One of the really interesting things that we are able to do as developers and DBAs is help find ways to analyze data for our clients and customers. Many of us might not have expertise in the actual areas that are represented by our data, the industry specific knowlege, but those of us that will be the most successful in the future at our jobs will be able to work with the people that have that specific knowledge and need help to implement the analysis.

That will take some practice. I'd encourage many of you to start playing with some sort of data that you are interested in and try to perform some analysis. Whether it's useful or just for fun, you will be gaining some skills in both analysis and presentation that will serve you at some point.

There are so many sets of data available for practice that you can probably find something in an area that's interesting to you. I don't know if you could get the cool spatial data set seen in this talk, but there are certainly sports sets available, open data sets from government, movies, entertainment, and more.

Working with a set of data that intrigues you is a way to enhance the very skills that you'll want to have to help your employer. Building reports, visualizations, and more is a technique to show value to your current employer. It's also a great way to showcase your talents on a blog that might just get you an inquiry or interview for an amazing next job.