Today we are building robots and computers, which mirror humans and can interact with them. This works very well for many things and can assist humans in accepting their computer or robotic assistant counterparts. Unfortunately when computers attempt to decipher text and meaning and then correspond with humans, the mirroring does not always work.

If the robot or computer is using artificial intelligent software to communicate with a human and use mirroring techniques and scaling of escalation in the conversation, they often will not suffice in keeping the human’s interest for too long. Indeed a chimpanzee, dog or cat maybe willing to continue interaction, non-verbal communication or synthesize mimicking techniques for verbal communication; however for humans it cannot work for very long especially if the human is in search of enlightenment, rather than encyclopedia or dictionary definitional content.

In corresponding with artificial intelligence on a keyboard or through the Internet the human assumes that the entity on the other side is like them; that is to say an organic carbon based human biped. There comes a time when the human is skeptical of the information and correspondence coming from the other side of the screen, often the human will begin to assume that the information comes from an ignorant human or a lawyer’esque type human and thus does not appreciate the information for what it is; pure information mixed in with mirroring conversational composites of chit chat crap.

There are many types of software used today to help un-intelligent humans with correspondence, writing or even term papers, yet what you will find is this software does not work well when the human being used as the target subject actually knows a little about a lot of things or is intimately familiar with the subject matter. For instance in the case of the CIA or NSA trying to get information of profile a target; a professor grading a term paper or a reader of a news article. So often it is obvious that the what appears at first to be a dumb human bluffing or BS’ing their way through a subject matter or the software gives its self away by acting non-human and providing erroneous or irrelevant data to a conversation, story or paper. It maybe fanciful to a human to use a robotic or computer software enhanced correspondence mechanism to save time, do homework, save labor costs or taxpayers money. But if such an artificial intelligent system delivers garbage due to shoddy programming and less than intelligent people putting in the input, then it will not suffice or solve the problem of tricking the individual, enhancing readership or convincing anyone of anything.

So, we must remember that those who program these systems to interact with humans need to be as smart or smarter (artificially that is) than the human they are corresponding to, other wise the human feels that the discussion is irrelevant, rhetoric or simply mirroring semantics. If we are to build assistant robots, they must be careful with their interactions. Now, sometimes humans act in such was, yet when they do, don’t most people simply walk away, shaking their heads? If a human stops the correspondence then you have to start all over. If the human rejects the robotic assistant then you have wasted your money in that system. Sure you can say it is work in progress and call it development costs, but it is a useless hunk of junk you see? Likewise if a student uses a system for their work and if the professor of the homework assignment is unimpressed you get a lousy grade.

Right now this is what I am giving the artificial intelligence programmers right now. Y’all need to go back to the drawing board and do some more research on the human species within a society and study how they interact in groups, one on one and in the larger over all culture. It is not a one size fits all scenario and although it is indeed smart to try to keep it simple, there needs to be more overlay on the various types of people and smarter people doing the programming. Think on that

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Microsoft CRM is new player on the CRM software market.  The whole conception behind CRM seems to be different.  In case of traditional CRM software (Siebel, Oracle) - the application was designed with platform independence in mind.  Microsoft CRM is dedicated to Microsoft technology and so deploys all the Microsoft tools: Windows Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange 2003/2000, SQL Server, Crystal Reports Enterprise, Biztalk server, Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Great Plains as backend, etc.

If you are software developer, database administrator or web designer who is asked: how do we customize Microsoft CRM – we are giving you directions in this article.

1. Microsoft CRM SDK – this is software development kit with C# and partly VB.net code samples – it is supported by Microsoft Business Solutions technical support.  It is based on web service calls, if you are C# .NET developer – you are excellently positioned to do this type of customizations.  This is the preferred modification scenario and this should be easily upgradeable customization.  VB.Net examples will be available soon.
2. Legacy SQL Data integration.  This is also easy and safe.  If you have SQL database, sitting on the same or linked SQL Server – you can create ASPX .Net application and simply integrate it into CRM.  You can place it on the navigation bar or menu in isv.config – please refer to MS CRM SDK
3. Legacy ASP integration – this is somewhat more sophisticated.  You have to deploy HTTP handler to be a middle party between CRM which is .Net based and ASP which is legacy IIS.  The trick is – you have to have INI file with security settings to penetrate into MS CRM with proper credentials, calling web service.
4. Microsoft Exchange Programming.  Microsoft CRM has Exchange connector – which moves CRM incoming email to MS if it has GUID in its subject.  You can alter this logic (for instance - move email to CRM if it doesn’t have GUID but it is from the sender who is contact or account in MS CRM).  Refer to MS Exchange SDK onsyncsave event handling.  Then simply apply some MS CRM SDK programming - you need some COM+ objects creation and VB programming experience.
5. Direct SQL touch – in #4 above I described you the scenario with MS Exchange handlers – this would be ideal world if MS CRM SDK does the job.  But – in real world this is not always true – you have to do direct flags correction in CRM database (like making Activity closed, moving email attachments/octet streams, etc).  This is not supported by MBS technical support – but you can rescue to this technique if you have to get job done.
6. MS CRM Customization tool –  this is rather end-user tool and we don’t describe it here – read the manual.  We’ve described above the options to use when this tool doesn’t do the job
7. Crystal Reports - feel free to create Crystal report - tables and views structure is self explanatory.  Try to avoid the temptation to create your own SQL view or stored procedure in MS CRM database, instead - create custom database and place your view and stored proc in it. 

Happy modifying! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company, based in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, Canada, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Dexterity, SQL, VB/C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.