1. Data Analysis Skills. Where social goes, so goes big, messy unstructured data. To gain a return on social business, IT professionals will need to become skilled in evaluating and implementing big data analysis systems.

2. Open Standards Skills. The success of a social business depends on standards, said Ed Brill, IBM’s director of social business, and IT must develop an understanding of how key standards work in context. “In today’s distributed workplace—with great diversity in content, processes, and devices—open standards play a vital connector role.”

3. Marketing Skills. The marketing department is likely at the forefront of social at your organization, and IT must get used to marketing—and other departments—calling some of the technical shots.  They need each other more than ever. Together they can approach social business as an essential enterprise system that delivers innovation, business results, and better employee and customer experiences.

4. Social Collaboration Skills. IT professionals who successfully support and guide the technology underlying social initiatives will be social animals themselves. This should not just be at the theoretical level, but also tacit knowledge—that is, they should be social practitioners.

5. People Skills. IT pros today need a new level of people skills as they work to guide and support the business in its use of social and other technology whose use is often driven first by the users themselves and changes far more quickly than in the past.  They need to be able to take the pulse of the organizational culture and understand what’s possible to implement and when.  Via The Brainyard.