Those following my recent video blog entries have probably noticed a pretty concerted effort on our part to improve the user experience (UX) of our CMS.

You can pretty much single-click your way through the most common functions today as we've converted to a 3 tier UI that progressively reveals advanced features and functionality as you descend into the dialog windows.

It's amazing how many experiences we tolerate in Windows on a day to day basis. This Windows UX Ideas site has started a constructive dialogue on the topic.

(No, that's not a Salesforce Ideas site. Even though it looks identical, the author custom developed the site in PHP... very nice)

We're looking for a Web User Interface Specialist and a Web Project Manager (click on links for details).

Please send resumes to jobs@cubiccompass.com.

In this video, I walk through the creation of a simple "Contact Us" web page that inserts Contacts directly into Salesforce. Contact me at mike@cubiccompass.com if you'd like a more personalized demonstration.

Full screen version here

Kudos to James Shore on the release of his new book "The Art of Agile Development".

Jim and I spent several months together in 2001-2002 developing a Customer Portal framework for a leading on-premise CRM software package with the occasional mentoring from Ward Cunningham (inventor of the original Wiki).

From the few chapters I've read from Jim's book already, it very elegantly articulates many pragmatic principles that are centric (I believe) to delivering successful software projects, as well as tackling difficult topics such as software measurement, risk management, and compensation.

Video interview with Jim here.

This video was inspired by a Salesforce.com customer asking how to create a search page similar to Salesforce's Partner Finder using Dialogue Script.

(I apologize for the video cropping....Full screen video here)

Check out this new Wiki article if you have a need for publishing RSS feeds from Salesforce-driven data.

The context of the article uses a "Jobs__c" custom object, but I'll leave it to your imagination and creativity to truly leverage the full potential of this feature.

I had assumed this "rumor" of Salesforce.com switching 4,000 employees to Macs had in fact occurred several months ago based on following Simon's contributions to the Mac world and attending Dreamforce demos.

I'm not far behind making the switch myself. I've decided rather than running Parallels to maintain a stable Windows XP/Visual Studio machine and a separate Mac/Eclipse environment for general browser-based productivity and Salesforce specific work.

No surprise which one will get used the most. I just love the instant boot of the Mac books.

The all SaaS environment utilized by our company makes employee on-boarding, collaboration, and roaming much easier. It's vexing to see companies with only 12 employees shackled to Exchange. If migration is the only barrier to SaaS, then expect to see more service-oriented integration tools and vendors emerge.

Mobile productivity and multiple device synchronization is the next challenge. Google Phone had better be just around the corner.

Just noticed that Microsoft CRM Online is now officially available. Not sure how personally invested I'll get in learning it. I responded to several Beta trial invitations, but never received an invite (and we're a Microsoft partner?!?).

There is a 30 day trial that you can apply for.

Kudos to Microsoft for changing the name from "Live" CRM to simply "CRM Online" (As Simon Cowell might say "The whole Live brand just seems a bit too cabaret-ish for business software applications" ).

If The Big Switch can be said to represent the centralization of computing resources, then Microsoft's Live Mesh may signal the path towards the big switch back to a decentralized model (albeit with some centrally hosted Microsoft infrastructure).

Some ideas for using Mesh with our CEM platform and Salesforce:

• Real-time notifications when Leads/Contacts enter your website
• Sync and offline access to CRM data and documents across several devices
• Rich development of email campaigns and web page content
• Social networking with employees, partners, and customers