Mission statements - Vigorous fights over semantics last for hours, even months. Then you end up with some variation of jargony quasi-poetry.

Brilliant insight into mission statements suggesting that they "are like corporate Hallmark cards" made me think of Google.  Many people wrongly assume that the Google mission statement is to "Do No Evil" however on their corporate page the new statement is mostly the addition of some key words to the end of the existing statement, which reads "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

How about "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful at a price, and to find new and impressive ways to irritate Microsoft and Bill Gates."

In which they succeed.