Many technology vendors would go very far to be allowed to speak at one of the major analyst conferences for CIOs and other enterprise technology buyers.

So, in our case, an unsolicited invitation to speak at such a conference showed up in my e-mail inbox a couple of months ago. Then, a reminder, a few weeks later. And another repeat invitation. The jackpot, many vendors would say.

Except, that thanks to the spam-fighting wisdom of my e-mail program, I never got to see any of those e-mail invitations. Clearly, the spam filter must have thought, these guys are just trying to sell me something.

So here I am, having repeatedly sleighted this invitation from a major analyst firm, without even realizing it. I only found out yesterday, by accident.

Can one apologize on behalf of one's spam filter? Would anybody right in their mind accept such an apology?

Life used to be simpler ...