Do you find it concerning when you receive an e-mail from a client or colleague who can’t spell, construct sentences or articulate things in a professional manner? Perhaps the e-mails themselves are always late or sporadic?

The fact is that communication plays an immensely important role in the day-to-day business operations and the ability to express things clearly and without ambiguity is vital to ensure that people carry out their jobs effectively.

Google, in announcing a $12.5 billion deal for Motorola Mobility on Monday, saved its warmest words not for Motorola Mobility’s management or its products, but for one valuable asset: the company’s roughly 17,000 patents, as well as an additional 7,500 patents that are under government review.

That intellectual property portfolio is a treasure trove for Google because the battle in wireless is one that is increasingly being fought in court.

Corporate warfare over patents is not new. Companies historically preferred to reach truces, choosing to cross-license their intellectual property rather than risking bigger losses in court.

If you like a day at the beach — and who does not? — you can find lots of books that will enhance your experience by telling you about the birds, the fish, the plants and even the bugs you will encounter there.

But what about the beach itself?

What is it made of? (The answer is not always “sand.”) How did it form? How does it change? Can it be preserved? Unless you want to pack your beach bag with a geology text or a manual of coastal engineering, your options for answering these questions are not so good. Four coastal scientists, three from the United States and one from Northern Ireland, have come to the aid of the beach curious with “The World’s Beaches: A Global Guide to the Science of the Shoreline,” a comprehensive, readable guide to the physical features of many kinds of beaches and some of the threats they face.

Today's post in the financing options series on MBA Mondays is about Bridge Loans. Bridge loans are so called because they are a "bridge" to something else. They are short term loans intended to fund a company to an anticipated event in the future.

Bridge loans exist in many sectors outside of the startup world. Big banks will often bridge companies to transactions they are putting together for them. Real estate transactions are often bridged to a closing. The concept of short term transaction driven loans is universal in business.

Entrepreneurs like to spend their time thinking about new products and their grandiose vision. But though these are key drivers for any startup, there's another task that's of the utmost importance: networking.

Networking helps you become more interconnected within your industry, opens the door for new partnerships and creates visibility for you and your company.

I was standing in front of a Tai Chi instructor, Coach Ab Sensei, who also had a solid background in Karate and Kung Fu. His goal in this free community class was to teach women simple ways to defend themselves without losing the best of themselves to fear or rage.

He ended the one-hour session by saying, “It’s always good to feel the fear and panic of leading.” And then he gave us a clear chain of command, so that we would know who was to teach the class in his absence. I thought of how the same principles could apply to business.

Ideas move the world and they certainly move markets! Whether it’s the tablet computers that are such a rage, smart phones and/or their “apps”, social networking, compression software (such as the mp3) replacing CD players, e-books nudging paper books aside, extreme skiing, rap music, boutique hotels, reality television, our interest in nutrition (organic/bio becoming increasingly preferred in food selection) – you name it, they’re all about ideas. And these new ideas are displacing old ideas. Someone gets a new idea, it catches on and the world is changed. Not as easy, of course, as it sounds; but, in truth, that’s the way it works.

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. For many societies, the search for good ideas has taken on a sense of urgency as their standards of living have become so grand that they can no longer compete in making things because the cost of their labor is too high. As result, once making things is out, “knowing things” becomes the next possible advantage to pursue, and that means finding and harvesting new ideas! In these places, money is spent on R&D; new universities are established; celebrated thinkers get appointed to government panels; but, in truth, it’s all very improvised; and if ideas result, so much the better, but often the results are meager, and maybe never actually measured or appraised. In the end, resources are committed but our understanding of how to best generate new ideas is not improved.

The implementation gap

Last year, McKinsey released a survey revealing that 84% of executives think innovation is extremely important to the future of their companies. In other good news for innovators, the survey also reported that most executives account for innovation at strategic planning time.

The bad news?

