I Work With Companies.

I hate B2B.

To be precise, I hate the phrase “B2B”. It’s not even a phrase, it’s a horrid hybrid acronym that sends out nothing but bad vibes.

I hate the fact that to most people, B2B sounds like the pinnacle of business bollocks jargon that immediately signposts ‘terminal boredom ahead’.

B2B sounds like work-flow PowerPoints in window-less boardrooms and strip-lit spreadsheets full of quarterly fleet-leasing insurance forecasts. It screams stock-shots of handshakes and webinars and conference calls and white papers and the slow lingering, crushing despair of middle line management.

B2B is very bad because like all jargon it depersonalises a very human activity. B2B sounds like a faceless interaction between faceless corporations, but that’s not what B2B means at all to me.

Really it’s about building deep and complex personal relationships — which actually makes it rather tasty — and enabling amazing people to do amazing things — which makes it rather sexy.

I’ve been working with companies that work with companies for the majority of my career and I’ve met and worked with inter-stellar leaders, maverick geniuses, indescribable artists and the most inspirational lunatics on God’s great earth.

I’ve only met one politician who I thought could change the world a bit for the better, but I’ve met several dozen business people who have and hopefully will.

Since the industrial revolution businesses have, rightly or wrongly, been the engines that drive our society and our culture, so working with them and for them should be the very noblest of pursuits. Not a curse of The Office or Office Space.

So I am ditching the loathsome, pejorative acronym and will never mention B2B again because I work with people and their companies.

So say it loud and say it proud, “I work with companies”.