Absolutely, it's of prime importance to me. My core employable skill is SQL Server and that's what I do for a living, but I often have ideas on things I want to do and find myself (in my own time) haring off on a tangent to create a product, or module, or simply test something I've read about or discovered. Sometimes these 'BIMBs' (bee in my bonnet), as I call them, peter away to nothing but sometimes things turn out really well.

My recent BIMBs include:

- Coding up 'Conway's Game of Life' using VBScript, SQL Server and SVG (scalable vector graphics). This went brilliantly and worked without a flaw. I had some ideas about making a 3d version using a variation of Conway's rules, but due to slow rendering of the cuboids in my browser, I left it here.

- Web page creation for an idea I had, using purely HTML5 / CSS3 and SVG (as more of an exercise to test my skills for HTML5 coding than anything else)

- I've ordered a 'Makey Makey' (see url: www.makeymakey.com and have some exciting ideas about customising it to make my home environment more interactive.

etc, etc.