1. Learn Like Your Life Depends On It
Pat Phelan & Peter Shore
SQL Saturday Indianapolis

2. About Peter Database Administrator Intentionally Accidental DBA
Over 25 years IT experience
Server Engineer
Desktop Engineer
Network Infrastructure
Desk side support
President CBusPASS
Co-Organizer SQL Saturday Columbus
How to find me

3. About Pat Database Administrator Data Geek Started in the 1970s
Sales
Application Programming
Databases
Team Manager
PASS Local Group Leader
I-380PASS
QCPASS
Co-Organizer SQL Saturday Iowa
How to find me

4. Continuous Learning
“As IT professionals, our second most critical skill is our ability to learn. (The first is our ability to communicate effectively.)” – David Maxwell
“If you do not like to learn new things, IT might not be right career for you.” – Peter Shore

5. Continuous Learning We learn each day Often learn without realizing it
Most learning is not formalized
Formalized learning is any learning that follows a plan
Research for a project
Web based course
Certification training
Scholarly classes (aka you are in school)
Self designed

6. Continuous Learning What should I be learning?
How do I know what to learn?
How do I balance learning for my job vs. the job I want?

7. Goals “Goals convert vision into ENERGY.” – Dave Ramsey
“Goals are visions and dreams with work clothes on.” – Dave Ramsey
"It's a dream until you write it down, and then it’s a goal." – Anonymous
Goal Guidance
Involve significant other
Give yourself enough time to achieve (1/3/5 year*)
Goals can change

8. Goal Sample 1 Year 3 Year 5 Year Personal Paraprofessional
lose 50 lbs
deliver more than 1 pre-con
MCSA Cert
24 blog posts per year
MCSE Cert
maintian weight loss
speak internationally
Read 2 new to me books
1 blog post per month
Start MPP Program
Read 4 new to me books
Speak 2 different non-PASS events
Finish at least 1 MPP program
MVP Award
24+ blog posts

9. What’s the Plan? Plan Formal Semi-formal Throw it to the wind
Specific concepts
Specific targets within those concepts
Timeline or order
Semi-formal
Concepts you want to learn
General targets
Minimal timelines
Throw it to the wind

10. Everyone learns differently, find yours!
Reading
BOL (Microsoft Books Online)
Manning Publications
O’Reily Media
Watching
Pluralsight
Online / CBT
LinkedIn Learning
Formerly Lynda
Now owned by Microsoft
PASS Guided Learning
Mix of free and purchased
Microsoft Learn
Interactive
PASS Groups (local and online)
SQL Saturdays

11. Things to get you more time to learn
PowerShell
DBA Tools
Pester
ImportExcel
Git / Github
Source code control
Helps manage your scripts/code
Helps manage what you do
Helps manage what your team does
Greatly simplifies managing your manager’s requests about your code!

12. Where to learn? Environment Local hardware Acquire from Cloud
Desktop, Laptop, Server
Physical, Virtual, or Container
Specs do not need to be like prod
Acquire from
Craigslist
eBay
Auctions
Cloud
IaaS
PaaS

13. Where to learn? Software BE MINDFULL OF LEGAL LICENSING OS SQL Server
Linux is free
Windows 10 Pro/Enterprise, reasonable chance you have this
Windows Server
180 Day Trail
MSDN
SQL Server
PowerBI
BE MINDFULL OF LEGAL LICENSING

14. What to learn with?
Data
Find a dataset that meets your needs and interests
CDC
Census
Various APIs
Stock data
Sports Data

15. Executing The Plan Learning Resources Blogs Vendor documentation
Twitter
#SQLHelp Hashtag
#SQLFamily Hashtag
Microsoft Learn
Books
Pluralsight

16. Executing The Plan Other Resources User Groups Virtual User Groups
SQL Saturday
Conferences
PASS Summit
Dev Intersection/SQL Intersection
DogFood Con
Azure DataFest
Enterprise Data World
CodeMash

17. Management of your learning and your career is up to YOU!
Questions?

18. How to find us Peter Shore (the smart one) Pat Phelan (the olde one)
Pat Phelan (the olde one)