Is it an automobile or a car?

Is it a motorcycle or a bike?

These are the discussions that take up the bulk of my time in conference rooms. They usually come up at the end of the approval process. These are comments made by smart people. And, I welcome the feedback. I just feel that it’s feedback for the sake of feedback. In other words, when people are being paid a lot of money to give their opinion, they feel obligated to say something smart. It usually evolves into this kind of conference room talk:

“Is it a watch or a time piece?”

“To me, watch says youth and freedom. Time piece says old and stodgy.”

“But, everyone calls it a watch. Time piece could be cool in an ultra retro kind of way.”

And every time someone contributes to this, they feel like they’re doing us a service. They’re not.

If you have don’t have any major problems, a simple “looks good to me” can work wonders.