Only 39% say they’re good at bringing new products and services to market. They cite lack of a formal process and poor internal alignment as the major reasons for this. Exacerbating this is the fact that many companies have reduced R&D investments over the past few years in order to make themselves look more attractive to Wall Street. And while most large companies have structures that make interdepartmental collaboration difficult if not impossible it really boils down to this:

The need to outdo competitors and predict the next big thing that consumers will lap up has made companies go in for innovation and incubation centres. Bosses now have to coax their teams to come up with unique ideas, with a rider that they are practical and add to the company's reserves . Devina Sengupta finds that creative success cannot be measured by mass appeal and success. When it becomes part of the KRA, rest assured, the company has found the metrics to harness the best.

Ideate Frequently

At board meetings, people often feel its best to put a firm lid on any suggestions that will lead to a clash of ideas and hurt the hierarchy. Reliance Trends, however, follows the post-it system where members write as many ideas they can think of to solve a problem. The postits are then put on a board and ideas that are similar are clubbed together. Team members vote to find out which can be better and this helps the company to "get every bone to think out of the box and at the same time choose only those that are practical," says CEO Arun Sirdeshmukh.

Sometimes a company's future growth is contingent on landing angel investment funding. The challenge is to find the right angel investor who is passionate about your business.

If your network isn't already populated with wealthy business investors, you may want to consider reaching out and making a connection on your own. You can get started with this resource list of the largest angel investing firms in the U.S., according to the Angel Capital Association, a trade association of investment groups.

Four "Knowledge Exchange Hubs for the Creative Economy" are being set up to encourage artists to use their ideas to boost the UK economy.

The hubs will be tasked with building partnerships and entrepreneurial capacity in the creative economy, and increasing the number of arts and humanities researchers engaged in exchanging ideas.

The hubs will be supported by a £16 million investment by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

The University of Dundee will be the hub in Scotland, while the other hubs will be in The University of Lancaster, Queen Mary, University of London and the University of the West of England.

Solo entrepreneurs wear many hats when it comes to running a business. One of these "hats" includes managing social media activities.

To reach a point where social media engagement produces meaningful results in terms of business development and customer loyalty requires a long-term commitment of both time and resources. Here are seven practical steps to achieve these results, gleaned from years of doing this as a solo entrepreneur myself.

1. Think Strategically, Then Tactically.

Like other forms of marketing, social media has to support business communications and marketing goals and objectives. If it can't, then why use it? The place to start is at the strategic level.

Epidemiological studies have shown that drinking caffeinated beverages reduces one’s chances of developing some types of cancer, including UV-associated skin cancer. Now, researchers propose a possible mechanism for this observation—the inhibition of a DNA repair pathway that sensitizes cells to death after sun exposure.

The results, published today (August 15) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, lend support to the idea that caffeine could be added to sunblock to increase its protective effects.

“At the cellular level, they’re showing that caffeine…is working in this way of inducing an apoptotic mechanism,” said cancer epidemiologist Joanne Kotsopoulos of the University of Toronto, who was not involved in the research. “It’s biologically plausible, and it has good implications” for potential skin cancer prevention strategies.

Let me guess -- you are reading this article because you doubt your audience is online? Welcome to the club! Many marketers and business owners share your hesitation and dip their toes into the waters of inbound marketing with caution. But the truth is, your business needs to transform in order to match the needs of a new marketplace.

Today, we tap into online social networks to search for product recommendations, ask for reviews, and share experiences. We conduct research by typing keywords into search engines and browsing through the list of results. We feel delighted when customer service representatives instantaneously respond to our questions and challenges with an email or a tweet.

