I would add that although "good" communication skills are required you certainly don't need "Excellent" communication skills so they are not required. I think that although communication skills are necessary they are being pushed to the point of being over rated. Far more important is "WHAT" is being communicated not how well you communicate it. Having pretty hand writing but missing the mark is not a must have skill neither is being charismatic and having great verbal skills and talking around in circles or psycho babel or doublespeak. It's a matter of substance over symbolism.

The idea of turning IT into a profit center is certainly not new and it's typically the undoing of IT in a company if not the company it's self. Making a profit is synonymous with staying in business but enough is enough. It can be on a case by case a do able proposition but not across the board as presented. The mindset of making IT a profit center is typically the result of someone who doesn't understand the true value of IT. If you can't see that IT enables the business to do things that it otherwise couldn't do with out IT and the profit that brings as well as to do things more efficiently and the cost that saves then you most likely are someone outside IT that has been appointed to the C-suite. Sadly typically where IT could be situated to generate profit on the side the idea is shot down by the standard business types. They view that as a threat because IT will be seen in a different light and be viewed as being much more valuable and that IT folks are using it as a ruse to personally profit from it at the detriment of the company.

How many companies that sell IT and or IT solutions have IT folks (in support roles) who are by doing their job the top sales people with out commission and recognition for being such? I mention this because of the profit center mentality and viewing IT as only pure cost. Like the commercial says if you don't get it then you don't get it!

Once again I think it's another slap at IT by someone from the outside who just can't get out of his system that IT is part of the business and it is business that needs aligned with IT so that it can be aligned with the entire business.

Dido RTyrrell ... It would be nice to have an article that really covers the skills that you need to be a CIO/CTO or simply the top IT position by any designation and then follow with an in depth article for each skill. You could then finish with having a decent explanation of why each skill is needed and some examples.