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Guest post by: Thomas J. Madden Become an Author

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While taking stock of one's assets needed to be successful in starting a business, communications skills have to be high on the list, but today that does not necessarily mean one has to write well-just communicate effectively.

Today it's the era of FaceBook, Twitter and texting. Entrepreneurship has entered an epoch of ever shorter messaging, where phonetics and smileys have replaced spelling and wit. Today we're pitching with our thumbs on Blackberries, emailing at breakneck speedimpersonally to contacts whom we seldom ever meet face to face. Sometimes I feel as old and outmoded as a Gutenberg printing press, since I'm one who started as a newspaper reporter typing properly punctuated sentences on a typewriter(sic), who later became a speech writer and taught journalism in college before starting my own business.

So for most of my career, I've prided myself on my wordsmithing ability, and have watched that ability in others succumb to electronic gibberish. With the social media explosion, and emailing and texting replacing the written word, I'm witnessing every day the demise of writing skills, replaced by new skill sets in those more adaptive to technology and quicker on the draw who become the top guns in most offices. The most productive business people are faster emailers and better schmoozers than writers.

And who cares? There always seems to be someone around like me who has those old-fashioned writing skills. All you need is one or two of us at most firms to punch up pitches, tighten leads and sharpen writing by using active verbs, vivid description and forgive me for saying it, proper grammar. There's always someone who's good at that, and who remembers the old AP style book. These are the old guards and tackles enabling the fleet entrepreneurial running backs, unencumbered with having to construct clear sentences, use good syntax and the right vocabulary, to race for the touchdown and win that most coveted prize-the deal.

Good writing requires clear thinking, but the most effective business generators today are better at responding quickly than thinking clearly so the writing part is better left to older linear guys, to word-torn veterans like us..

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