Dreamforce Dispatch #4: Keynote for Day 2 and Marc with a "K"

The keynote for day 2 of Dreamforce 2006 got underway around 9am this morning.

With lights flashing and music playing, a voice from overhead welcomed "once again" Marc Benoiff.

One thing.......

Marc's first name was spelled wrong on the 100 foot high Powerpoint slide. I tried to snap a picture, buy my Canon didn't fire up in time. I wonder if someone will get fired for that? Note to Salesforce employees, your CEO spells his first name with a "c".

Benioff's first order of business was to thank Tom Wong and Elizabeth Pinkham get her last name) for all of their work putting Dreamforce 2006 together.

As he did yesterday, Benioff asked non-profits to stand and be recognized and urged all attendees to connect with them and help them be successful with Salesforce.com.

The genesis of the Salesforce foundation was work that Marc did at Oracle stemming from a Powell event he attended in Philadelphia in the 90's called America's Promise.

Marc then gave a brief backgrounder on his relationship with Colin Powell which included a funny story involving a middle school in Washington, DC, donated computeres, a 110 degree summer day and the US Marine Corp. You can read about it in his just published book, "The Business of Changing the World" which was given to all Dreamforce attendees this morning.

At that point, Marc vowed that when he started his own company, they would have a corporate responsibility program in place starting on day one.

First project Salesforce Foundation took on was work at the Embarcadero YMCA here in San Francisco. Acknowledges Suzanne and Julie from the foundation.

Introduces General Colin Powell.

My stream of consciousness post won't do Powell's speech justice. Dan Farber over at ZDNet has a great recap.

Following Powell's speech, Benioff started bringing up executives from various Salesforce customers to allow them to share some of their experiences implementing and running Salesforce.com.

Next up, The Appy Awards!