If there's one holiday activity I can really get behind, it's buying gifts for myself. If you're looking for a job or just want to class up your office accoutrements, here are some gift ideas. (If you're not as selfish as I am, these are also fine items to give to your favorite job seeker.)

The Unwritten Rules: The Six Skills You'll Need to Get Promoted to the Next Level by John Beeson (October 2010, Wiley)

In a Q&A in the current edition of PricewaterhouseCoopers's quarterly Technology Forecast, EMC Corp. CIO Sanjay Mirchandani shares his views on how the cloud is accelerating the repositioning of IT to support business development and innovation. Cloud computing, the self-described "career businessperson" tells PwC, is enabling IT to be more responsive to the business. At EMC, members of the IT team are responsible for running core integration projects, "and they're seen as subject matter experts."

In a Q&A in the current edition of PricewaterhouseCoopers's quarterly Technology Forecast, EMC Corp. CIO Sanjay Mirchandani shares his views on how the cloud is accelerating the repositioning of IT to support business development and innovation. Cloud computing, the self-described "career businessperson" tells PwC, is enabling IT to be more responsive to the business. At EMC, members of the IT team are responsible for running core integration projects, "and they're seen as subject matter experts."

Develop your communication skills. Understand the business. Step out of the technology pigeonhole. This is the type of advice most commonly repeated to CIOs and those aspiring to be: advice related to broadening your perspective beyond IT. Adding fuel to the fire is research by Edward P. Lazear of Stanford Graduate School of Business, who studied the job histories of Stanford GSB alumni to determine who tends to end up in C-level roles. According to his analysis, generalists are more likely to reach the top job than specialists.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound?