Hi Theres,
I'll have a go since Adrian hasn't jumped in yet.
Personally I think there are several streams to being a BA:
1. Technical BA - this is someone who works with the business to elicit requirements then models them with a view to getting business signoff and passing the model to development for their design and build. Many approaches available for this. UML / use cases, Data flow diagrams, etc. Wherever you are in the world you may have a different name for this. Technical BA is the term in Australia. I've also seen Business Systems Analyst mean roughly the same thing.
2. Business BA - generally someone with in depth business knowledge about a particular vertical market e.g. insurance, banking governance, etc. They tend to write product documents e.g. insurance product description document (like a fire policy coverage). There is probably an extra stage between their output and the developers. Maybe a technical BA.
3. Business Process Analyst - elicits and models business processes both at macro and micro company levels. Many approaches for this including UML's activity diagram, IDEFO, and others. Craig mentioned Six Sigma in another forum so perhaps that one too.
Now of course the boundaries in all this are blurred. I personally am a technical BA and a Business Process Analyst. Pure Business BA's may also be able to do the technical side but I find that is a bit rare.
In terms of career, if you are a developer then I guess logically you'd move into the technical BA stream.
Then there are:
1. Generalist BA's - someone with no special industry or package knowledge
2. Industry specialists - someone with deep knowledge in one area - e.g. trading systems, electricity companies
3. Package specialists - someone with deep knowledge of one package - e.g. SAP HR, Oracle financials
So there are many ways to go in your career Theres. Often it is circumstances that dictate your direction e.g. if you work at a company that gets oracle financials you'll naturally become good at that. If you move jobs or are an independent contractor you should at least have a vague idea of where you want to go and look for companies that continue your career path. Asks lots of questions at the interview to make sure its the correct fit.
In case you're interested, I'm a generalist technical BA. My main selling points (i.e. career points) are wide experience of multiple industries (24 years), UML / use cases and business process mapping. BPM is my favourite at the moment.
Kimbo