Research in the December Journal of Personality and Social Psychology indicates that there is only a 50/50 chance of an email recipient correctly interpreting the tone of an email.

Just because we might have selfish genes it does not mean we have to behave selfishly; nature knows when to be nice as well as nasty and nepotism occurs in the biological world too with equal destructiveness as our world. This is according to Richard Conniff author of The Ape in the Corner Office and reviewed in the UK Guardian Newspaper (27 May).

Symbiosis is a central tenet of bioteams which in bioteams means you should 'partner date' widely but commit to partners very carefully. But according to wikipedia there are four different types of symbiotic behavior possible between two different biological species.

From studying nature's bioteams it seems there are 3 dominant patterns of communication which can be used in a biological group. All three also have their place in the electronic communications we use in our human teams. However one of them, if over-used, can be destructive or indicate the absence of crucial group support structures.

THE way the body's immune system responds when its cells are under attack has inspired a new way of protecting computer networks from viruses and hackers according to an article in the NewScientist.com news service, 20 May 2006

My research into biological teams has revealed that they make extensive use of short messages as their primary means of communications. For example, Ants use chemical messages, Bees use visual messages conveyed through dance and Dolphins use sonar: unlike human teams they all exhibit strong Messaging Instincts.

In Busy doing nothing Steve McKevitt author of the book City Slackers describes how every company has a ‘city slacker’: they're always on the go but they never achieve anything.

Paul Sweeney, European Marketing Director at voicesage reports that in China, the newest shopping craze is tuangou, or team buying, and it uses the aggregating power of the web and creates flash mobs focussed on creating bargains. Here's a taster…

In a previous article, Seven 'model behaviours' for bioteam members, I discussed the work of Craig Reynolds and the three critical autonomous behaviours which enable birds to flock. Here I propose that human bioteam members need just seven autonomous behaviours to enable them to swarm.

Richard Cross describes how new research is revealing how biological foraging strategies can be adapted to help users search out and find information more effectively on the web.