Dreamforce Sessions to Inspire Higher Ed Innovation

Executive in Residence Jason Belland Shares Dreamforce 2025 Sessions for Higher Ed Leaders

If you’re heading to Dreamforce this year, you’re probably already planning to attend the main keynote, cloud keynotes like Commerce and Marketing, and all of the Education Cloud sessions, which are an essential part of any agenda, but what I’ve found from attending Dreamforce since 2011 is that some of the most transformative ideas can come from unexpected places.

One of the great opportunities presented at Dreamforce is the chance to engage in the broader Salesforce community and find inspiration from customers doing totally unrelated work, but whose ideas can spark inspiration for your institution. In addition to attending all the cloud keynotes and education sessions, here are some sessions that caught my attention that may offer ideas for how we can reimagine the experience for prospects, students, and alumni.

• Agile Innovation at Heathrow: Boosting Passenger Experience
  Heathrow reimagined the traveler journey end to end. Their work on continuity and personalization could inspire how we think about the student experience across every interaction point.
• 12 Departments, 1 Platform: City of L.A. Drives Efficiency
  Transformation that spans departments in a complex organization, breaking silos and building the connective tissue that enables a whole-institution view.
• You’re Not Adopting AI, You’re Building a Next-Gen Workforce
  AI transformation is a people story. This session explores how to design human–machine partnerships that amplify, not replace, human judgment.
• PepsiCo Boosts Customer Engagement with AI and Partners
  Lasting change happens through coalitions, vision alignment, and change management, themes that can translate to university enterprise transformation initiatives.
• Fueling Agentic Engagement with Formula 1
  Formula 1’s approach to data and personalization offers inspiration for what engagement could look like for alumni, donors, and communities.

Dreamforce is full of inspiration for those of us working at that intersection of education, technology, and transformation, and this is a great opportunity to gather insights from a range of industries and then bring them back to your team to design new experiences that start from a place of customer centricity, translating ideas from across sectors and applying them in ways that make sense in the context and values of your institution.

I’m eager to hear what other sessions you’re excited to attend and what sparks inspiration for you. See you at Dreamforce!

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About the Author

Jason Belland serves as Higher Education Executive in Residence at Attain Partners, committed to serving the industry with a focus on envisioning outcome-driven solutions that care for the student journey over a lifetime of learning. Jason has spent over two decades working at public and private higher education institutions in roles ranging from online learning and instructional design to marketing and Customer Relationship Management (CRM), bringing together innovative ideas with new technologies to support student success.

In addition to his roles in higher education, Jason served an eight-year tenure at Salesforce, ascending to Vice President of Go-To-Market for Education Cloud, leading teams to create solutions that would empower colleges and universities to engage, retain, and support every learner over the course of a lifetime of learning. The products and solutions created under Jason’s tenure at Salesforce have been implemented by thousands of colleges and universities globally and set the foundation for today’s Salesforce Education Cloud. Jason received his bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature/Letters from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and holds an Executive Education Certificate in Business Excellence from Columbia Business School.