Stats: 100, 9.25, 7, 3, 12.7, 95, 36.1, 4, 13, 0

Above are all statistics I encountered during my JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) bicycle ride in La Crosse, WI on August 14, 2010. First of all, I want to thank all of my coworkers, friends, and family for their support. I could not have had a successful ride without you! A special thanks goes out to Joel R. and Jeff M. for participating on the ETG team! Nice job, fellas!

100 miles is how far I rode at the La Crosse JDRF ride. For all you newbies, the correct term is ‘century ride’.  And, yes, I did ride all 100 miles. I can’t say it was easy; but I will say it was one of the most memorable experiences I have encountered. See below to fully understand…

9.25 hours is how long it took me to complete the 100 miles. Actually riding took a little less than 8 hours, but we had break stations about every 10-15 miles. You traveled 50 miles one way, circled back, and returned back to where you started. My mantra was ‘slow and steady’ and I feel my 9.25 hours proves it to be true.

7 break stations. Physically, there were just 4 break stations. You ‘hit’ 4 stations on the way up to mile marker fifty, turned around and ‘hit’ the same 3 stations on the way back for a total of 7 break stations. JDRF does a nice job allowing the riders to stop for a quick break to use the restroom, fuel up (bananas, energy bars, PB&J sandwich, etc.) and drink up (water and Gatorade). I typically stopped for about 10 minutes to ‘recharge’ myself.

3: number of states we rode through: Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. It was beautiful country and very scenic route since a large portion of the ride was along the Mississippi river. We crossed Wisconsin into Minnesota, and then eventually into Iowa returning back to Wisconsin for the finish.

12.7 miles per hour was my average speed during the ride. I was hoping for 14 mph but the hill at mile marker fifty was my downfall. It was a brutal hill for me. I would call it a mountain but it was not. And for those who don’t know, hills and ‘fat boys’ are a deadly combination.

95 degrees was the temperature my bike’s computer displayed late that afternoon. You talk about hot. The morning started off cool and cloudy but it started to heat up. Enough said…

36.1 miles per hour was how fast I zoomed down the hill after climbing it on mile marker fifty. I have never ridden on a bike. The amazing part was I really did not care. I was tired and wanted to coast for as long as possible. 36.1 mph may not seem fast, but with the wind directly in your face, pot holes, gravel, etc…the ride down can be exciting!

4: number of walls I ‘hit’ during the race. If you have ever cycled, ran, swam, etc. at any endurance event, you know what I am talking about. One is typically in physically pain, but the wall is predominately a mental one. You just want to stop…No ifs, ands, or buts…You keep asking yourself, why I am doing this? I have hit walls at other endurance events but usually it is only one wall, not four. And I can tell you exactly what mile markers they hit me: 64, 75, 84, and 96. The key for me was to concentrate on the road directly ahead. It sounds easy but your mind starts to wander and it starts telling your body to complain. But you just have to ignore the negative vibes and concentrate on many short goals. For example, concentrate on the next five miles or in some cases it was only one mile. For me, the next two statistics are the reason why I overcame my walls…

13 is the age one of the volunteer’s son passed away due to diabetes. Michelle’s son Jesse passed away last year due to complications brought on by diabetes. He was home sick at the time. I did not know this but when a child or adult is physically sick (flu, etc.), it makes it even more difficult to handle diabetes. Jesse’s blood sugars went extremely high and he went into a diabetic coma. Unfortunately, Jesse never awoke from this coma. Being a parent of two children, I cannot imagine this tragedy. You overcome these ‘walls’ to help other kids like Jesse and to gain a cure so these misfortunes do not happen in the future.

0 is the number of cures currently for diabetes. Notice I did say currently. A cure will be found. I have no doubt. A cure is coming and we all need to help fight this terrible disease. Thinking about the cure and trying to help out where I can is another reason I ‘broke through’ my own mental walls.

I want to encourage you to be passionate for your community and remove those ‘walls’ in your life. Get involved and make a difference. Volunteer and donate your time and resources. Both can make a huge difference for any charity or organization such as the JDRF.

Too many times I have been asked to provide a SharePoint portal solution with little time for preparation and customization. When you are starved for time and have to demonstrate a prototype solution to a client, you are pretty much left with the out-of-the-box SharePoint features. Most of the time, that just isn't custom enough for the client.

The biggest problem with this is that the View and Edit forms for items in SharePoint are simply not customizable outside the SharePoint designer. For libraries and lists, the View page is determined to show too much irrelevant information, and you have to rely on the scarce amount of form validation (required fields) and zero form manipulation on the Edit page. This had caused me to either spend more time on prototypes than I preferred, or forced me to demonstrate more basic features than I was really comfortable.

