As a salesforce.com user, I continue to be impressed by the ability of salesforce.com to consistently reinvent itself and evolve. As the seasons turn, so do the capabilities of my salesforce.com license. Salesforce.com has been able to go from being a product used by sales people to store data and build relationships, to an integrated solution for users regardless of their industry, title, or business needs. Perhaps nothing highlights salesforce.com’s reputation as a revolutionary leader in the industry than when revolutionary figures in other industries endorse your product. When legendary musician Neil Young stepped on stage at Dreamforce, salesforce.com’s annual user’s conference, I knew salesforce.com had once again cemented its place as an industry leader.

Neil Young, who has always been on the cutting edge of music, attended Dreamforce to share that he is now on the cutting edge of technology. Dedicated to rivitalizing the automobile as a vehicle  that is not only an effective means of transportation, but environmentally friendly and cost-efficient, Neil Young discussed how he is using salesforce.com to create a community that will continue to push his idea for transforming the automobile.

Using the force.com platform, Neil Young is using salesforce.com ideas to generate feedback and new thoughts on his Linc Volt  car. By leveraging salesforce.com’s technology, Neil Young is striving to build a grassroots movement around something as traditionally American as apple pie and baseball, the car.

If you are interested in learning more about how Neil Young is using salesforce.com to change the automobile, check out his key note address at Dreamforce at the links below.

Neil Young at Dreamforce Part 1

Neil Young at Dreamforce Part 2

Neil Young at Dreamforce Part 3

On a recent trip to the East coast, I enjoyed a healthy dose of humanity while troubleshooting a home-repair issue.  We’d assembled an able-bodied team of my sister, brother-in-law, and me to fix a noisy, leaky radiator in my nephew’s room.  After numerous attempts to fix the problem ourselves and with building management, we turned to the web.  Much to our delight, there were not only ample resources out in the cyber community, but actual fix-it warriors who made it their mission to help us solve our problem quickly.  Within minutes of posting our issue, people from all over responded with suggestions on how to resolve it.  It was enlightening, and even inspiring, to get such an overwhelming response.

In today’s swiftly advancing technological world, more and more people are turning to the web for advice on everyday problems, from a leaky radiator to a computer error.  With the growing appeal and popularity of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, people have increasingly begun to use these sites as forums for discussing issues, rather than calling customer support lines for answers. Salesforce.com’s Service Cloud, which launched in January, enables users to find and manage customer service conversations in the cloud through blogs, forums, search engines, and social networking sites, and assemble that data in a knowledge base that can be used by customer service agents.  Furthermore, salesforce.com added a Twitter integration to the Service Cloud earlier this year, which allows you to search for relevant “tweets” on a particular topic, track responses, and respond through the company’s Twitter account, all within salesforce.com.  As someone who was recently enlightened by my fellow philanthropists on the web, I, for one, am very excited about the Service Cloud.  And here’s to no more leaky radiators too.

For more information on MK Partners and how we’re solving our clients’ business problems through salesforce.com, find us on Twitter and Facebook.

Whether you are a long-time salesforce.com user or a neophyte, you probably know salesforce.com is committed to frequently updating its product based on user’s feedback. As we kick off the summer with bbqs, sunshine, and the beach, we also welcome the Summer Release of salesforce.com! As a salesforce.com user, you’ll automatically be upgraded to this release by salesforce.com at no charge.

This release brings a variety of additions to the service cloud. We’ve listed highlights of the summer release below, but we encourage you to check this salesforce.com summer release page for more information.

Summer Release 09 Highlights

• Chart Analytics 2.0
• Automated Campaigns
• List Views for Sales Teams
• Cases in Salesforce to Salesforce
• Advanced Case Workflow
• Advanced Customer Portal User Management
• Workflow Visualizer
• Visual Force Support Within Dashboards and Help
• Advanced Application Distribution

In tough economic times, the importance of making a sound organizational investment cannot be understated. More so than ever, companies, nonprofit organizations, and government are hesitant to invest their money, time, and staff in solutions that rely on archaic business models. Investments in technology are frequently met with resistance, but is this resistance justified?

An article published this year explains why Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions like salesforce.com defy traditional software business models. As important as it is to know your organization can increase its return on investment using a SaaS product like salesforce.com, it is equally significant to understand factors that will keep SaaS companies viable  in both good times and bad. According to the author, SaaS is recession resistant due to a business model that not only is more psychologically preferrable to a customer, but a business model that can supply solutions to customers with both large and limited cash reserves. While we encourage you to read this article for an analysis of why SaaS is recession resistant, we also remind you to be diligent in your research before making an investment in technology.

Has your organization changed the way it thinks about technology solutions as the economy fluctuates?

Regardless of your line of business, empowering your customers and constituents is a goal that all organizations share. Our constituents drive our organizations to grow, evolve, and deliver better services and products.

In our busy world, it can be difficult to reach out to constituents. Between personal lives, work schedules, travel schedules, and time differences, it can be a daunting task to really communicate with our constituency groups. With salesforce.com, organizations no longer have to worry about figuring out how to have an effective dialogue with constituents.

Utilizing salesforce.com’s Ideas functionality, organizations big and small can leverage technology to drive change both internally and externally.

One of the best examples of how salesforce.com can be leveraged to drive change is to review how President Obama used Ideas functionality during his transition period to offer Americans a forum to share their thoughts, concerns, and ideas with the incoming administration.

Check out Paul Greenberg’s article on how the Obama transition team utilized salesforce.com to generate communication between Americans and our nation’s leadership. Greenberg discusses that this type of technology can be useful to all organizations regardless of sector.

Have you had any success using salesforce.com Ideas? Has your organization struggled with finding an effective way to involve constituents in your growth?