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Carla White is an advocate of daily expressions of gratitude and began keeping a gratitude journal last year. She believes that reflecting on her day and jotting down all the thing things she is thankful for has changed her life dramatically – for the better.

Wanting the world to share in her experience, Carla took the concept of a gratitude journal into the iPhone/iTouch world and created a new application available in the iTunes Apps store today – Gratitude.

Hiring a full-time designer to join your staff may not be in the cards this year, but making sure your website, brochures, business cards, and other marketing materials are up-to-date and well-designed should be on your must-do list in 2009.

Want to know the top five pieces of marketing material you should keep current and professionally designed? We asked experts in the design field – experienced designers on Elance – for their top picks of materials every business needs to make pop, and here’s what they said:

Guest Contributor Shannon Newton is back, and he's sharing his expertise about video production and what you can do to successfully manage your next video project within your budget:

Pretend you want to build a nice, second story deck for your home. If this deck was your video and you had a specific budget to spend on it, where would your money go? I took a look and based on my experience, here's what I found:

We asked Barry Moltz, a widely recognized expert on small businesses, for tips on how small businesses can thrive in today’s economy. Barry’s tips are based on his hands-on experience as a small business owner and his research as a professor and published author. So whether you’re a provider on Elance or a employer, you’re sure to get a lot out of these tips:

I often joke that the original title of my first book was: “The Worst They Can Do is Eat You! Surviving Your Business during Tough Times”. That title seems very appropriate today as we head into a very tough part of the economic cycle.

How do we survive and thrive in 2009? Check out these 10 tips:

Since joining Elance, Stephen Black (BigTex34) has successfully completed 21 projects while keeping an impressive 100% feedback score.

We spoke with Stephen about the types of projects he bids on, how he competes, and how he maintains 100% feedback. Here’s what we learned: