2019 is over and 2020 has just begun. I like to take some time each January and evaluate myself personally and professionally and to lay out my plan for the year. This plan includes personal and professional goals and what I would like to learn this year. Sharpening the saw!

I'm not going to bore you with my personal plan to learn how to MIG weld or about my new hobby of pouring concrete sidewalks and mow strips on the farm. Maybe next time. I don't really know anyone else that does this type of personal structured improvement. I can't be the only one. Do you do this kind of thing or am I just odd?

Employability

Typically, I try to align my learning with the needs of my employer and/or my employability as an engineer. For example, when I was writing mobile apps for the university, I learned everything I could about mobile UI and how to work with the frameworks we were using at work. All the learning and blogging led to being named a Xamarin MVP. If you're interested, Google "Xamarin Forms in Anger" and you'll see some blogs talking about my take on Xamarin Forms.

2020 is going to be a learning for employability year. With work not providing many learning challenges, I'll just have to create my own. Now, where should I start? What technologies should I learn that will increase my employability?

AI - Machine Learning

DUH! That one is a no brainer! Please excuse the pun. Even just learning more about logistical regressions and how they can be applied would be a great addition to my toolset. Even with the possibility of another AI winter, learning about ML and how to train models should be well worth my time. Polishing my Python skills would be a bonus.

Graph Databases

This one is more of a personal choice than an employability one. I went to the Graph Connect 2018 in New York and I must say Neo4j put on a very nice conference. I loved the talk about DeepWalk- Turning Graphs into Features via Network Embeddings. Neo4j did not have a conference last year but this year they are back in New York and I might have to go again. We will see.

Go Language

To know me, you need to know how much I love distributed systems. I don't know what it is about them, but I just love them. I must be glutton for punishment or something. On that note, I think learning Golang will be a nice addition to my skillset and love of distributed systems.

I'll be honest; I have tried to learn Go a couple of times and it just never stuck with me or I got bored with the books I was learning from. This year I think I need a project to work on to really learn it. Maybe I can carve off something from work to help or use Golang with Neo4j.

Conclusion

So that's the plan. What do you think? If you do plan, what's your plan?