Nice article. As a member of the public sector workforce, I am seeing that in our environment, more emphasis is being placed on communications and "Getting along with others" skills, and we are losing some of the technical skills. I remember the days when you would go up into the software developement section of the company and it felt like you walked into another world. Not anymore.

As a DBA, I want to come in and do my job, and not have to put on a happy face for the rest of the world. I have work to do, I am more productive if you let me just do it. I don't want to go to seminars where they bring in a motivational speaker to charge everyone up. You want to charge me up, check with me when I have just finished a project.

There are levels if I.T. that communication skills are probably more important, like a Helpdesk, or Customer Service office. But once the problem needs to be escalated past the Helpdesk, then we are talking about people that are going to serve you better if you just let them work on the problem. And there is where you want that technical ability, and can leave behind the people skills.