Professional Development

One of the important things when you’re working with technology is staying up with the times. Things change so fast and it’s often difficult to keep up.

Recently I’ve gotten a subscription to MSDN Magazine. It was free with the MSDN subscription I have at work so I figured I might as well. Just keeping it in the backseat of my car let some co-workers get a little bit of time in reading it on the way to and from lunch. So I started thinking maybe I should just try to take a glance in there every now and again. Just when you’re sitting there with nothing else to do maybe glance into the magazine and see if there’s anything you might need to get an update on.

Yesterday I was watching a movie on TV (Payback) and the commercials were stacked towards the end of the movie. They’d get you hooked then make you spend half your time watching a movie. That would be a perfect time to grab a magazine and read.

My problem is reading isn’t exactly a rainbow. I have to take some time and go through the information slowly. This is discouraging and more often than not the only time I get around to reading articles is when there’s something specific that I need to know how to fix.

Another good source I’ve found for intermittent reading is SQL Server Central’s newsletter. These newsletters have a lot of good articles and I’ll wind up going and reading one or two a week. Recently there was one that I just happened to open that explained the new pivot command. That solved a problem I’ve been procrastinating on for quite a while now.

Aside from spending just a bit of your time here and there looking at articles sometimes you need a lot more to get you started with a new product. Luckily I work at a place where they’ll buy books or send us to training if we need it. The only problem is it can’t impact our already tight schedules. Training works wonders and at least makes you feel like you know what’s going on with a new product. Often times the classes only teach the bare minimum to get you rolling and then you’re out scrounging for articles to fix the problems you’re having.

I guess I'm looking for how to teach myself the latest things just as much as I'm looking for how to teach others the basics.