Where to begin?

I've been staring at the screen for ages trying to work out where to start. The first post on a shiny new blog is going to set the tone for the rest - that's a bit scary. I guess I'll just go for it!

Have you ever been in a business meeting that makes you either cringe or stifle laughter? My first ever client meeting did exactly this. It was a fairly average meeting on the face of it, I was trying to prove to my two MDs that I was a great hire and convince the client that I was mature and knowledgeable. All was going well until the Bristol accented client said, “I understand, softly, softly catchy monkey” (in the style of Gareth from The Office).

It’s been pretty much down hill from then on, although my poker face is vastly improved with the practise. I've found a fairly good rule of thumb is - the bigger the company (client or PR agency) the more crap phrases get bandied about, though they’ve never sounded quite as funny as that first time. But why is that? Is it an ego thing or do people generally think talking like David Brent makes you come across as more savvy?! Here are some of my hot favourites:

You don’t have to boil the ocean – um….what? I boiled some salt water in chemistry class once but it never occurred to me to pursue it any further
Blue sky thinking – apparently not an excuse to drift off into a lovely day dream (try it at your peril)
Picking the low hanging fruit – seems a lot of my clients spend time discussing time spent in orchards
EOP – come on, there had to be an acronym in here somewhere. Why say end of play? Do some people actually think of their time in the office as play?

In a business environment where we are constantly working to simplify the discussion of technology and make it accessible to people who aren’t geeks, I just don’t see the need to complicate our everyday conversation.