Can Account Planners be Communications Planners and vice versa?

Campaign posed this interesting question the other week. The conclusion of the debate was generally that they can't and that that's it, there are different skills and objectives involved in these very different jobs. That I took on board. Account Planning and Communications Planning, despite being planning roles of sorts, are different roles in the big wide marketing world. Account Planning is about ideas, Communications planning is about action. Account Planning is about deciding what consumers see, Communications Planning is about deciding where and how they see it.

So, we've established that much, but can good Account Planners be good Communications Planners? I think that's all down to adaptability and brains and getting it to work in another way. I don't see why I couldn't become a writer or an artist or a juggler! - If I practiced and got my brain into gear, why not? I guess whether I'd be good at those things is another question, but it depends on the individual person I suppose and isn't something that you can judge collectively as being definitively the case.