I'm back from the Direct Marketing Association's annual conference with a stack of business cards as big as my head. I always return from DMA Annual exhausted, but with a renewed sense of vigor and great story ideas.

Often simple ideas are the ones that resonate with your audience and end up defining your brand. Think JetBlue's customer bill of rights, LL Bean's return policy, or Apple's user manual. In the last week, many brands enhanced their communication strategies.

Ad agency Web sites suck. Well, most of them. I was doing research recently that involved visiting a long list of agency Web sites, including the global players in the direct marketing space and the generalists.

Last week, Sultan Munadi, an Afghan interpreter, was killed during a conflict in northern Afghanistan that resulted in the release of New York Times reporter Stephan Farrell from Taliban captivity. Munadi had tried to express his and Farrell's neutrality when they were initially detained by the Taliban months ago. Following this tragedy, I paused this week to think about the role of an interpreter in a much less extreme example — namely, how it relates to e-commerce.

Data is the unquestionable currency of direct marketing. It fuels new customer acquisition, informs new product development, drives relevance for existing customers and, in economic conditions like these, helps marketers justify their media spend and their jobs to the company CFO.

Like the high-school geek who uses his brainpower to surpass the success of his handsome, football-playing counterpart, direct and database profes­sionals are finding the marketing world coming around to fully appreciating the breadth and depth of their sought-after talents.

Often, constructive dissension among a market­ing team is muffled by the desire that everyone cooperate. For the last 57 years, since William Whyte introduced the term 'groupthink' to the pages of Fortune, it has referred to the mob conformity that stems from ideas produced by a group of like-minded people. Groupthink thrives on consensus and typically results in minimal progress and an utter lack of innovation.

We've all been there, waiting at home for the cable guy to come and install the system "sometime between noon and 5:00". When he finally shows up, the interaction you have with that one individual will play a major role in determining your attitude towards the brand going forward.

Do you have one of those friends that gets extremely specific when ordering at a restaurant? It's that person that has no qualms with requesting ingredi­ent substitutions from a waiter despite not having a food allergy or restrictive cultural diet. He or she probably asks about the cooking techniques and equipment being used before committing to a particular dish. I know a few such people and they drive me crazy.

When I received my stimulus check last year, I — like most people — split it between the bank and bills. When the next stimulus comes through in paychecks starting April 1, part of it will still be headed to the bank, but because it will come incrementally, instead of as a lump sum, I'll use some for incidental purchases or to save for larger ones.