Besides formal training, what are some things IT pros can do to keep up
with new technologies? There is a plethora of possible answers and today
we explore some of the top tips for keeping you IT skills current.
With technology always changing and advancing, to stand still in the
area of skills and knowledge is to lose ground and advantage. That's
what makes it so important to keep your IT skills sharp, your knowledge
fresh, and your eye on the technology horizon. In this post, we explore
some ways to do these things that don't involve out-and-out training, be
it in a classroom or online. These are all things that anyone can do
with only modest investments of time and effort, and should become part
of one's self-maintenance routine as an interested and dedicated IT
professional.
5. Attend A Conference Or Seminar In Person
Nothing beats stepping out of the daily grind for a day or two, even if
only once a year, to spend some time in the company of talented IT
professionals with experiences and expertise to share. Sure, you can
look for a conference in Las Vegas, or some other destination city (San
Francisco, Washington, DC, New York City, and Miami are all popular
conference hosting cities, as is my hometown of Austin, TX), but you can
also find other, less glamorous learning opportunities and conferences
in your hometown, or the nearest major metro area in your vicinity. Take
some time to dig into a subject matter, sit in on some technical
sessions, soak up some information, and make some professional contacts.
This is often a great way to learn about exciting new tools,
technologies, platforms, and so forth, with some chances to see them in
action (or demonstrated, anyway) and talk to folks who've used them at
work.
4. Attend An Online Webinar
Increasingly, online webinars are THE way to gain exposure to and
information about new products, platforms, and services. I'm a regular
presenter for the Spiceworks community online, so I know they host
anywhere from half-a-dozen to a dozen online webinars monthly. In the
last year, I've presented on unified communications, hyperconvergence,
ruggedized hybrid PCs, Windows 10, and virtualized data warehouses.
Topics and coverage are all over the place, at all levels of technical
depth and sophistication. All you have to do is look around for topics
of interest to you, and you'll find a treasure trove of webinars well
worth attending. While most of them are free, you can also find
for-a-fee offerings that will let you learn from leading lights in their
fields. Tthe Online Training offerings from WinSuperSite.com are
particularly compelling, in my recent personal experience, and include
Business Intelligence, Power Shell Programming, Windows Enterprise
deployment, and lots of other topics in the Windows Enterprise vein.
3. Join A Local Users Group Or Online Community
Whatever your technology platform or fancy might be, chances are pretty
good you can find a user organization or an online community devoted to
that subject. Thus, for example, in the Windows world, we find great
user communities like the Windows Users Network (WUGnet) with local
chapters all over the U.S. The VMware User Group community (VMUG.com) is
the popular option for virtualization pros and PowerShell Community
Groups (powershellgroup.org) can help you get in touch with other
PowerShell pros in your area. Similar organizations come out of all
kinds of IT specialties or focus areas, including Linux, database,
information security, project management, IT governance, and on, and on.
(Hint: search for " user group" or " user group " to find something in
your neighborhood.) Online, options are even more amazing, where user
forums and other forms of online community abound for nearly every
conceivable IT specialty and platform. (You can use a similar search
technique for this stuff, too.)
When you find a user group or community, you'll also find them to be
storehouses of useful, relevant information including tips on
installation, troubleshooting, configuration, security, reading and
training materials, certification, and lots, lots more. I blog on
Enterprise Windows topics three times a week for TechTarget, and I have
found the Windows Forums (TenForums.com, EightForums.com, and
SevenForums.com, in particular) to be the best general sources for news,
information, fixes, and interesting trivia around. Things should work
likewise for you, with whatever subjects and specialties you hold near
and dear.
2. Read Whitepapers, Articles And Blogs
There's always more fodder for thought and learning online in many forms
of reading material. Whitepapers often dig into technical subjects in
enough depth to help stimulate learning, if not promote it outright.
Lots of online publications, including Tom's IT Pro, but also ZDnet,
InfoWorld, ComputerWorld, and so on, provide topic-based whitepaper
sign-up services, designed to bring interested readers together with
vendors who've got related products, services and platforms to sell.
Ironically, the websites Light Reading, Heavy Reading, and Dark Reading,
all provide ready access to technical material—some of great depth and
breadth—across a wide range of computing and IT subjects (Dark Reading
focuses on security news and technologies, but the others cover much of
the IT industry in some form or fashion). Blog posts can also provide
quick, personal snapshots for subjects of interest, with pointers to
more detailed and comprehensive information abounding.
1. Share What You Know
It's often said that the best way to really learn something is to teach
it to somebody else. Only by watching where others falter or have
questions, then helping them along or providing (and properly framing
answers), can you really get your mind around a subject. If you take the
time and expend the energy to contribute to the body of knowledge, or
to document various skills, you'll not only be helping others find their
way into subjects of mutual interest, you'll also be improving your own
skills and knowledge along the way—not to mention giving back to a
community with which you presumably enjoy spending time and interacting.
You can share what you know through blog posts, presentations at your
local user group meeting or even within your own company's IT
department. That's what got me started on what I do for a living today,
which essentially focuses on finding topics of value, and then doing my
best to absorb and deliver to others what that value might be. You can
do it, too, on whatever scale or scope makes sense to you!
I hope you find some of these tips useful. This is a topic I think will
be well worth revisiting from time to time, so if you can think of some
tips or techniques I failed to mention, please share them in the
comments below.
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