Founders, who are desperate for financing, debate whether the faucet will turn on if they engage a placement agent. This is a question to be addressed in a real-world context. In the first place, the great majority of first-round financing is not economically interesting to an investment-banking firm. The fee for a placement is usually in the range of 2 to 5 percent of the amount raised. Assuming a $1 million first-round financing, a fee of $20,000 to $50,000 is not likely to attract many takers in the investment-banking fraternity, when fees for acting as financial adviser in contested merger-and-acquisition transactions run into eight figures. There are exceptions to this, as in any other proposition. Encore Computer, because of the splendid reputation of its founders, attracted a high degree of interest from major-bracket investment bankers in the seed round; William Poduska, on leaving Apollo Computer and organizing Stellar, was able to titillate investment-banking appetites to a fever pitch. (Neither firm, it should be noted, remains as an independent entity.) However, the traditional founder is wasting his time beating down the doors of the elite investment bankers to help raise money in the early rounds. Smaller investment-banking houses sights are set lower than Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs, are more likely candidates, but even they are not enthusiastic about hitting the pavement to arrange a first-round investment because the amount of work is enormous and the payoff is often uncertain.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced the approval of applications for State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) funding from 11 states and Washington, D.C.  This funding will help create new private sector jobs and spur more than $3.6 billion in additional small-business lending. The SSBCI, which supports state-level, small-business lending programs, is an important component of the Small Business Jobs Act that President Obama signed into law last fall.

“These funds will provide critical support to state-level programs that help expand small-business lending and spur private sector job growth,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Neal S. Wolin. “Unlocking credit for small businesses will provide a powerful boost for investment and job creation in local communities across the country.”

People often say, “Apple doesn’t do consumer research.” This usually precedes an argument against the need for market research of any kind. But the designers at Apple do conduct research--it’s just not the traditional kind found in consumer-behavior textbooks. It’s informal, impromptu, and driven by acute observations of the context in which their products are used. Being insightful isn’t a question of talent; it’s a question of awareness.

Awareness is essentially being mindful of the cultural and social constructs that surround you and the people for whom you are creating something new. You’ve felt it before. The moment you decide you’re going to buy a yellow MINI Cooper, you start seeing them all over town. Of course, they were there before, but the difference is that now your awareness has been focused.

There’s no doubt that managing a biotech company is an enduring challenge, even during less tumultuous economic times. Now, entrepreneurs are contending with resources that are incredibly tight, an economy that is unsettled, a stock market on a roller-coaster ride, and research and development budgets that are being slashed. The stewardship role entrusted to the management teams of biotech companies has become especially tricky as they are required to make tough choices that balance the needs of investors and the pursuit of scientific discovery. They must also manage the chaotic world of innovation within the regulatory boundaries of FDA approval process, and give freedom to creative scientists without letting go of the fiscal discipline.

So how are biotech companies handling the pressure? At BDO USA, our analysis of the 10-K SEC filings of publicly traded companies listed on the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index (NBI) over the last four years provides a window into the impact of the economic turmoil on biotech’s operations, and strategies that management teams are using to remain financially viable. For the purpose of the analysis, biotech companies were classified as “large” (between $50 million and $300 million in revenue) and “small” (less than $50 million in revenue).

Many Americans root for their hometowns, whether they do so by supporting a sports team, participating in local government or just bragging about their origins and environs. Even those who have lukewarm feelings about where they live would agree on one thing: not all cities are created equal. As part of its "Cities" special issue, Scientific American has gathered lists ranking metropolises across the U.S. on aspects of green living, pollution, health and technology.

Today we feature lists that rank cities based on their green living opportunities, and then add up each city's rankings to find the best overall green living cities. Admittedly, this summed result may be invalid. (For starters, what if other lists were generated and added in to change the outcome or what if the methods across each list are inconsistent?) We think, however, it still offers a benchmark worthy of consideration.

True leaders realize that, by definition, the word "leader" places one at the front and not the rear. Yet many, many executives try to lead through fear and intimidation. This isn’t really leading at all. It’s pushing. Those of you with time in the military probably understand this concept well.

In startups, leading from the front means that you are not afraid to get your hands dirty, pitching in to get the job done. If you are the type of leader that likes to sit back and delegate, you shouldn’t have left your nice job at American International Group (AIG), unless you had no choice, of course.

Delegation is a great skill to have, but you have to lead effectively to earn the right to use it. Intimidating or berating other team members from a position of power doesn’t work in lieu of leadership. If one of your executives hasn’t learned that, you need to get rid of them. Otherwise they will kill you in the end, one way or another.