And then I discovered a trick. Because pretty much all SharePoint pages are built of modular Web Parts,
you can add the following to the URL the any page and force it in to Edit mode:

&ToolPaneView=2

That little trick pops up the Web Part tool pane and puts the page in familiar "Edit" mode. Not only can you add standard SharePoint Web Parts to Edit and View forms, but you can use the Content Editor Web Part (inserted and hidden at the bottom of the form) to add JavaScript enclosed in <script> tags for DOM modification. This is great for hiding fields, providing more advanced client-side form validation, and general branding on pages that were previously unbrandable. And it is all done straight through your browser.

This great for a prototype or demo site but be careful though, as Microsoft does not officially support this on Form pages. For a full-fledged project do it the right way in SharePoint Designer. But if you are asked to build a site demo rapidly and need a little more than the basics, this is the way to go! It works in MOSS as well as WSS. Enjoy!

I have been getting a lot of questions lately, since I have achieved three Microsoft certifications this year with another promised by October. For the first five months of the year, I was struggling to find the time and motivation to study. The key for me was to find or create both those elements, at the same time. Here are some tips for what worked for me...

TV Rots The Brain, Snookie

Everyone is busy these days--We're all overworked, overbooked, and value any little time to ourselves we can grab. But when time to ourselves is just sitting in front of the television watching whatever is on... That time can be better spent. If a show was on in an hour, I found myself watching the previous hour leading up to it with whatever was on. I cut out that mindless hour each night and dedicated the time to studying. As a reward, I would finish and watch the show I actually intended on seeing! Believe me, there is nothing to miss on reruns of Jersey Shore... Or to really be honest, on new episodes either.

Sorry, FaceBook :(

Are you really going to miss out on life if you spend less time on FaceBook looking at photos of your friends and their pets? I cut out some of my tweeting and FaceBook stalking and suddenly found myself with extra time to study during the day, especially around lunch time. And despite popular belief, my social life did not wither and die.

"What's My Motivation?"

I spent five months avoiding thinking about my exam and studying. Since I kept procrasinating, there was no way to get motivated. What really did it for me was the change to the MS partner network coming this year. Suddenly, specific certifications will mean a lot more and that motivates me to make myself a commodity. Does my career depend on it? Probably not, but I see a way to differentiate myself and stand out in a good way. It's the same reason I am the only person on the 3rd floor to wear a tie every day. Everyone's motivation is different... You just have to find it, and to find it you have to think about it.

5 Seconds MacGruber!

This may be obvious, but once you pay money to schedule your exam, it suddenly becomes a lot more real. Maybe it's the fear of failure, maybe it's the cheapskate in us all that doesn't want to waste the $125, or maybe it's the ticking clock counting down to your doom... Whatever the underlying reason, having a hard deadline is a strong motivator. I put a target date on my exam, and once I got within a couple weeks I anted up and got official with it. When you're in cram mode with a day left you can always find some extra time to study!

Each year we develop goals as a company and individually to help us focus on the direction we are heading and how we can improve ourselves and the company.  This year one of my personal goals was to obtain a PMP certification.  This certification is granted through the Project Management Institute as a way to recognize project managers who are familiar with the accepted standards and processes that enable them to be more qualified to lead teams.  As a new project manager I felt that this certification would not only add to my professional credentials but also give me valuable information and training.  This will help me improve the current projects that I work on and be more confident when starting on future projects.

To get ready for the certification exam I decided to take a prep course available through a local company, Enterprise Consulting, which was recommended to me by a colleague.  Even before the class official started I could tell that it was going to be incredibly beneficial.  They provided a PMP prep manual that they created as a supplement to the PMBOK.  This manual turned out to be very instructive and understandable in explaining the concepts.  During the class they not only helped with the type of questions and information that I would see on the exam but were very helpful with the requirements for the application process.  In order to qualify to take the exam an application must be submitted with information on project management work experience, training and education.  Just the application alone can take many hours to complete and can be stressful as 25% of all applications get audited.  After following the instructions from the prep course I submitted my application and luckily did not get audited.  The exam was stressful but I felt confident after taking the prep course and weeks of studying that I was prepared.  Fortunately it is a computer based test and you learn your score within minutes of completing the exam…and I passed. J

In order to maintain the PMP credential there are continuing professional development requirements.  These are available by attending local PMI chapter meetings and additional training.  The meetings and additional workshops will help me to continue to develop as a project manager.  I look forward to using many of the new skills and ideas that I learned during the prep course and continuing to improve through future training.

 
I came across this post by @jsonmez last week via @elegantcode: "Enforce Correct Usage By Wrapping Types".

In it, John tackles the problem of ensuring your code is used by other developers as you intended. He gives an example of a method that takes a date parameter that *should* be calculated using certain business logic. How do you prevent another developer from using this method and passing in a hard-coded date?

