@Stuart, thanks for sharing the tip!
@Christopher, Welcome to Bridging the Gap!

@Curtis Yes, when coming from a strategic IT background, I think it’s important to water down how much you stay on that “treadmill”. In many ways this article was intended to be a sharp kick for more business-side BAs, some of whom can tend to resist knowing much about IT or who do the opposite and over-estimate what they need to know about IT. It’s definitely a balancing act. An earlier draft of this article had a section on focus because, as you say, we BAs need to know a bit of everything, so we can’t be spending hours each week learning about emerging technologies unless we want to be pure technologists.

Thanks for sharing your list of resources. You are making me think that we should have all the featured authors add links to recommended resources on their profile pages as I’m sure many of our readers could benefit from clicking to check them out.

Sounds like you are doing your stakeholders a great service by helping them look out ahead of the game. That “trending” aspect of emerging technologies is an interesting and challenging one!

As a BA who came to the trade from the technical side (various database certifications, lots of code and script writing, UI work, design, data modeling, etc.), I think I take it for granted that I can speak to stakeholders in the technically informed way you describe. But I’m usually more concerned whether I’m business savvy enough, or economically informed enough to handle the pure business speak. So, moving into business analysis has been fun for me, because I’ve had to broaden even further and be up on a lot of areas. (an OTJ MBA) And frankly, it’s a nice change, because it used to drive me a little crazy trying to always “stay up on the latest technology”. Sort of like a hamster’s treadmill, that I could never get off.

So to your question Laura, these days, I’ve struck a balance by subscribing to a mix of blogs, which range from technical, to business, to artistic, to spiritual, to cultural. They are: Adrian’s Tech Blog (an agilista site), At Your Servers (Forbes’ Quentin Hardy who authors a column for CIO types), Awake Alive and Aware (modern integral philosophers), Bridging the Gap (of course), CoorperDotCom (great Design and UX resource), Good Requirements (Jeffrey’s site), The Shatzkin Files (Mike Shatskin, one of the most thoughtful publishing industry pundits), and The Wealth Report (WSJ columnist Robert Frank on money and the wealthy class). That’s my daily balanced blog diet. (of course, there’s Twitter, and Mashable, and all the rest, too)

But here’s the thing. My personal goal is to find and then focus on the areas that are just on the practical side of bleeding edge and pay attention. Something like Predictive Analytics and sentiment engines fits that bill for me right now. I scan for areas that are trending, but not trendy. The trendy stuff is the already built solution, and the also-ran. It’s typically what my stakeholders have already heard of too, and they are just regurgitating someone’s else idea or solution, copy and paste. I want to stay ahead of that curve and be informed about the creative solutions that are not trendy yet, but are within practical reach.

Lastly, just coming off a ‘BA Fundamentals’ course with Watermark Learning, I’m reminded of a comment made by the teacher Bob Prentiss: “BAs need to know a little about everything.” And he meant, literally… everything. Jacks-Of-All-Trades are very welcome here. I find that very inspiring and delightful because it keeps me mentally sharp, and humbly curious. And instead of running like a hamster on tech treadmill, I feel more like a ship’s navigator, perched in the crow’s nest, scanning the horizon for dry land and new opportunity. That’s a fun place to be!

As a BA on an Enterprise Information Management (EIM – lots of acronymns to describe – phew!) project, I have had a steep learning curve on all technologies in the collaborative space, including MS SharePoint, and Social Computing technologies.

There are so many great people “out there” blogging, tweeting, microblogging, writing articles etc. On Twitter, @mpesce is an interesting one.

Thanks again.