Man Page Writing: Life/Times of Man Page Writer

What is the meaning of "So...", when prepended to a person's opening statement? Just listen in a meeting:

Meeting leader: Well, we've gotten some pushback from the field on this. Stew assures me that he can win them over. Response from ISVs has been good. Our tech guy in Manila tells me their government is almost finished with their trials. Jonathan?

Jonathan: So...several things to address. On the Phillipine government...

It's usually smart people who use this. It makes them sound a little smarter. It's meaning, as far as I can tell, is something like, "Give my prodigious mental powers a moment to gather themselves..." It's not necessarily as vain as that, but close.

The other usage I notice is "sort of". Educated people use this in the way that uneducated people use "um" or "like". On a basic level, it provides a pause and can improve the rhythm of a sentence. In terms of meaning, well, it varies. Often, it's something like, "The statement that follows is a useful approximation. I don't have the multiple, double-blind studies at hand to substantiate the statement, but it is accurate enough for present purposes."

You can hear numerous examples of these verbal mannerisms in this video of Paul Krugman.