Good technical skill to learn to help get off the desk or desktop

DatabaseHead

If you had to pick just one trending technical skill that would help a new IT professional get off the desk / desktop what would you suggest?

Note I've been off the desk for a long time, > 10 years but was curious what the community thought.

I've been away for so long, I'm not sure I would be a good resource for this thread. Just taking a stab at one I would go with small application development. I've seen time and time again when a "tool" was needed and the budget wasn't there for an expensive COTS solution. People who can build these tools really seem to shine. So with that said Java or C# development with the ability to access the data layer would be my suggestion. (This might be unrealistic).

I'm not talking elaborate systems, just down and dirty interfaces that can perform a function.

Verities

Build out a LAMP stack and focus on simple apps with PHP; it's lightweight, super fast, and easy to learn. You learn about databases, Linux, and Apache in the process...before you know it you'll be in DevOps making a cool $120k+ :P

cyberguypr

I'll go with networking, CCNA level stuff. I am baffled by the sheer number of high level tech IT professionals that I cross paths with that do not understand networking basics.

gumpware

There are different paths you could take - DevOps, Sys Admin, Network, Virtualization, Storage, etc. PowerShell and Python will help you in multiple disciplines. If you want to go into Networking, CCNA plus IPv6 and Wireshark knowledge will get you off to a good start.