What to learn for the next upturn

[Pogle]

My guesses would be

- Business Intelligence
- Enterprise Planning and Budgeting
- Information Security

You could try getting hold of SQLserver 2005 or 2008 and learning all the BI software (ETL , reporting etc) which comes with it - inside out and upside down. Read and inwardly digest Kimballs " The data warehouse lifecycle toolkit"
and try and get a gig doing BI.

The SSIS stuff with SQLserver 2005 was not a bad attempt at an etl package, I haven't looked at 2008 yet, but I'm assuming its improved. I've noticed over the last couple of years an increase in demand for these skills as basically you get them 'free' with your database. Compared with the prices for Cognos, BOBJ & others they are a bargain and smaller businesses will be keen to use them.

[ribble]

Business Intelligence seems to one of the ones that is going to remain quite boyant through the downturn. So good advise from Pogle.

Once you've learn't you will definatley need some experience so best to get a gig doing SQL Server & BI stack.

@Pogle: I'm currently designing and implementing an end to end solution at the moment and using SQL Server 2008 and they have definatly started polishing it off when compare to 2005. SSIS is much more robust for sure.... SSRS is far more flexible and much prettier as well.

[oracleslave]

You could try getting hold of SQLserver 2005 or 2008 and learning all the BI software (ETL , reporting etc) which comes with it - inside out and upside down. Read and inwardly digest Kimballs " The data warehouse lifecycle toolkit"
and try and get a gig doing BI.

The SSIS stuff with SQLserver 2005 was not a bad attempt at an etl package, I haven't looked at 2008 yet, but I'm assuming its improved. I've noticed over the last couple of years an increase in demand for these skills as basically you get them 'free' with your database. Compared with the prices for Cognos, BOBJ & others they are a bargain and smaller businesses will be keen to use them.

What are these Cognos, BOBJ and SqlServer things of which you speak? Surely you mean Oracle and OBIEE?

[Pogle]

What are these Cognos, BOBJ and SqlServer things of which you speak? Surely you mean Oracle and OBIEE?

Sadly never had a chance to get to grips with the Oracle BI stuff, i expect I will some day, but Oracle is defiantly my db of choice

[PM-Junkie]

I'm about to be benched. After reading all this, I'm not looking forward to it.

But of course you have at least 12 months' funds squirrelled away, and a plan B to work on - so it's not a problem.

Right?