I was reminded of the power of applause and cheering this past weekend as I attended my daughter Morgan's annual dance recital.  The evening was filled with makeup, tutus, and tap shoes...along with bundles of nerves as the girls paraded across the stage.

The MC for the evening (who happened to be Dick Richards aka Bozo the Clown from WZZM 13 - anyone else have the pleasure of playing Bucket Bonanza on TV back in the day or am I really aging myself??) encouraged us to clap, cheer, and make lots of noise when we saw something we liked.  You can imagine the cheers when the 3 and 4 year olds stepped onto that stage for the first time.  You could feel the energy swell and see the sweet little dancers beaming whenever the audience cheered for them.

When was the last time someone clapped and cheered for you?  Was it during a sporting event or program?  Or were you at work?

We all like to know in some shape or form that we are noticed and valued for doing something good.  Sincere and meaningful feedback doesn't take a lot of time to produce.  If you can't remember the last time you said something positive about a co-worker's performance, do it now! 

Just because we've grown up and our stage looks a bit different now, we haven't outgrown the tendency to shine when we're appreciated.

2008 started with a wealth of new experiences and opportunities for me.  Moving from the east coast to join the Rapidparts team, purchasing a home, and oddly enough what turned out to be one of the more difficult tasks was buying a new cell phone.  Until recently I was using an old company Blackberry.  It was ok for getting email and finding some small gems of info on the mobile web browser, but I was excited about the idea of one day buying my own super cell phone.  It had been over 5 years since the last time I purchase a cellular phone.  Back then your choices were mostly limited to phones with two line, one ‘color’ LCD screens and nothing to speak of by way of multimedia support or cameras.  With today’s polyphonic ringtones, Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS and 8.1 megapixel camera enabled phones, I figured that I would have my work cut out for me. 

So, the day came when my wife and I made our way to the local Verizon store and began sifting through the walls of inventory.  It wasn’t long before I realized that there really weren’t any great deals out there.  Sure some phones could play mp3’s and some were GPS enabled, but the nicer feature-packed smart phones required you to shell out some serious dough just for the ability to expand the lackluster interface.  You want integrated maps – that will cost you extra.  You want an email client - sure for $4.99/month.  Every feature that was integrated in to the phone to make it a better value just ended up being locked out by the service provider.

Enter Android.  Android is the new mobile operating system developed by Google that’s slated to appear in second half of this year.  It’s like having an incredibly small toy box that somehow contains all the toys you’ve ever wanted.  Moreover, you somehow have all the appendages necessary to play with as many of these toys as you want - all at once.  That is what Android feels like.  It’s not a phone, but it’s a promise that whatever phone it’s running on will be able to do more.  Recently Google shelled out almost 5 million in awards to developers who submitted new and original ideas for breakthrough mobile apps.  Round 2 of this contest begins later this year.

http://code.google.com/android/adc.html

I’m excited about getting an Android enabled phone when they come out.  I’m even more excited about the chance to create my own applications to make use of all the features of the underlying hardware.  Thanks Google, but I guess in the meantime I’ll settle for my hampered LG9900 with locked down GPS/mobile Web features, 2.0 Mega pixel camera, and a load of other cost-based inabilities and short comings.

http://code.google.com/android/

Recently I ran into a situation with NHibernate where I needed to call a stored procedure. Ok. That should be easy right? Well, not so much. I mean it wasn't rocket science, but it didn't feel like a first class citizen in the NHibernate framework, and maybe it's not supposed to be...I don't know.

So I googled it, of course, and I found a few related blog posts referencing the different ways of going about this. The problems started when my stored procedure needed to return multiple rows and not a scalar value. By problem I mean I had to do another Google search. :)

I found the following solution:

public IList<IPityTheFoo> FindByFoo(string foo)
        {
            return HibernateTemplate.SessionFactory.GetCurrentSession()
                .GetNamedQuery("StoredProcedureName")
                .SetParameter("Foo", foo)
                .List<IPityTheFoo>();
        }

The general idea here is that you need to call GetNamedQuery which expects the name of the query as defined by your Hibernate Mapping File:

<sql-query name="StoredProcedureName">
        <return class="IPityTheFoo">
            <return-property name="Foo" column="Foo"/>
        </return>
        exec [dbo].[StoredProcedureName] ?
    </sql-query>

The Spring.NET HibernateTemplate exposes the current session through the SessionFactory.GetCurrentSession(). To return the collection of your objects simpoly call List<T>().

