using data and technology to help close the racial wealth gap.And you can learn more about their journey by tuning into ‘The Shift’, a new docuseries from Salesforce Studios premiering on CNBC, on Sept 17. Every Saturday at 2:30pm EST through November 12, you'll learn how high-growth organizations are taking on digital transformations during heavy market headwinds and coming through better than ever. You can also catch the series on demand on CNBC.com, Peacock, and of course on Salesforce+.

Remember all those great conversations in the office? Well, consider this the world’s biggest water cooler, our 20th Dreamforce onsite in San Francisco AND on Salesforce+ is less than a month away. Dreamforce is where innovation meets inspiration. This week on Blazing Trials we’ll give you a preview of the world’s largest software conference. You'll hear about our new product launches, the list of luminaries including keynotes from our CEO's Marc Benioff, Bret Taylor, Jennifer Hudson, Bono, Jane Goodall, Laurence Summers and many more. Our in-person and online event from Sept 20-22 has something for everyone, at every level and from every industry. So tune in this week to find out more and don't forget to sign up at https://www.salesforce.com/plus/experience/Dreamforce_2022/ Learn more about Dreamforce: https://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/

We’re less than a month away from Dreamforce— As many of you know–our 4 core values here at Salesforce are trust, innovation, equality and customer success. And this year we added sustainability.Today we want to share a very important conversation we recorded last year with Denise Naguib, vice- president for sustainability and supplier diversity at Marriott International and Patrick Flynn, Senior Vice President of Sustainability here at Salesforce.In this episode, they share what they are doing to make it easier to understand our impact - one data point at a time. They discuss sustainability as a competitive advantage, carbon accounting, the power of partnerships, and how they are using technology to understand the climate crisis - and cure - better than ever before.

Today’s episode is part of our ongoing series ‘Wow But How’ where we showcase how companies are using Customer 360 to unite teams and create wow moments for their customers. In this episode we'll learnhow RBC Wealth Management consolidated 26 systems into one to exceed client and advisor expectations.

Today we are featuring a heartening conversation with Holocaust survivor, psychologist and New York Times best-selling author Dr. Edith Eva Eger about choosing to embrace what’s possible, overcoming trauma, and inspiring others through story.This conversation originally aired on our sister podcast B-Well Together- A weekly series that highlights luminary speakers and wellbeing experts to provide insights and tips related to all aspects of mental, physical, and social wellbeing. You won't want to miss it!

Are you grappling with how to balance consumer personalization demand with consumer privacy expectations? On this episode you'll hear Dea Lawrence, Chief Operating and Marketing Officer for Variety share her guidance for using data ethically and employing trust-building personalization.This conversation was recorded at our annual Connections conference that took place in Chicago in July.

As our societies become more diverse and interconnected, it’s more important than ever that companies are thoughtful about the messages, images, voices, and values that represent their brands — as well as their greater social impact. In our second episode of our marketing series. we'll hear Lauren Carnell, Vice President of Marketing for The Memphis Grizzlies and Molly Ford, Vice President, Global Talent Brand Marketing at Salesforce discuss the power of inclusive marketing. This conversation was recorded at our annual Connections conference that took place in Chicago in July. Tune in!

What should you look for when you want to build your next generation marketing team? What are the skills that are needed? Who are the key players? In this episode you'll get some expert advice on how to answer all of those questions from Sabrina Heise, Vice President, Consumer Engagement at NBC Sports Group and Jessica Cobarras, Senior Vice President, Cloud Marketing at Salesforce. This is the first episode in our three part series on marketing which we recorded at our annual Connections conference that took place in Chicago in July. Tune in to find out more!

It’s summertime and there is no BETTER time to do a bit of reflection, turn off the zoom meetings and dig into some good books. In this episode, Nick Lichtenberg, executive editor of news at Fortune Magazine talks about his favorite titles on topics ranging from reinventing work to the history of venture capitalists. Stories that both teach you something useful and keep you occupied on the beach. Tune in! Titles include The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future by Sebastian Mallaby, The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy by Christopher Leonard, The Nowhere Office: Reinventing Work and the Workplace of the Future by Julia Hobsbawm, Blood in the Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks by Brian Hutchison and The Candy House by Jennifer Egan.

The latest business maxim tells us that trust is the new currency. But currency itself—from cold hard cash to cutting-edge crypto—requires trust in those who trade in it and the systems that oversee it. IIn today's episode we bring together two executives who have tried to foster that trust in divergent arenas: the physical world of gold-based lending and the digital investing world of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.Marc Mathieu, EVP, Digital Transformation & Innovation here at Salesforce, sat down with Sumit Maniyar, founder and CEO of Rupeek and Matthew Liu, co-founder of Origin Protocol, to discuss how to get buy-in from the customer and trust in the financial process. Tune in!

“Have at least three mentors in your career. One you work with, one who loves you and a third one who scares the living daylights out of you.” That’s career advice Sarah Friar lives by and credits for her incredible journey from Wall Street to executive roles at Salesforce, Square and most recently Nextdoor. Sarah delves into the role of mentorship in a successful career, including how she became a mentee of Marc Benioff, and discusses why she believes slower growth is benefitting her company. Plus, she and host Michael Rivo touch on the ways that Nextdoor continues to serve communities and address shifting needs to enhance connection, respect, and trust. All this up next on Blazing Trails.