We’re thrilled to announce that our own Jamie Birch has been awarded an Honorary Affiliate Manager Certification by Affiliate Classroom. Jamie is our Director of Affiliate Relations and leads our affiliate marketing group that provides performance-based marketing solutions for clients including Hilton Hotels, Mikasa, and Edmund Scientifics.

One of only 14 affiliate industry candidates to receive the award, Jamie was picked by an advisory board of affiliate industry personalities. Affiliate managers wear many hats - they are internet marketers with a broad range of skills, often including sales and customer service, web development, analysis and reporting, project management, and creative and promotional smarts. We certainly agree with Affiliate Classroom that Jamie and the others nominated “really exemplified the meaning of a professional affiliate manager.”

Affiliate Classroom has posted a nice video about the five most recent honorees, including Jamie. Congratulations, Jamie! We’re very proud of you.

Last week Converseon announced the “Where in the Summit is Converseon” social media scavenger hunt at the Affiliate Summit West 2008  in Las Vegas Nevada taking place February 24-26. The Affiliate Summit is the most premier conference for the affiliate industry and Converseon will be sending the entire affiliate team to the event. It is an incredible opportunity to meet with new partners across industries, and this year is no different.

We wanted to have a bit more fun this time around and add a unique twist to the standard networking events, making the experience more memorable and interactive for all our affiliates and partners, offering prizes for using Flickr and Twitter in a social media scavenger hunt. The attendees are given clues to solve and must find Converseon team members (Jamie, Stephen, Robin, Harmony and Stephanie) at various locations during the Affiliate Summit to win points towards our prize packages. To gain points participants take a photo with us and upload it to our Affiliate Summit Flickr account, It’s pretty simple but should be lots of fun.

Here are some sample clues:
• How can you go to Las Vegas without seeing ”The King”? 10 points if you get a picture with any Converseon team member with The King, and another 20 points if you are able to get the entire Converseon team and you posing with his eminence. And 25 points more if you’re wearing Blue Suede Shoes in the picture.
• There’s only one way to get around the strip, but don’t get derailed. Catch a picture of any Converseon team member and you on Vegas’ mass transit system and get 15 points.
• Going once, going twice – SOLD! 10 points for a picture with any Converseon team member at this Summit event on Monday at 3 pm.

We’ll also be offering additional prizes through our Twitter account such as coffee mugs or a free lunch with the team. The points will be calculated and totaled at the end of the game. We will post the final winner on the “Where in the Summit is Converseon?” website by March 3, 2008. Prizes from Converseon clients Edmund Scientifics, Relax the Back, MyWinesDirect, Get Organized and Mikasa will be shipped the following week.

Every Friday we’ll be posting a list of links that the Converseon team have found to be the most insightful from the past week. Enjoy!

What Evolutionary Psychology Says About Social Networking

This column sparked a lot of deep thinking and discussion in the office. The author analyzes some evolutionary psychology research that looks at how early humans communicated and interacted with each other for clues about how we communicate today.

Dunbar begins with the premise that back when our Paleolithic ancestors were still more monkey than human, understanding one’s place in the group hierarchy was exceedingly important. Compared to other creatures, primates are unusually social animals. And thus knowledge about relationships — who’s mating with whom, who became allies, who just had a fight — was crucial for primates to maintain or advance their place in the pack. It was, Dunbar suggests, the birth of gossip.

Show Series To Originate on MySpace

An interesting article about how TV producers are launching a series to be shown on MySpace. Producers are looking to generate story lines and even find actors online. Working online also allows them to take advantage of union agreements that allow actors and writers to work on terms more favorable to producers than those governing network programs.

Fifty Most Influential Bloggers

A new list of the 50 ‘most influential’ bloggers. This could possibly be more valuable than many of the ranking formats out there because of its qualitative focus. The ‘who’ and ‘what’ behind the blog are more important than the numbers.

Deconstructing the Incredibly Weak Mobile Web Experience

This year 115 million smartphones will be shipped and that number is expected to rise to 410 million by 2012. This article looks towards the future of mobile web browsing.

Crowdsourcing Site

It’s likely we’ll see more of these sites popping up, it is important to keep track of them and monitor them for your brand. Brands should also consider setting up their own open forums for discussion about their products and services, of course, rather than let third parties control the platform.

Selling Postcards from the Hanging: Reflections on CJU

A look at the changes occurring in affiliate marketing, especially how smaller affiliates will find it harder to continue in the affiliate space.