One of the questions I often get asked when I tell people I work for Rapidparts is, "... and what do they do there at Rapidparts?"  Once I tell them that we sell competitive forklift parts to Cat Lift Truck and Mitsubishi Forklift Truck dealers, they wonder why in the world I work there and why the company would need even one web developer much less a team of nine.

Admittedly, I have occasionally caught myself asking a related question: Why the heck AM I working for a forklift parts company!?  I mean, of all the places on the planet to work, why would I stay at a company who distributes forklift parts?  I'm a developer at heart (though my developers would probably argue with that) and now in charge of a team of them.  Why wouldn't I look for some cool Web 2.0 shop to work in, or go look for employment within a more glamorous industry?  It only takes me a fraction of a second to remember the reason -- I LOVE THIS PLACE!  This place isn't about parts at all -- it's about people.

I love that when I walk in the door every morning, I can just feel a positive energy.  People are happy here, they get along, they laugh, they talk.  I remember when I was a new employee we had an employee opinion survey that we filled out.  I wrote on there that one of the things I loved was that the company felt like a big family all working towards a common goal.  I know that sounds so cliche but it's honestly true and it's definitely still the case today. 

My previous employer was not like this at all.  There was always some fight going on.  Whether it was first shift against third shift or management against employees, it seemed like there was always some sabotage happening.  That gets very old and demotivating quickly.  I like being part of a company that seems to always be moving as one entity in the same direction. 

Aside from that, we have an outstanding benefits package including vision and dental; YMCA membership reimbursement; usually one or two parties a year; birthday cakes on the first Friday of each month; various reward and recognition programs; a stable and capable management team; and a strong focus on the employee as a person.

From a web development standpoint, we get to work on industry-leading applications; we get to hear from our customers and we get to know them; often we're doing things in the industry that haven't been done before; we get to try out new technologies; the company and our customers love using our applications; we all like to work together and come up with creative ideas.  We just really enjoy coming in to work each day.

As you can see it quickly becomes clear why I work here.  Rapidparts is a People company, not a Parts company.  So now when people ask me, "why do you work there?" I just tell them, "...because I'm lucky."

At some level, most of us have participated in an Employee Opinion Survey. A typical question might read something along the lines of this: “Check yes or no - At work, I have someone I consider a friend.”  Anyway, most people check yes and move on to the next question without really thinking about what was asked. 

According to Gallup research, people who have a best buddy at work are seven times more likely to be engaged in their job (eager to come to work and bring with them their hearts, minds, creativity and passion) than those worker bees without that special friend.  Those without a BFF have a one in three chance of being actively disengaged. Those "disengaged" folks may become argumentative, sabotage or otherwise become a serious downer to the success of an organization.

This whole friend thing was brought to my attention while on a recent family camping trip. While sitting around the campfire, we were sharing random stories. Apparently, I kept referring to several different people as “so and so, one of my friends at work, blah, blah, blah….”. One of the fellow campers happened to recognize that I refer to people I work with as friends and not co-workers, employees, applicants that I’ve hired, or subordinates.  I guess I didn’t realize that my reference to co-workers as friends to be odd.  

When I returned to work the next week, I started to pay more attention to this friend thing.  Here's what I see....co-workers willingly planning their free time outside of work together.  I'm recognizing much more than simple commonalities and companionships.  We've got pretty much all the sports covered with co-workers from various departments playing softball, soccer, tennis, bowling, golfing, working out, biking together in their free time.  We've graduated from complaining about the Tigers while grabbing a cup of coffee to planning a road trip to Detroit to see it happen in person.  We have Guitar Hero and Mario Kart tournaments happening on the weekends.  Employees are scheduling playdates amongst their kids.  We have employees that have filled their wedding party and guest lists with their Rapidparts friends.  We have employees lending helping hands to their co-worker friends during times of need.  Employees are planning vacations together.  

I'm confident that when Rapidparts employees check that "yes = friend @ work" box on the survey, they truly mean it.  Next time I get caught referring to a co-worker as a friend, I'm excited to know that I'm contributing to the overall success of our company!