Agreed. I've got a journalism background (though I'm now a web developer) and it has helped me tremendously. The main thing is this: think and write carefully.

Agreed. I've got a journalism background (though I'm now a web developer) and it has helped me tremendously. The main thing is this: think and write carefully. I get emails from business people that are long, rambling, and at the end, I can't even tell what they mean or want. And the subject line isn't helpful if I need to find it later. I write emails with the assumption that you've got 5 seconds to read it. Subjects like "Are we still meeting at 2PM today?" so you might not even need the body, which is short and to the point. Also, if I have three unrelated questions for someone, I write three short emails. I want them to be able to answer two and flag one for later if necessary, without drudging up the other issues that were already solved. The other great lesson from journalism is "people have short attention spans." The inverted pyramid is for hard news stories, but even fluff pieces try to start with really catchy first sentences and be clear throughout. If you lose people's attention too often, you lose your customers. Many academics and businesspeople should learn from this - they often seem more concerned with sounding smart than really conveying information. Great ideas are no good if nobody hears about them. And in my experience, great minds are generally good at explaining their ideas clearly.