This is a page of links and stuff for anyone who wants to know about planning.
It's very partial, it's just what I think. And it's been a number of years since I was actually a planner. (And it's even longer since I hired one, so I have no good advice about getting a planning job.)
Reading
Read Eating The Big Fish and Truth, Lies and Advertising. If you find them interesting then you'll probably find planning interesting. They, for me, are the bibles.
But the best discussions of planning thinking are happening online. There's a great selection in the right-hand sidebar on Northern Planner's blog. Read all those.
The UK APG is the planning daddy, their site contains all sorts of useful stuff, and links to various APGs, and you must read Testing To Destruction by Alan Hedges.
People
There's also a bunch of stuff at the plannersphere wiki. The password for editing it and adding yourself is huntington. It says so, right there on the front page, so please don't email me and ask me how to add yourself to it.
There's also a planning ning here, and there used to be a plannersphere doodah on Facebook, and I imagine there still is, it's just I've not been on facebook for ages.
These are the kinds of places to go to ask about getting your portfolio together, where to get a job, all that kind of stuff.
Learning
I'm not doing the Account Planning School of the Web any more. I ran out of steam. But Rob Campbell looks to be keeping things going at his blog.
I don't know much about studying planning at schools or anything. It doesn't happen so much in the UK. But I've been to the University of Oregon programme and it's great. And everyone I've ever met who's graduated from AdCenter has been brilliant.