If you couldn’t get enough of listening to Mr Gramshammer then you are in for a treat because Day 2 sees him speak twice more. At 11.OO Andrew Firmin of Argos will be speaking with Florian on the subject of retailers and their affiliate programmes complimenting advertising push. Then Florian and Andy will join forces again at 13.00 on a panel discussing the eConsultancy Affiliate Survey.

To be honest we think these words of wisdom are going to be worth the entry fee alone – but I did get paid to say that. If you feel like congratulating Florian on his speaking performances then look out for him and the CJ team at one of the Expo’s networking parties, details here.

From this Monday (17th August), our very own Mr Jason Baker will be taking CJ on the road for a week. He will be doing 5 (or 6, legs depending) days of cycling and meetings along the route mapped out below.

The plan is this:

• Monday 17th August
• Jason will set off from the Liverpool Docks in the morning and head to Manchester where he will be having lunch with MVI Manchester. After lunch he will then make his way to Sheffield where he will meet with Quidco SureShop.
• Tuesday 18th August
• Jason has a long, long day of cycling, going straight down from Sheffield to Lichfield (anyone live in the middle?) where he will be meeting with Doug Scott (the man behind carrentals.co.uk, promotions.co.uk and www.discountvouchers.co.uk). Hopefully they will both manage to have a very sensible evening as Doug will be joining Jason for the first leg in the morning.
• Wednesday 19th August
• Jason and Doug will cycle from Lichfield to Leicester. Jason has no confirmed meetings for Leicester so if there is anyone out there who wants to meet up then let us know and you can have the pleasure of a meeting with a rather sweaty CJer.
• Thursday 20th August
• A relatively short jaunt for Jason, from Leicester to Peterborough where he gets to experience some home comforts and stay with his sister.
• Friday 21st August
• Anyone in Peterborough fancy a bite to eat in the morning? Or fancy meeting up with Jason on Thursday evening? Jason will be cycling to Kings Lynn on Friday. There he will be staying with friends and deciding whether or not he is in too much pain to do Day 6.
• Saturday 22nd
• Will he or won’t he make it to Lowestoft to meet up with Darren at Submission Technology (the company behind Greasy Palm, Cashback.co.uk etc etc)?
• ……….Monday 24th August
• 9am start, No excuses

Introducing the man

It actually feels like all I have done in the past few weeks is blog about Jason. But in case you have managed to miss him, this is Jason Baker:

So Jason…..why are you doing this?

Well there are three main reasons:

1. The first is that we have felt for a long time that we have needed to get ourselves out to different parts of the UK a lot more. Every time we go out of London for meetings we always remark on how useful that time is and how much people appreciate us making the effort – that is why we got so involved in the A4U Roadshows
2. The second is that I work best under pressure. I have had a little bit of excess ‘baby weight’ to shed so it has been great to have something to train for
3. The third is to raise a little bit of money for our company charity, Kids Company. ValueClick and Commission Junction have supported them for over three years now. They are a fantastic charity supporting vulnerable and under-privileged children in South London. We raise money for them through many different activities and also take part in days out to help. So if you want to donate the please do on our JustGiving page – http://www.justgiving.com/CJ-goes-mobile/

How do you think it will feel?

I think it will hurt. I think that most specifically my bum and legs will hurt. I have run lots of marathons before so I am fairly used to endurance but I haven’t actually done anything like that for a while. Many months afterwards though, I expect I will feel very pleased. I also hope to meet up with lots of people which I enjoy – so I expect that will feel good.

Where do you have slots for more meetings?

I have the following open slots:

• Day one – Liverpool – early breakfast
• Day two – anywhere between Sheffield and Lichfield
• Day three – Leicester or the surrounding areas in the evening
• Day four – Peterborough or the surrounding areas in the evening
• Day five – Peterborough or surrounding areas in the morning

I am pretty open to suggestions. I cam be flexible along the route although I would rather avoid mountains and hills please.

So – good luck Jason. He is going to keep us all updated through the wonderful power of blogging and indeed through the wonderful power of tweeting – www.twitter.com/CJUKNetwork .

Please do get in touch at admin@cjblog.co.uk if you want to meet with him along the way. And if you fancy donating a few small pennies to the children then you can do so here http://www.justgiving.com/CJ-goes-mobile/

Clearly the most effective form of communication is face-to-face. So, following the success of our retail seasonal business meeting day on the 8th of October, we had our travel event last Wednesday at the MWB Offices in Marble Arch.

The format of the day is very simple. Each advertiser/agency gets their own space and the publishers go in for half hour slots to talk through what they are doing. upcoming plans, how they can work closer together etc etc

The publishers have their own space to talk through other programmes and information with Commission Junction staff.

On this occasion we had six advertisers: easyCar; TUI; Octopus Travel; Air France; Emirates (Mediacom) and IHG. We had ten publishers including: QuidCo; Traffic Broker; Real Holiday Reports; TMN Publishing, Trialpay, Sean McDonald and Global Travel Market.

After 42 back to back meetings we thought that we all deserved a drink or two so we took everyone to the Carbon Bar on Old Quebec Street (little note – if you set up a tab they automatically add 12.5% service charge even though we were all stood at the bar – naughty!).

Never one to indulge, I only had a very quiet night with just a couple of beers

If you would like to attend a Seasonal Meeting day then email us and let us know on cjukblog@cj.com