What are you doing to stay current in your field?  

If you just struck the deer caught in headlights pose, you're not alone.  Do you think you have to rely on your employer to get the information to stay informed, or learn?  With companies tightening their belts, you can find useful information, in of all places, the internet. For free.   Are you (un)der-employed and don't think you can afford to do the activities required to stay current? 

Think YouTube. Think Blogs. Think Podcasts.  Think Professional Association and corporate sites.

PMPs can earn PDUs by listening to podcasts such as The Project Management Podcast™ by Cornelius Fitchner.  That's right; earn PDUs through iTunes. I used this podcast to help reinforce my studies for the PMP exam last year. 

There are so many blogs out there; there are too many to mention here.  Do some searches on your topics of interest, and add them to your syndicated feeds (in IE 7, it's really easy to set up syndicated feeds).  Many corporate and professional association sites include blogs, podcasts, as well as download areas with whitepapers that are free.  Other sites simply require a login account to access whitepapers and other articles.  Take advantage of them, they're free. 

YouTube is not just for viral videos of stupid internet tricks or coed embarrassing themselves. It's not the only resource for free online video, but I'll limit this to YouTube for simplicity.  While keeping in mind that no media content is guaranteed accurate (including legitimate news sources), there is good information out there on the 'net.  Companies post videos on YouTube promoting their products, or making announcements. Speakers will post their presentations.  People interested in sharing their expertise will post their own videos. 

While you still have to maintain the "don't be so open minded your brain falls out" policy, there is a lot of good information out there.  There's also a lot of good information with poor presentation, and it may take time to find the information you want/need, but it's worth exploring. Especially if it's free.

For example, I've got an interest in eLearning, as my current gig is course development for eLearning modules. The top five hits for eLearning on YouTube are:

University of Leicester- Designing E-Learning

E-learning Evolved - Podcast #1: MI Theory

Andrzej Wodecki: The eLearning café

ARoadmap for e-learning

I did a few other searches, just to force my point home:

Keywords: "agile project management"

Radical Thoughts from a Project Manager Turned Agile Coach

Basic Features of the Agile Software Development Model

Communitech agile session (II)

Keywords: "software life cycle"

The Lifecycle Cost of Software

Software Development Life Cycle [SDLC]

Application Lifecycle Management

Still not convinced? I also did the following searches, using the quotation marks in the search field to limit the results even further. But I still got results:

383 hits on "Microsoft excel"

15 hits on "Semiconductor manufacturing"

27 hits on "career transition"

5 hits on "non-profit marketing"

39 hits on "facilities management"

22 hits on "project management software"

7 hits on "service level agreements"

145 hits on "powerpoint presentations"

And speaking of PowerPoint presentations, here's a comedic critique of powerpoint presentations.