Ordinarily I have enormous sympathy for anyone who has to fly during Thanksgiving week, but this year that sympathy is multiplied tenfold by virtue of National Opt-Out Day.

Of course, everyone is talking about the TSA and the “naked body scanners” and the “enhanced pat-downs” and all the rest of it. What I found notably odd yesterday among the countless oddities surrounding this issue lately was something I saw in Times Square.

The ABC News ticker was communicating, simply: “Avoid TSA groping this Thanksgiving.” No news story connection, no “This-and-such official says” attached to it. Simply: “Avoid TSA groping this Thanksgiving.”

Sitting in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike will seem a little bit easier this year.

That’s one of my new favorite phrases. It’s from Neil Gaiman, who uses it in chapter one of Neverwhere, defining it as “like white noise, only more informative.”

It stuck in my mind yesterday as I approached the Javits Center (pictured above) for yet another ad:tech. That I was listening to the Neverwhere audiobook on the train into New York probably had something to do with that, I suppose.

Anyway, I’ve been attending Internet marketing conferences for 15 years or so, and ad:tech certainly provides plenty of white noise: the sprawling exhibit floor is jam-packed with ad networks, “advertising solutions,” more ad networks, “integrated media companies,” still more ad networks, and companies promising to deliver “digital marketing solutions,” a “more engaging online presence,” full service, and lots and lots of lead generation.

Indeed, you can’t swing a dead cat on the exhibit floor without hitting a dozen or so “innovative leaders,” “leading providers,” “industry leaders,” “leading companies” and “leading firms.” Lonely at the top? Not on Buzzword Mountain.

To break through the deafening white noise to discern the white knowledge that buzzes through the halls of the Javits Center this week, it’s not a bad idea to monitor the #adtech hashtag for pithy conference takeaways like these:

Behave less like a brand and more like a friend.

Media jobs are changing. Take the time to retrain people.

People will pay for high-quality curated content.

Social media is not technology for teens, it’s their culture.

Nothing quite in the category of profundity as  “markets are conversations,” but solid common-sense takeaways … especially if you’ve only been involved in digital marketing for a few months. Oh, and there was this one:

Apple will sell 40 million tablets next year.

I think half of them were available at ad:tech through booth sweepstakes.

So the bottom line of ad:tech, I think, is pretty much the same as any other ad:tech I’ve attended: plenty of white noise, plus a little white knowledge.

If nothing else, there seemed to be an enormous amount of energy and optimism among attendees — on the exhibit floor, in the hallways and on the hashtag feed. And as Ambrose Bierce defined “optimism” in The Devil’s Dictionary:

optimism, n. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything is good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity.

Yep: The state of the online advertising union is optimistic.

And that’s the way it is, November 2010.

That refrain from the weary salesmen of Glengarry Glen Ross came to mind the other morning when I received an email from someone at LocalVisibility.org, which purports to be:

a service for local business owners who are interested in understanding and improving their online visibility. The service shows how visible any given business is to potential customers, compared with its direct, local competitors. By covering millions of web pages on the leading search engines, yellow pages directories and popular local search sites, localvisibility.org provides the most comprehensive analysis of local businesses’ online visibility.

Sounds terrific. After all, every small business wants to stay a step ahead of the competition … and Local Visibility was even kind enough to send along a copy of their “visibility report,” which listed keywords I’m missing for my business that included “nitrogen,” “aquariums” and “restore” — hardly the kind of specific, targeted long-tail terms that apply to CKPcreative.

Then I took a look at my competition, as defined by Local Visibility. In the “Communications & Public Relations Consultants” category, they listed Universal Space Network, Inc. (which provides services “used by satellite owners and operators for world-wide, ground station coverage supporting both Telemetry, Tracking & Control,” according to their site) and a 7-Eleven about 20 miles away.

Later the same day, I received an email from one of my clients asking me whether Local Visibility is a service worth exploring.

Of course, the answer comes from the call to action on their site: “Fill out the form to have one of our experts* answer your questions on how to improve your online visibility, and what it will cost.” That asterisk leads to this footnote: “*We partner with highly-qualified local web marketing companies.”

It’s a pure lead-generation play, and while their About Us page says nothing about who specifically is behind Loal Visibility, some additional digging indicates that it’s these guys.

For my $.02, I find this sort of broad-based cold-calling obnoxious, especially when their market analysis is showing 7-Eleven as one of my direct competitors. The targeting they provide is clearly anything but targeted; it might draw in an extremely naive client or two, but it makes me incredibly doubtful about their ability to generate quality leads.

Oh, and one more thing: It turns out that when you buy leads from them, you’re one of many companies buying the same leads from them: “Leads are typically sent to 2-3 lead buyers simultaneously,” says the general overview they send out when you fill out the form on their site. Good for them; not so good for the lead-buyer.

Takeaway for marketers: If you’re going to deal with a lead generator, make sure you’re getting the Glengarry leads, not the weak leads.

There are approximately 90 million tweets daily.

You don’t have to read them all.

The average Facebook user has 130 friends, each of whom creates three pieces of content daily; that’s 390 pieces of content.

You don’t have to read (or create) it all.

The average email user receives 61 non-spam emails per day.

You don’t have to respond to every last one of them right this second.

The average smartphone owner has 27 apps.

You don’t have to use them all today.

The average American watches almost three hours of teevee per day.

You don’t have to watch it all.

You don’t have to read every white paper, attend every conference, listen to every Podcast and view every Webinar.

Digital and electronic media is imbued with a profound sense of urgency: You have to read/watch/listen to/play with me NOW!

But (and as a type-a personality myself, this is really hard to admit): You really don’t.

Because it’s impossible to stand in front of an ocean of information and control the waves. The best you can do is allow the waves to wash over you and try not to get knocked down into the sand.

… and every once in a while, it’s healthy to go back to your blanket, dry off, catch a few rays and have a sandwich.

Like Warren Zevon said: “enjoy every sandwich.”

To quote a question asked by Peter Griffin: You know what really grinds my gears?

Lots of things, actually, but today my gripe is about digital agencies who financially rape their clients.

I’m talking about charging unconscionable fees for blitheringly simple things.

“But Craig!” you may protest, “it’s the fair market at work!”

No it’s not, it’s taking advantage of clients in an extreme way, and it’s wrong.

Here’s an actual example from this past week:

A client of mine has a fairly robust site. There’s a content management system in place, but either the system isn’t flexible enough to handle absolutely everything or no one in my client’s company has the time or expertise to figure out absolutely everything. Because here’s what I heard from the client: “Yeah, Agency X is gonna charge us $1,400 to change the graphic on the home page, but then when the graphic needs to be changed back to what it is now, it’s another $1,400.”

Really? Okay, I took a close look at this work and maybe — maybe! — it’s a half hour, tops. Graphics and programming combined. I wish I could provide a link to the specific site in question, but you’ll have to trust me on this one: We’re talking very boilerplate stuff here. Create the graphic, name it and upload it to the server so the current graphic is overwritten, ba-da-bing, ba-da-bum. Done.

To change it back is even easier: Nothing new needs to be created. Upload the old graphic. That’s what, a minute or two?

And the agency is raping the client $2,800 for what amounts to less than an hour’s worth of work, all told.

That’s about as reprehensibly scummy as it gets.

Takeaway for marketers: If you’re screwing your clients to this degree, remember: Karma’s a bitch.