3 cliches

Fred Wilson has a regular feature on his blog he calls VC Cliche of the Week. It made me think about 3 cliches that I use that seem cover 80% of the situations in my life where I use a cliche. Here they are...

1. When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I remember getting many chuckles with Ian Morris (HouseValues CEO) back when we were working at Microsoft on online properties. We saw a steady stream of people come into the online arena from the Office team. Their answer for everything was "this is just like Office...". As evidenced by the number of former Office execs that flamed out outside of Office, they proved that it was rarely the case. While I'm all for learning from past experiences, they can cloud your judgment if you rely on them too heavily.
   
2. The least common thing is common sense. I've observed this many times. In work settings, it's often someone who is brilliant in a particular discipline but has no street smarts/common sense.
   
3. What's the definition of insanity? --> doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. I'm seeing this with many businesses using some traditional advertising vehicles that have little accountability. Whether it's a big brand or a local business, many just do the same as they did the year before and wonder why they aren't getting the kind of growth in their business that they'd like.