Yep - the internal Microsoft managment buzz phrase for 2007 is "Having a conversation". Nobody has meetings at high levels any more, its all "having a conversation". Personally, I think it is a reflection that little gets done in the meetings, its just a bunch of people talking to or at each other.

A lot of that is driven by the fact that there are so many stakeholders invovled in even the simplest decisions now. Meetings are meetings of peers and very rarely of those that have the power to over rule or "lay down the law". As a result, very little ever actually gets done. Or sure, there is lots of action plans, areas to investigate further, or worse yet, special teams put together to come up with a poor compromise (errr, solution). So instead of you had a meeting and a resolution, you just say you had a conversation. Nothing good or bad comes from just talking, so you dont really have to set commitments or expectations with the peasents further down