T-SQL Tuesday #97 – My learning plans for 2018

T-SQL Tuesday #97 is hosted by Mala Mahadevan [B|T] and this time the topic is “Setting learning goals for 2018“. Mala ask about our next year’s plans in terms of learning: what we want to learn, how and when, and our plan to improve on what we’d learned.

It’s not easy to point out what I’d like to learn in next year. Not due to lack of ideas. On the contrary: TOO many ideas! Also, the time before Xmas is a hard time to making a plan for the next year.
Anyways, let’s try to predict.

What do you want to learn?

That might surprise some people but I will still be learning and improve my English skills. I really see my progress after over 2 years of living in London now. Although I’m able to talk to people (almost fluently) and make a presentation in English, still feel that there are many things to do, many words to pick up, many phrases which could be used.
The second thing I would like to improve is my presentation skills. Since I’m doing several presentations a year and the topics are being got very well by attendees – I’m still could be better and amend certain things. But it’s a continuous process, right?
From the technical perspective. Yeah… many things.
It’s additionally harder because I learn and read many articles every week (check Last Week reading series).
I would like to improve my hands-on experience (“from the field”) or learn more about such things like Tabular Model, R language (thanks Steph for the first step), Cosmos DB, Azure Data Factory (including v2 and Integration Runtime), Azure DataWarehouse, deeper dive into Columnstore Indexes. Very likely I’ve forgotten something but I will review my list at the beginning of 2018 as I’m going to get off almost entire January to rest, learn, plan the year and do my private stuff.
And obviously – I will choose what I will focus on. All mentioned things are impossible.

How and when do you want to learn?

There are plenty of sources nowadays. You know that. The Internet comprises an unlimited set of knowledge. I have already my favourites websites and YouTube channels. Furthermore, I’ve taken part in many conferences across Europe and even another continent (this year), thus I can use those opportunities to learn from my friends and other speakers.
Moreover, I really like to read books. The paper once. Honestly. In terms of that, I’m the old-fashion guy. This year I began reading book’s friend of mine – Marcin Szeliga [T]. He is a guru of Data Science and Machine Learning, and for me will be easier to finish the book as it’s in my native language, Polish.
Therefore, there is no lack of capabilities. Only lack of time to use all of them.

How do you plan to improve on what you learned?

My blog has started 5 months ago. So, it is a baby. I want to feed it. Feeding it regularly. I have managed it so far and I will try to do this in the next year introducing new ideas. The baby must be growing. That gonna give me wild satisfaction and let me gain my first aim – learning English. 2 in 1. Brilliant, isn’t it?
During the passing year, I’ve been 12 times at varies conferences (look here) – both as an attendee and as a speaker. Next year I’m going to continue that activity, but with a bit less frequency. Although I love meeting all my friends from #SQLFamily and be on many conferences – I must be more precisely next year and select only part of them. It gonna be difficult.