CRM Update – Mar 27 : 1:32 pm

6 questions to ask a job interviewer [CNN Money] “To stand out from your competition, says an executive coach, you need to start a real, memorable conversation. Here’s how to do it.”Ten Perennial Mistakes That Tax Filers Make [Wall Street Journal] “Tax laws change with alarming frequency, but some taxpayer errors are perennial.”10 Most Epic “I Quit” Moments [Moneyland] “The stunt gave him 15 minutes of fame — along with a year of probation.”21 Disposable Products You Can Reuse [Wise Bread] “I asked friends, family, and colleagues to tell me which disposable items they squeeze more life from…

What if your Twitter conversations could expand to include more people from your online community?Now you can thanks to embedded tweets, a new feature from Twitter.Sharing Tweets Outside of TwitterEmbedded tweets allow you to take a tweet or a conversation and post it on your website or in a blog post. You can use this feature to share your Twitter conversation with a larger audience.But more than that, the embedded tweets have interactive features. From an embedded tweet, a visitor to your website or a blog post reader can:Reply to the tweet and join the conversation…

Fifteen years after the first Harry Potter paper novel was published, all seven of J.K.Rowling’s megapopular fantasy novels are now available in ebook format.
The books are available in English (US and U.K. edition), with Italian, German, French and Spanish editions coming in the following weeks.
J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore site is currently the only place where you can buy the books. The rest of the site, which will combine elements of a Harry Potter-themed game and social network, is still available only as a beta version and due to fully open up in April 2012…

ClothingKohls [Apparel] [coupon: 15% off site wide]Rocawear [Apparel] [coupon: $25 off $100]Fashion Bug: [Apparel] 75% Off Clearance Items EventGraveyard Mall: [Scoks] Mens or Womens No Show Socks 30-Pair Pack for $15.99 w/ Free ShippingAnn Taylor: [Apparel] 40% Off your Entire order w/ Coupon ENTIRE

Computers and Electronics

eBay: [Tablets] Polaroid 7″ 4GB WiFi Android Tablet for $130 + free shippingeBay: [Media Receivers] Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link Director Ed. Media Player for $30 + free shippingeBay: [Computers] [Barnes & Noble Nook Color E-Reader/Tablet w/ Wifi + Simple Touch (REFURB) $149]

EntertainmentNewEgg: [Entertainment] Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii) $34…

Are you relevant? (Are you sure?) Here are the top warning signs you may be alienating your customers.It seems the more market intelligence top executives possess, the less in touch they are with their target audiences. And the less in touch they are, the more likely they are to lose business, especially nowadays when loyalty is harder to find than is an ethical politician.I’ve spoken with countless CEOs, CMOs, and other members of the C-suite in recent months who all worry about the same thing: remaining relevant to their audiences’ wants and needs…

Two weeks ago, 32 of the nation’s worst businesses entered the Worst Company In America Battledome Nonagon, hoping to prove they could out-twit, overcharge and outlast the others to ultimately be named the Worst Company In America 2012. Two dozen companies have since been fed to the shark-eating robot piranhas and only eight remain with a chance to be crowned with the Golden Poo.

The eight contestants still standing are a rogues gallery of bad businesses from a variety of industries…

Rovio, fresh off the latest success of Angry Birds Space, announced Tuesday morning that is has bought Futuremark Games Studio, the gaming arm of benchmarking software developer Futuremark.
The acquisition will give Rovio access to 3DMark, which Futuremark CEO Jukka Mäkinen described as “our professional grade benchmark,” in a press release. In the statement Mäkinen added that a new version of 3DMark will be released this year that will “allow unified gaming performance comparison across operating systems and form factors for the first time…

More people are living in clusters rather than open spaces, with city life expanding in popularity in that hard-to-name decade that ended in 2010. U.S. Census data says 80.7 percent of Americans lived in urban zones in 2010, up nearly two percentage points from 2000. The rural population declined from 21 percent to 19.3 percent in the same span.

Reuters analyzes the data, which also shows population growth in urban areas (12.7 percent) outpaced general population increase (9…

Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. Today, we’re looking at three particularly interesting stories.
New iPad Heats Up As Much as Android Tablets [REPORT]
The Heatgate – controversy around the alleged heating up of Apple’s new iPad – was probably never a real issue, and recent research adds more proof to that conclusion. PC World measured the heat levels of several Android tablets, including Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime and the LTE version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10…

When you can’t meet in person, use these 6 rules to build rapport and communicate more clearly.The telephone has been in existence for 136 years, but the way some people use it, you’d think it was invented yesterday.With business travel at an all-time low, there is simply no skill more important to business success (especially in sales) than the ability to build rapport during a telephone conversation. When you can’t shake hands or look somebody in the eye, your voice (and your voice alone) must be able to communicate “I am capable and trustworthy…

BlueStacks, a company bringing Android apps to your desktop PC, released the beta-1 version of its App Player Tuesday.
If you’re an Android fan, the name BlueStacks and the product may seem a bit familiar. Named Best Software at CES 2012, the App Player allows you to play the same Android apps you might enjoy on your smartphone or tablet full-screen on your desktop PC.
The alpha version of the software launched October 11 of last year, and was downloaded more than a million times during its 3-month alpha release…

NexJ’s Integrated Advisor Desktop will be leveraged to drive organic growth objectives by enhancing advisor efficiency and productivity NexJ Systems Inc., (TSX: NXJ) a leading provider of next generation enterprise customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, today announced that a leading … Continue reading →

For bootstrapping entrepreneurs, consulting is often a fact of life. But how do you keep all those side projects from overwhelming your startup?Living off of Ramen, instant coffee, and dollar slices is a classic rite of passage for most entrepreneurs. It comes with the territory when you’re bootstrapping. And to pay the bills during these early days takes some serious creativity. The AirB&B founders, for example, raised over $25,000 by selling a limited edition cereal, Obama O’s, during the 2008 election cycle…

A hot mobile app that gets attention does not a company make. A better way: Build what people want and find a way to make it pay.Ever get just close enough to success to taste it, only to have it evaporate like a cruel mirage? That’s been happening in spades in high tech lately. Some companies with such high-profile apps as Hipster and Oink, which made a viable splash, have just sold themselves off to bigger businesses that wanted the engineering talent, or otherwise admitted that what they’ve been doing wasn’t quite enough to survive…

The duo claimed to be “more talented than the Beatles, Stones and Zeppelin combined,” Tenacious D has risen from its hiatus to bring you their latest music video — and it fails to disappoint.
The video, “To Be the Best” features Tenacious D’s Jack Black, or “Hollywood Jack,” an institutionalized Kyle Gass — as well as a cameo of celebrities including Val Kilmer, Jimmy Kimmel, Maria Menounos, Josh Groban and of course, Dave Grohl, among others…