Last week I had a baby.Right after I felt the first contraction, I told my husband that I was going into labor. Then I called the hospital. Then I called Michael, user services specialist at CXO Media (parent company to CIO).Maybe I should have called my mother first, but I was having serious problems setting up my home office. I had an appointment with Michael that very morning so that he could fix everything before I found myself homebound. I could not focus on the day’s event without first rescheduling that meeting.In the week following my daughter’s birth, I clocked more time on the phone with Michael than with my pediatrician, my husband and my mother combined. Michael rose to the challenge of dealing with a new mother with network configuration problems. Despite the cries of a 3-day-old baby and the short temper of a frustrated postpartum user, Michael gently talked me through a troublesome printer software installation, a tricky port problem and a network path dilemma. Most of us have a roster of trusted professionals—our family physician, our attorney and perhaps even our therapist—to whom we turn when life goes awry. The user services specialist, it seems, is on the verge of becoming a member of that elite group. Strong technical skills are no longer enough. Along with solid programming and network experience, today’s IS worker needs a good keyboard-side manner.But a look at the job descriptions for user services positions on sites like Monster.com and CareerPath.com reveals that employers don’t value these softer skills in their IS workers. The requirements for most IS jobs include items like five years’ experience in a Windows environment or knowledge of TCP/IP, WINS and DNS. While several of the descriptions ask for general communication skills, none stress the importance of relationship building among users or sensitivity to user concerns. One could argue that because technical skills are easier to acquire than those elusive softer skills like patience and good humor, CIOs should place a stronger emphasis on the latter. If Michael had the best technical skills in the world but exhibited the poor interpersonal abilities endemic to so many IS workers, I might have thrown in the towel, and my editor would have had a real problem on his hands. Do you care enough about the soft skills of your IS staff? Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe