All business. That's what network professionals need to be in 2008 if they want
to have the most profound impact at their companies.

The hottest skills for IT professionals to develop center on business acumen
rather than deeper technical expertise. Project management, financial analysis
and communications skills are in big demand, according to CIOs, recruiters and
IT staffing specialists.

Network professionals still need a solid technical foundation, of course. But
with limited time for professional development, they should hone their business
skills rather than pursue additional technical certifications, experts recommend.

"Companies love finding employees who can make sure that technology is
being used to deliver business value," says Matt Colarusso, branch manager
with Sapphire National Recruiting in Woburn, Mass. (See
an archived career chat with Colarusso.) "They are always looking for
people who can communicate, who can bring together the technical side with the
business side and the customer side."

"Technical skills are important, but companies need people who know how
to apply them," says David Foote, president of Foote Partners, which conducts
IT salary surveys nationwide. "Companies need people who understand how
to move the business forward, who have good instincts and a lot of business
knowledge...It's all about execution."

A recent survey of 130 CIOs and IT executives conducted by the Society for
Information Management (SIM) found that the top five skills for mid-level IT
hires are all business related. These include: ethics/tolerance, problem solving,
written/oral communication, collaboration and project leadership.

The SIM survey shows that business skills are needed further down the IT organizational
chart, says Steve Pickett, immediate past president of SIM and chairman of the
SIM Foundation. "More and more IT people are dealing directly with their
counterparts in the business. It's no longer just the top IT executives,'' says
Pickett, who also is CIO of Penske, in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

One of the top CIO priorities was building business skills in the IT department,
the SIM survey found. In 17 years, this priority had never before been listed
among CIOs' top 10 concerns.

IT professionals "need to be able to dissect a business process and understand
what components of a business process will be impacted by technology,"
Pickett says. "Then they need to be able to sell the technology. They need
pretty good communications skills, pretty good organizational skills and pretty
good translation skills to do that."

What business skills to develop

Increasingly, CIOs say they need equally strong technical and business skills
on their IT staffs.

Jeff Ton, vice president of enterprise processes, information and technology
at Lauth Property Group in Indianapolis, says he's emphasizing communication
and teaching skills in his hiring for 2008.