Good article, David. I want to jump off on one thing, and expound upon something you said early in the article about people attending conferences in order to learn.

I think I've mentioned in these forums in the last couple of months that my position was being downsized, so I've been applying for jobs like mad, interviewing as often as I can. I have a standard set of questions that I'll ask in interviews, to learn more about the position, the company and so on. One of the questions concerns things like training and attending conferences. What has surprised me is the fact that the vast majority of companies I've interviewed with won't send any of their employees to go anywhere, for anything. And it isn't just a case of the economy currently being bad; it's more that the company has never allowed anyone to attend any conference or training at all, so why should they start now? I don't remember how many interviews I've been to in the last couple of months, but of all of them only 1 company allowed its employees to attend a conference. I don't know if that's indicative of my area, or if that's pervasive throughout the US. I confess that I'd like to know if this is something wide spread or just something I encounter locally.