I've just returned from AD:TECH, where I was hoping to report back on all sorts of new email products and ideas. Unfortunately, this year's show was more of a reflection of the sad state of email marketing since the Can-Spam legislation was passed, with a few notable exceptions.

Okay, so what do you suppose is going on over there at Corel, anyway? Judging by the recent, slightly schizophrenic series of email campaigns, this is a company waging battle for its very voice and soul. Unfortunately, neither side in this battle seems particularly inspired. Instead of trying to decide if they're Coke or Pepsi, they seem to be trying to decide if they're RC Cola or Mr. Pibbs.

Amazing Tales Chapter One: I monitor email for a living. As a result, my company's developed proprietary software to automatically track both where the email comes from and where it takes us to, regardless of how tricky many "high volume email senders" get to hide their tracks.

Law 6: Court Attention at All Cost. Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion. Stand out. Be conspicuous, at all cost. Make yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more colorful, more mysterious than the bland and timid masses. From "The 48 Laws of Power."

I was speaking at a DMA conference a while back, and was doing my pass around the exhibitor floor when I ran into a booth with a sort of nondescript name and a cryptic business tag line.

Yesterday, I had a growing sense of anxiety. Today, full-blown rage. In the last hour, I've left messages every 5 minutes with my IT guy, who's been out of town at a conference. I just yelled at my wife. After swearing off coffee a month ago, I just poured myself a cup.

Listening to this week's 9/11 hearings testimony regarding the FBI's complaints that lack of funds made it difficult to do its job properly, I was reminded of an incident that took place about a year ago.

Here is a little insight into a columnist's life: Around Sunday I start thinking: What the heck am I going to write about this week? Monday goes by--no problem: I still have two days to come up with something. Tuesday I start to sweat a bit. Wednesday, full-blown panic sets in. So this week, I'd like to give special thanks to Google for their non-April Fool's joke Gmail.

This week I was listening to NPR's Fresh Air interview with Richard Clarke, who informed us that the Bush White House maintained a rigid set if ideas that were untarnished by facts. Facts were selectively used to justify an already held position, and facts that challenged that view were ignored, according to Mr. Clarke.

You know the saying: shoemaker's children go barefoot. Nowhere is this more evident than in technology companies in general, and more specifically, technology companies that market "marketing technologies" to agencies and advertisers. Since this is an email column, I'm going to go into specifics about email technology companies in a second, but first let me set up the problem.