OK, so it’s only 4 weeks now and I’m as ready as I can be. 7th August seems to have come around incredibly quickly but I’ve been training hard (well, quite hard) and working on not making a complete fool of myself. Now though, I’m quite looking forward to it.

I’ve realised that during this process that watching YouTube videos of the Elite competitors in order to improve my transitions, is not going to help me a jot. Mainly because they are running to collect their bikes and changing shoes in nano-seconds, while I fear I will be gasping for breath, vomiting and trying not to die.

If anyone would like to sponsor me, I’m raising money for Keech Hospice – a great charity

I’ll let you know how it goes !

The World Cup is almost upon us and the nerves are starting to jangle already. We all know that England’s chances are slim but we can dream a while until penalties start. It should be interesting to see how the country reacts to our successes and failures. The press will obviously idolise the team when things go well, and slaughter them when they don’t, but I guess we should be used to that by now. The best bet is probably to ignore the papers and just enjoy the games

There’s little chance you’ll get hold of us on Wednesday 23rd at 3pm (England v Slovenia), but you can try.

I’ve also found a useful Outlook .ics file containing all the matches, which can be imported directly into your Outlook calendar. I can’t make any warranty with regards the accuracy or even that it won’t make your machine explode, but everything seems good so far.

Right click here and save the file to your pc. Open Outlook (works in 2003 for me). Click File > Import and Export > Import an iCalendar or vCalendar file. Click Next and locate the saved file. Click OK – job done!

Good luck England!

Rob at DGM wanted suggestions as to who their Affiliate Manager, George Bett looked like with his newly shaved head on this thread at A4U. We decided that it was very Dr. Evil so I produced this quick and dirty chopped image.

Dr Evil George Bett

The A4U get together was hosted at the fantastic Ogilvy offices at 10 Cabot Square last night. It’s always good to meet up with old friends, and make some new acquaintances. It was certainly interesting to see how many people we had helped with moves in the industry, both as candidates and clients.
The general mood was definitely a positive one, with most people reporting a much improved beginning to the year, over what was overall a fairly tough 2009. However, it seems the industry weathered the storm of the last 12 months better than most.
I’ve been very poor at updating the blog over the past couple of months and this post is equally short unfortunately. It’s a good sign though – it means that we’re busy recruiting!

A4U meet at Ogilvy

The lane near my flat

hope this works

As you may know, I also publish a number of Affiliate Marketing websites too. The original intention was to ensure that I maintained up-to-date knowledge of the industry, as it requires a reasonable understanding of PPC and SEO too (and affiliate Marketing of course). This enables us to work closer with our clients on the online marketing jobs which we specialise in.
While I can build sites by hand in HTML I’ve found, like many others that the Wordpress platform offers an excellent and highly customisable platform to work with.

Anyway, I’m in the process of populating my latest site with products, and it made it’s first sale yesterday (via Amazon). It’s always a huge sigh of relief when it works – knowing that you haven’t been wasting your time for the past week!
It’s always interesting with Amazon too – seeing how many other associates sales you make alongside the original purchase. It really does convert very well, and those added bonuses make it really worthwhile.

Can anyone suggest a decent pair of semi slick mountain bike tyres as I’ve just bought a 2nd hand mountain bike and am upgrading tyres and gear cassette etc.  Already got the cassette and a decent rear wheel and hub, so just need the tyres..

I usually ride a road bike, but never really given time to a mountain bike.  I’m swapping from a road bike to a mountain bike because the roads are so poor in the Hemel Hempstead area that it has become a nightmare to ride, full of potholes and ravines

Any suggestions welcome!

Today,  myself and few colleagues have tried to contact 3 companies via the telephone.  In each instance, the telephone numbers were taken from the website.  Two companies just did not answer, and the other allocated the main number as their fax number. I know what you’re thinking now.. and I can assure you I did not read it wrong, I double checked and rang again.

I think this is poor service from huge techno companies. I just makes me think they’re rubbish. If something so simple is so difficult, I can only imagine what horror might await if something goes wrong with my eventual purchases with these companies..

Last Friday saw the Buy.at 5-a-side football tournament. Held at the incredible David Beckham Academy, it was a well organised and fun day for all involved. Personally, I’d like to say a huge thank you to Neil McDermott from Venturian Media for letting me join their team. Thanks also to Buy.at for hosting a superb event. We didn’t win, but did at least beat one of the Buy.at host teams.
After the football, a group of us headed to the O2 for evening refreshment. While the lure of going in to see Cliff Richard was tempting, I think we all managed to resist joining the blue-rinse brigade.

Here’s a few shots from the day. Sorry I couldn’t get more but I was either busy playing, or desperately trying to catch breath for the next game.

Although not on the 2 levels at Olympia like 2 years ago, Ad:Tech this year was busy, busy, busy. We arrived mid-morning, and already the hall was packed out.

We met up with clients old and new, and most gave a very definite indication that business has been improving dramatically over the past few months. Online marketing jobs are getting more focus and headcount approval is happening again.

Client servicing roles seem to be increasing greatest, with companies making sure that as well as winning new business, they hold on to existing customers too. There’s still a big focus on the more technical side too – from development to hands-on campaign management.

A good day, despite the poor coffee.