How do you keep up with changing technologies?
patio11: There are two facets to this question: what you can do as WesleyJohnson and what you can do within your organization.  Your motivation is making sure WesleyJohnson has a job four years from now.  Your organization's motivation is selling more $FOO at lower costs.  You need to start identifying or creating happy synergies which align your organization's motivations with your personal motivations in terms of career growth.I do Big Freaking Enterprise Web Apps at the day job.  I do not want to be doing BFEWA in a few years, so I convince my day job that I can deliver projects on schedule and under budget if they give me more latitude with respect to the technologies I'm allowed to use.This started with the kind of one-off "We don't really care what you do to accomplish this as long as you get the job done" projects and snowballed from there.A key component of my process was, after saving them a truckload or two of money, I would rigorously document what I did, how much we saved (metrics METRICS metrics), future places we could employ the technology/technique/whatever, etc.After iterating this a few times, a) when I say "Hey boss, that will work, but I can do it two man-months cheaper if you let me do it my way" they tend to listen to me and b) other people come to consult with me about How To Implement X issues because they've found that I often know what I'm talking about or, in the alternative, can rectify my ignorance with a few weeks of studying and rapid prototyping.When I'm building stuff for the day job, usually I want to be leaving them working systems or system improvements which will continue to generate value long after I am no longer there (as opposed to daily firefighting).  I also want to be building personal capital which will continue to generate value long after I am no longer there (as opposed to daily firefighting).Note that if you have a small side business, you can create opportunities to use a new technology without having to bring anyone else into the loop at all.  Earlier this year I wanted to do some work with NoSQL to see what all the fuss was about.  So I picked one of the upcoming tasks that looked like it would be a good fit, and did it.  (Presumably you can do the same with OSS if you don't have a business handy.)