Everyone--from CMOs to flip-flop-clad “brogrammers”--does it. It’s like the technorati’s way of starting a sentence with “like.” However, it’s much more than that.

It’s actually a damaging tendency. Beginning your sentence with “so” orients your message and subconsciously alerts your audience that what you’re about to say is different than what you’ve been talking about up until this point.

We business-types need to drop the “so” for three main reasons:

1. “SO” INSULTS YOUR AUDIENCEThat little head cock, slight furrowing of the brow, and set-up with “so” says to your audience, “I’m trying to dumb this down so someone like you may have at least a chance of comprehending the importance of what I do.”

The person with whom you’re talking won’t call you on it, because he won’t even consciously recognize it. But the convention we’ve all created around “so” will register subconsciously, and the damage will be done.

(However, I sometimes appreciate a little "dumbing down.")

Me too. My first thought was SO what. 

But then I thought about it and decided there are better ways to say things.