Punditry

It's always good to see news researchers showing off their skills in public but when did they start teaching football punditry in library schools? Alan 'The Power' Power is quoted in today's Guardian pontificating about the next manager of the England team. Of the contenders, he said "Their only qualification for the job is that they are English". Very astute. This diversification lark reminded me of Tim Buckley Owen's talk at last week's Corporate Management Conference. His shopping list of skills that the 21st century information professional can't afford to do without includes: coaching skills (ah, football again..), report writing, design and lay-out abilitiy, multimedia skills and the need to be good at marketing. It's a theme that he develops in the January/February issue of Managing Information. Perhaps the most important point made is that in the face of everyone believing that everything can be answered by Google, it is the information professional's job to, "do what all professionals do: the same as the amateurs, but much, much better. This means providing not raw answers but finished solutions...we have the courage to reject data that doesn't come up to scratch, and repackage the information that we do decide to offer, in ways that our customers will find useful."