Identifying those skills requires some legwork, but it can be done. According to an October report from research firm Foote Partners on hot IT jobs and skills in the third quarter of 2005, the hottest skills were in areas such as security, extreme programming, VoIP and storage-area networking. More important are the nontechnical skills that Foote Partners predicts will be the most highly prized in the next 12 months. Topping that list: project management -- especially, interestingly enough, global project management.

Let's hope the IT profession does a better job of making the bold decisions our global reality demands than the journalism profession has done. Timidity has no place in either field.

-- Don Tennant is editor in chief at Computerworld. Contact him at don_tennant@ computerworld.com.