I am researching doing a CRM-related mashup with one or more hosted e-commerce platforms. I have been doing some work with a BigCommerce store lately, and except for the fact that their API is read-only (big frustration there) it is a very nice system both on the front-end and the back office. I was also interested in developing for Shopify’s API because unlike BC, they have a two-way API and a third-party app store which makes it very easy to plug in and get paid seamlessly.

However, there is a glaring difference between BigCommerce and Shopify which doesn’t leap out in the comparisons that I’ve seen elsewhere, and that is this: Shopify has no CRM. For customers, there is no concept of “Log In” to a Shopify store, no “see my previous orders” or “update my address book”, nothing. Every time you order from a Shopify hosted store, you will enter  your information all over again. If you are a band which sells only five things or a company which makes and sells only one product, that is probably OK. For repeat customers and developers like me who want to do something useful with customer data, it’s a disaster.

If I were starting a store, I would require a platform with a two-way API with basic CRM. Besides my current favorite BigCommerce, I’ve  identified Business Catalyst (formerly GoodBarry), Volusion, and 3dCart as potential integration targets because they have a SOAP or REST API and CRM data that I can access through the API. Any other suggestions are welcome, and I’ll update here. While a Shopify-style app store would be nice to build for, it’s not a deal breaker to move ahead with my project.

Related to my last post about setting up an automated phone screening application, I thought I’d ask HR professionals on LinkedIn what they thought about they idea. As of now, here are some sample replies:

• “The hiring process is already de-humanized why add more humiliation/ tortire [sic] to it”
• “I can’t imagine interviewing my candidates via an automated voice system. It’s far too impersonal and I think many of them would find it insulting.”
• “Quite frankly, if I were to encounter an automated pre-screening system like this, I would hit the off button before the first question is finished.”
• “I wouldn’t feel comfortable in using a system such as you suggest. [...] A voice automated system might put off too many candidates to make it worth the investment to get to the qualified candidate a little quicker.”
• “What kind of a person who is interested in Human Resources would use a machine to perform this work. This type of machine is ideal for checking on your packages and airline arrival time. People are not packages or planes.”
• “Why on earth would you want to dehumanize an already stressed out sector of the population?! As an employer, I would never insult my potential employees by using a system as such.”
• “As a recruiter I really strongly dislike this idea. I would never use it. And I think it adds another layer of torture for both candidates and recruiters.”

There are clearly some really strong feelings of revulsion about this idea. I especially enjoy comments that allude to yet another layer of torture, which seems to acknowledge that recruiting is already torturous. Also I think there’s a lot of speculation on how much people would hate it. I would like to find some job seekers who have been out of work for a while and ask them: “would you avoid working for a company that put all applicants though an automated phone screening process?” I think that if anything, an applicant will commit to 20-30 minutes of recording answers only for a job they really want, as opposed to the minimal investment in blitzing out your digital resume to 300 openings a day.

I was privileged to spend a yesterday at OSCON with everyone at Twilio, and I managed to catch a few talks. I heard Sigurd Magnusson (of Silverstripe fame) give the talk “10 Usability Epiphanies for your Open-Source Web App” which focused on how to improve usability. Point 10 was “Keyboard”, and one suggestion was to allow enter and escape to proceed and cancel just like native dialog boxes. It just so happens that the web app I’m working on uses a non-native confirm dialog box with “yes” and “no” buttons, so on the plane home I changed the behavior to implement this small but crucial usability enhancement. You know, I like it. Small details like this will really improve the overall experience, and I thought I’d share the essentials of my now-enhanced jQuery dialog function here.

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I have been working on a fun new Twilio project, and part of it involves generating TwiML markup, a specialized XML syntax. I have done this before by hooking into a Kohana controller, which worked for my other project well enough. There are other Twilio response libraries that range from quite thorough to downright minimalist.

I’m attaching my current version of a Twilio response library for PHP. It’s a single file and it will do syntax checking when it’s done. This is the best of both worlds, in my opinion.

TwiML PHP Library