I used to work for a digital learning company early in the modern Internet. We were ahead of our time and struggled to sell online learning at the turn of the millennium. Bandwidth limitations held back video courses from widescale adoption. I moved on when the company folded, but I've watched other companies start to build and grow video training across the years. One of them that I've been most impressed with is Pluralsight. In fact, I very much appreciate their customer service.

I try to make time every week to watch something. I don’t always get to any bits of learning, which is the way things go. Life is busy, and some days I don't have the mental energy. I do try to download a course or two to my phone for long plane rides and other travel. I’ve even had a few modules playing on long drives or in my headphones while skiing. Of course, I can’t watch the screen during those events, but I can listen and try to learn something on the go. I've even whiled away sessions on the stationary bike with a Pluralsight course playing in front of me. It's not deep learning, but it's a way of looking at something that I find interesting. I often will go back and try a bit of code later.

I don’t focus too tightly on SQL Server with Pluralsight as I get plenty of that elsewhere, but sometimes I use their courses for investigation into other areas. I’ve listened to Chef and Puppet courses, C#, ASP MVC, Python, and more. I don’t always use the skills directly, but a little learning does help me understand the larger view of how technology works. I've found throughout my career that having some good general knowledge in various areas helps me troubleshoot and understand the larger picture, often helping me find an issue in a complex system quicker. I also get ideas on why I might consider some other type of technology as a way of improving an application in the future.

I certainly hope that most of you continue to come to SQLServerCentral to get ideas, learn something, and get questions answered. My mission with this site is to help others become better SQL Server professionals. We may add some video to go with our written work, and certainly I think we could improve some assessments and testing. If there are areas you'd like to see more content, let us know.

However, we can't do what Pluralsight does with their long courses and variety of topics. If you get the chance, or have a subscription, check them out. They provide a great learning resource that I'd recommend.