TradePub.com has great tips on how to run your business (it’s also a great technical document source). Among the plethora of White Papers and publications, it is a FREE guide that offers a comprehensive comparison of the many CRM (Customer Relationship Management) programs on the market.

Since CEDIA is around the corner, we thought you’d like to hear from Nora Dunn, senior writer for Wise Bread—a personal finance community. Dunn offers numerous travel tips for the business traveler. Even if you’re not traveling on your dime, it pays to be penny-wise when traveling because you’ll impress the boss.

According to the American Marketing Association, marketing is defined as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

“Blech,” says Drew McLellan, blogger and CEO of McLellan Marketing. “Real marketing needs to promise, fulfill, inspire, surprise, make the audience care and be creative enough to be memorable,” says McLellan.

...More After the Jump

One of the classiest business moves you can make is to show your appreciation to a client who purchased your services.

What better way to offer a ‘muchas gracias’ to your clients and show off your work than to provide a CD of relaxing, inspiring nature sounds. Rainforest birds, breaking waves, waterfalls and fountains are naturals for pleasant background ambiance.

Results of the Luxury Consumption Index (LCI) survey, recently released by marketing firm Unity Marketing, are mixed. Although a few quarters of spending patterns seemed to herald a return to a pre-recession “normal,” the index has stalled as affluent consumers reflect uncertainty about prospects for the economy in the next three months.

Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing said: "Without a doubt the luxury consumer market is in a much better place today than it was a year or so ago, but the latest survey warns marketers not to ease up or be over-confident that the recession's effect on the luxury market is over.

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For our weekly “other tech” installation fix, we journey to Northern California. The new Oakland Bay Bridge, connecting San Francisco with Oakland, Berkeley and beyond will be the world’s largest self-anchored suspension bridge. Spanning San Francisco Bay with no ground underneath for support, the suspension cables will be anchored into the bridge itself. It is designed to withstand an earthquake so massive that it will be capable of leveling the nearby airport. Seismic “fuses” will absorb much of the motion.

Since myths about plasma TVs persist, we thought it best to revisit the facts. A White Paper by technical research firm, International Data Corporation (IDC) and Imaging Science Foundation (ISF), addresses these fictions. Among them: burn-in, short lifetimes, poor black levels, brightness and color accuracy. The test results were averaged from among plasma, LCD and DLP displays, selected at random. The displays were tested at high and low brightness at different viewing angles.

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Friday Humor: A good way to end the week.