Meredith’s blog post on “shameless self-promotion” really resonated with me. Perhaps it’s because I used to call it “vicious self-promotion” and believed, and still do believe, that it is a critical success factor for information professionals. It is very important to be seen, heard, and have presence — I’ve written about that before in my “At the Table Voice” post. Or perhaps Meredith’s thoughts reminded me of recent conversations with executives (all former librarians meaning that their current roles are not library related), and all different organizations — consulting, insurance, and investments. Their comments really put into perspective for me the current corporate expectations for information professionals. When hiring, they are looking for people with big picture skills, technical skills like anaylsis and ability to give presentations, and business sense in addition to research. In many cases they are no longer hiring librarians but other kinds of researchers and analysts. It is great that as a profession librarians are concerned about the details and ensuring that systems and services are implemented and working properly, but without presense, confidence, and the skills to back them up, we are never going to get the resources, jobs, or success that we might like.