Short and sweet emails to break through the clutter and noise. Everyone has overloaded inboxes so giving people something easy to scan works better than lots of info.
As a fellow entrepreneur, your challenges with vacation resonates with me. We offer hefty vacation plans in our company but no one actually takes advantage of them because they're motivated, self starters that love to work.
It's worth mentioning that there are some people that simply can't brainstorm. For one reason or another, they suck at it. Which I've found is a really bad quality for employees of mine. Brainstorming is a great quality to have in a small tech company. Not just good programming skills.
Men with shaved heads are perceived to be more masculine, dominant and, in some cases, to have greater leadership potential than those with longer locks or with thinning hair... Wow - my bald head makes me look more masculine. That's definitely a shocker.