The article makes some good points. Similar questions have been on my mind for a while and I have been trying to keep abreast with latest technologies and skills. I have the freedom at my job to learn anything I want. Of course not everything is financially supported by the company but they have been kind enough to let me get my PMP certification. I learned SSIS/SSAS/SSRS on the job. I have freedom to develop it, test it, have end users play with sample reports and then have our IT team deploy it to production. I think this is a decent model considering how busy IT staff can get when there are more projects than resources to work on them. I am currently learning about Data Warehousing and will be creating one by myself to demonstrate it to senior level management. If nothing comes off it, I would have at least learned and deployed it.

It's very important to constantly read and learn about what's trending in the outside world and not get too complacent with one's job or success at one's job. If you want to grow in your career, you have to put time outside of work to learn and improve your skills and abilities