Another publisher from our company was visiting our Washington office from New York, a gentleman I'd only met once before in passing. We are in the middle of reforecasting, so financial reporting was top of mind. CU Times is performing well, and this publisher asked me to what did I attribute to our success. I opened with a line about how our foundation is the credibility our editorial team has with our audience…and the publisher interrupted me. "Yeah, yeah, we have that, too." I continued on to describe the sophistication of our sales team, how they sell integrated marketing packages, and so on.

I later realized why this publisher interrupted me. To him, I was babbling the same meaningless corporate tripe that everyone spouts. I stopped to think about the drivel that had spewed forth from me. I was dismayed. Am I becoming one of them? Those fake MBA types who have the most perfectly contrived lines of crap in place, to the point where it's meaningless to elevator speech-ifiers who throw words like strategy around incorrectly and use the term verticals all too freely.