Normally, one might write up some documentation or add xml comments to the code describing how the method should be used, what parameters are needed, and so on. Of course, there's no guarantee that those guidelines will be followed, if read at all. A second solution is to write a utility class that calculates the parameter using the correct logic (this is what I see most often). This is still no guarantee since it requires knowledge of the utility class's existence and where to find it.

The better way, John writes, is to not accept primitive types at all! Instead, wrap the parameter in a data type that creates the needed type with the required business logic. This allows you to force the correct input instead of having to validate anything that might be thrown in. 

For a simple code example and more ideas on where you might use this, check out his full post on elegantcode.

Today I got the unique opportunity, at least unique for me, to listen to a well-known, award winning author speak on a topic relevant to every business and that very few actually proactively use.  Getting the chance to hear John Jantsch, who is known as a marketing and digital technology coach, talk about his book, “The Referral Engine,” taught me the impact of putting forth a lot of effort on simple tasks that make a huge difference.  As he explained the background for his book he mentioned when he surveyed 100 business, more than 70% said that referrals where one of the biggest reasons they were successful, but less than 17% of those, said that they had an automated system for getting, maintaining, and using referrals.  His overarching question: why don’t businesses have a plan in place for doing the one thing that so many attribute their success to?

Jantsch developed his thoughts on answering this question through his book and through the speech he gave by saying that the key to referrals is finding someone with a need, and getting them to know, like and trust you.  This is how he defines marketing, and it makes sense.  To get referrals, and to have a ‘referral engine,’ he mentioned that first you have to be referable and then you need to proactively go after that and amplify it.  He developed his five realities of referrals mentioning first that that so many people are afraid to ask for referrals, which brings up the question; do you believe that you deliver value?  His point was that if you truly believe in what you do and believe that it brings value to your customers, than you’re doing them and yourself a favor by asking for a referral.

Among other points, he brings up several examples he writes about in his book about being both high tech and high touch.  You have to have a balance of both.  You need to make things easy for your customers; people like the ease of technology and the ability to go online and get it all, but, he mentions, as people increasingly use technology they also start to crave the human interaction that is gone.  Businesses need to follow-up, call, email, or talk to our customers because after all a good experience is what a good referral is all about.  It’s all about creating a proactive strategy and system for good experiences and getting that referral.  He summarizes by saying that their now exists a ‘marketing hourglass’ that tells businesses the steps to take.  It begins with his know, like, trust idea but continues with try, buy, repeat, refer.  It needs to be part of what you do to market your business.  It’s the job of the business to educate and help people be informed buyers, to show them that core difference that you have, and let them know the impact you’ve made.  Once you’ve done all of this, asking for a referral is easy and can have a huge impact.

Habitat for Humanity builds simple, decent, affordable housing in partnership with people in need. This weekend, Habitat extended that partnership to eImagine! Volunteer employees and their friends and family attended a home build on Saturday, June 26th on the East side of Indianapolis. It was the final volunteer day of the build, so the work consisted of putting the finishing touches on the home. The volunteers worked on painting, hardware installation, and cleaning. Ten representatives for eImagine participated in the build, and with help from the other eImagine employees raised $2,750 in donations. The volunteers worked from 7:30 AM to as late as 12:30 PM, and the build was completed about half a day ahead of schedule. eImagine is happy to have helped in providing a home for a local family in need. We can't wait for the home dedication and for the family to move in and start living in their new home!

Working in the Indiana State Department of Health Genomics department has given me a renewed interest in genetics and genomics. As the senior developer and team lead in the department I need to have a good understanding of the industry, even thought I'm not doing the splicing and sequencing myself! To clear things up for the layperson, "genetics" is the study of a genes individually and "genomics" is the study of genes all together (in a genome). What's the imact? Simply put, my work allows simple genetic tests to save the lives of children born in Indiana every day. The genetic testing we do for newborn screening is very interesting, and I am enjoying keeping up on the latest development in the industry. Part of me is wondering where I would be today if I had not switched my college major from Biology to Informatics and Computer Science...

• Technology Innovation Advances Newborn Screen Translational Research Network - A big problem with storing genetic material the way we do is that it degrades over time if not stored properly. Is creation of a "virtual storage" network the answer?
• Multiple federal entities make announcements this week regarding genomic testing - More genetic testing leads to eventuality of "personalized" medicine--that is treatments specifically targeted to work with your genes. Interesting stuff!
• WI Public Health Lab Identifies First SCID Baby Using New TREC Assay - SCID is a really terrible disease, and it is on the national newborn screening list as a secondary condition to screen if possible. However, past testing has been prohibitively expensive. There are some new inexpensive tests, and Wisconsin is piloting a program to try one of them out. Great first!
• Research: genetic errors linked to autism - Some day maybe even conditions like autism can be identified for immediate treatment before any diagnosable symptoms are possible... It's a hope!