Information Management Newsletters recently posted an article by Tony Hotko entitled "The Evolving Skill Set of the Information Worker." The article explains how industry trends and the ripple effects the global financial crisis are changing the skills requirements for knowledge workers. The focus, according to Mr. Hotko, is shifting from technical aptitude to adding value via business knowledge and soft skills.

There’s a data explosion going on and perhaps the strangest result is that business intelligence analysts need to become more artistic. 

Recently my friend Ben Harden directed my attention to a post from Steve Bennett of Oz Analytics on the future of BI. One challenge to analysts that Mr. Bennett cited was the unprecedented explosion in data quantity to “an almost inconceivable 35 trillion gigabytes” by 2020.  Part of the solution, according to the post, is “actionable insight”, as illustrated by Harry Beck when he created the now-iconic map of the London underground network from the previous rather spaghetti-ish version.  What Mr. Beck did was to distinguish significant from insignificant detail for the intended audience and present that detail in a clear and appealing way.