eWeek's Lisa Vaas conjured up this list:

Don't even think about trying to get a job in IT without at least several of the following skills. Based on eWeek Labs analysts' experience and feedback from IT veterans, even IT newbies should strive to have:

• The ability to take apart a computer (and put it back together again)
• Basic skills in Windows 2000, Windows NT and Linux administration
• Familiarity with at least one of the significant databases (Oracle, DB2, SQL Server)
• Experience in security hardening and knowledge of security issues
• Strong skill in HTML creation and editing
• At least a working ability to create and edit XML, XML Schema and DTDs
• Knowledge of a scripting language
• Working knowledge of at least one significant modern programming language
• Familiarity with router and switch configuration
• Experience with using an SNMP system to track system faults
• Ability to automate desktop management tasks such as disk cloning for new-system setup
• Familiarity with (and frequent visits to) key knowledge bases, including BugTraq, Slashdot and major vendors' Web sites
• People skills, especially the ability to work as part of a team
• A tough skin

Reminds me of this bit from Robert Heinlein's "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long", 1978, aphorisms from Time Enough for Love.

A human being should be able to:

• change a diaper,
• plan an invasion,
• butcher a hog,
• conn a ship,
• design a building,
• write a sonnet,
• balance accounts,
• build a wall,
• set a bone,
• comfort the dying,
• take orders,
• give orders,
• cooperate,
• act alone,
• solve equations,
• analyze a new problem,
• pitch manure,
• program a computer,
• cook a tasty meal,
• fight efficiently,
• die gallantly.

Specialization is for insects. 

I like that weblogs touch on the fullness of life. If only the hiring process did too. The Notebooks at Amazon.

Hear what Marc Canter, the father of multimedia, has to say about the future of blogging:

The Vision is perfect, but the price is not....... 

JRobb makes the statement: "We are rapidly approaching the day when it will be possible for a person to publish a weblog from a PC, with rich audio and video, that is read/heard/seen by 1 m people and have it cost under $40 a year (all in costs including software, bandwidth, etc.).  Now, that is a revolution." [JRobb's Radio Weblog]

I love JRobb's attitude and enthusiasm.  But now he's ventured into 'our territory' - so I hope you don't mind the rant.

1. All self serving aside, it won't be called a weblog.  Once media is disseminated into these tools, several other paradigm shifts and new 'features' will transform what we call weblogs today into something else.  I won't deem to entitle these tools, except to say - they'll be A LOT more than just weblogs.
    
2. The main reason for my first statement is the reality of using and 'creating' with media.  It's a whole new ballgame.  Yes we'll still have discussions, comments, permalinks, web links and other 'blogosphere stuff' - but those constructs just don't work with media.  Suffice is to say - this is where the innovation is gonna happen.
    
3. And what happens to communities - when they become media enriched?  What happens when you can go out with a camcorder, shoot a rally, demonstartion, bake sale or after-school activity, come home and 'post it'?   What happens if someone else was there, but posts something different - can we 'link' our footage tgether?  Isn't all this closer to being a pirate TV station that a blogger?  How do we encapsulate snippets of audio or video and 'permalink' them?  How do we hypermedia link instead of hypertext link?  How do we not simply embed media in our rants and raves, but truly create a distributed network of inter-locking news, entertainment, social, scientific and loving - media bits?  How will our communities change then?
    
4. We need to go beyond the current scope and capabilities of today's blog tools.  Putting it differently - it's text versus media.  It always has been for me.  Blogs are designed for writers to write (and perhaps attach an image or file - which can be media - yes.)  But that's the epitomy of a hack.  A kludge.  A temporary fix. That's NOT how to create a media based communication, publishing medium.  That's called patch quilting text based tools with media.
    
5. For this revoltuion to happen, we'll need a whole new generation of 'blog tools' - which not only integrate web services, communication and media jukeboxes - but also aggregate a lot more than just news channels and provide unprecedented levels of customization which is appropriate to who the user is.....(i.e. what's right for Grannie is wrong for her Grandchild or Daughter.)  (Or what's right for a regular user, is unappropriate for beginners or advanced users.)
    
6. This all leads to what Don Norman calls 'human-centered' designs - and trust me - humans ain't gonna hack their HTML templates or script a media publishing sequence.  As 'easy' as Radio is, we have to go A LOT further before these tools will be in the hands of many, who will become a Nation of One.  As easy as LiveJournal (or it's off-shoot DeadJournal) is as easy as these new tools need to be.
    
7. Finally the price.  Yes $40 a year is about for a blog tool.  But that won't include bandwidth access, which BTW should be different for folks who care about publishing out to their old college roomates and family, versus the entire, whole world.  Bandwidth costs money and video will never flow out over the 'free Internet'. This, in fact is one of the foundations of how tool smiths (like Userland and Broadband Mechnanics) will make our money - selling bandwidth, access and storage to end-users, in addition to offering to have them pay to turn off ads, or commissions obtained from selling digital download licenses.

So yes - I love your vision, it's just slightly askew.  But I'm sure that, over time - you'll grok what I'm saying.

:-)

See also:

• Keyless klogging for the rest of us.
• Whither blogs? 
• Radio Wishlist - Hearing blogspace.
• Second puberty?

[aka klogs]