What is a career?

I do love a good pithy definition. And so recently I was musing on how we would briefly define 'a career'. I turned to the literature to see what experts have to say. A career from the outside looking in can be defined as the "evolving sequence of a person’s work experiences over time" (Arthur et al., 1989, p. 8); or we can step into ourselves and take a multiple lens view, as "career as life process, career as individual agency, and career as meaning making" (Chen, 1998, p. 437).

Alternatively, we might consider career development, where we could consider the two sides to career development:

On one hand we have "the total constellation of psychological, sociological, educational, physical, economic, and chance factors that combine to shape individual career behavior over the life span", or more briefly, "the development of career behavior across the life span"; as compared on the other to those "interventions or practices that are used to enhance a person's career development or to enable that person to make more effective career decisions", or in summary "how career behavior is changed by [our own] particular intentions" (Herr, 2001, p. 196).

There is a career development definition that I like, if we roll the clock back to the mid-twentieth century as being "the process of growth and learning that results in increases and modifications of a person’s repertoire for vocational behavior" (Savickas, 1994, p. 56, citing Super, 1957). I like the use of 'repertoire'; it is quite theatrical. We are an actor on our own stage: fitting well with Super.

But, while mentioning life-span in passing, these definitions don't really emphasise the long-term nature of career development. And we need to, because it "is a lifelong process, during which a person takes on different roles and deals with dynamic changes and transitions" (Chen, 1998, p. 455). Those transitions could be considered as "careers increasingly [seen as...] a succession of mini-stages" (Herr, 2001, p. 208, citing Hall & Associates, 1996, p. 33). I like the sound of that, too. We remain the producer of our own career, with all the implications of agency, meaning, and development.

Of course, to be our own producer, we need career maturity in both understanding choice, and understanding the ramifications of making a decision on our choices (Savickas, 1994). So our career development skills should improve over time. And interestingly, there is a definition of career education that I like, defined "as an effort to refocus [national] education system[s] and [...community] actions [...] to help [learners] acquire and use the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to make work a meaningful, productive, and satisfying part of their lives" (Greenhaus & Callanan, 2006, p. 100).

That's good. Could we perhaps consider career development as "a life-long process" of learning, acquiring and using roles, "knowledge, skills, and attitudes", in successive mini-stages, "necessary to make [meaningful] work a meaningful, productive, and satisfying part of [our] lives" (Chen, 1998; Greenhaus & Callanan, 2006, p. 100; Savickas, 1994)? 

While I think this needs more thinking time, I am enjoying the process of considering what is important to me in this field. I will ponder some more :-)

Sam

References:

Arthur, M., Hall, D. T., & Lawrence, B. S. (Eds.) (1989). Handbook of Career Theory (reprinted 1996, 2004 digital ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Chen, C. P. (1998). Understanding career development: a convergence of perspectives. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 50(3), 437-461. https://doi.org/10.1080/13636829800200053

Herr, E. L. (2001). Career development and its practice: A historical perspective. The Career Development Quarterly, 49(3), 196-211. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-0045.2001.tb00562.x

Savickas, M. L. (1994). Measuring career development: Current status and future directions. The Career Development Quarterly, 43(1), 54-62. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-0045.1994.tb00846.x

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Copying a Google Calendar from 2025 to 2026, part 3

In a couple of recent posts (here), I have been looking at how to export a Google Calendar as an .ics file, update it using Excel, and then reimport that data into a new .ics Google calendar; effectively duplicating all the events from one year into the next.

Of course it has turned out to be more complicated than I had hoped, but it does work after a fashion. I am hoping that I will find some hacks as I go to further smooth my path.

What I did to change the dates in Excel was  to create an Excel sheet with the following columns:

• A: Headings, a list to filter for "DTSTART" and "DTEND". In this column copied all my raw data from my exported .ics file, then deleted everything from the colon onwards (i.e. find and replace ":*")
• B: Course Name 2025, this column was a repeat of the raw data (to remain unchanged)
• C: Extracted date, trims the date in column D to eight characters. Uses the formula =LEFT(D3,8)
• D: Trim R/H, to filter for the date. Contains the formula =MID(B3,FIND(":",B3)+1,LEN(B3)-FIND("T",B3))
• E: Reorganised date, to create a readable date from column C. Uses the formula =DATE(LEFT(C3,4),MID(C3,5,2),RIGHT(C3,2)) with the date format  [$-en-NZ]dddd, d mmmm yyyy
• F: Course Name 2026, this column was a repeat of the raw data which I will change (and copy out and reimport)
• G: Extracted date, trims the date in column H to eight characters. Uses the formula =LEFT(H3,8)
• H: Trim R/H, to filter for the date. Contains the formula =MID(F3,FIND(":",F3)+1,LEN(F3)-FIND("T",F3))
• I: Actual date, to create a readable date from column G for double-checking. Uses the formula =DATE(LEFT(G3,4),MID(G3,5,2),RIGHT(G3,2)) with the date format  [$-en-NZ]dddd, d mmmm yyyy

After setting up, I (a) filtered column A to DT, (b) changed all years in column F from 2025 to 2026, (c) checked that the day for 2026 was the same day of the week for 2025 (moving the dates on manually at the moment), and (d) reimported the calendar.

Steps c and d took quite a while. But it worked. 

I am sure there are smarter ways of processing the data, but as a trial, this was effective. 

Sam 

read more "Copying a Google Calendar from 2025 to 2026, part 3"

Lenses for Ethical Decision Making

CDANZ ran an ethical workshop a while ago to help practitioners work through ethical dilemmas (2020). A six step framework was used for that mahi which was assumed at the time to be based on either the six step method from Bond (2005) or the Velasquez et al. (2009) model - the Framework for Ethical Decision Making - created at the Markkula Centre for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

While I have explored Bond (2005) before on this blog (here), and have run through an earlier version of the Velasquez model (here; by Cavanagh et al., 1981), I have not stepped through the thinking behind the Cavanagh et al, (1981) model, which uses six ethical lenses to determine what ethical issues exist. Those six ethical lenses are as follows:

• Rights: perhaps an ethical action is that which respects the moral rights and responsibilities of those affected, because, due to our freedom of choice, we have 'human dignity' conferring our right to be treated as ends in ourselves, and not just as means to another's ends. The moral rights are debated, and some infer all animals have them (and I suspect the world is going this way), and include freedom of life choices, to be told the truth, not avoid harm, to personal privacy (Velasquez et al., 2009).
• Justice: people are due fair or equal treatment, to treated as equals - not exactly the same - but equitably. Perhaps parity is a better term. This section includes "social justice (structuring the basic institutions of society), distributive justice (distributing benefits and burdens), corrective justice (repairing [... injustice]), retributive justice ([...] punish[ing] wrongdo[ing]), and restorative or transformational justice" (Velasquez et al., 2009)
• Utilitarianism: This focuses on results, where an "ethical action is the one that produces the greatest balance of good over harm for as many stakeholders as possible". We need to have crystal clear foresight on the likely outcomes and costs: in an "ethical corporate action, then, is the one that produces the greatest good and does the least harm for all who are affected—customers, employees, shareholders, the community, and the environment. Cost/benefit analysis is a[...] consequentialist approach" (Velasquez et al., 2009)
• Common Good:  our actions should contribute to the collective community good, where "the interlocking relationships of society are the basis of ethical reasoning and that respect and compassion for all others—especially the vulnerable—are requirements of such reasoning", while accounting for those "common conditions [...] important [for] everyone—such as clean air and water, a system of laws, effective police and fire departments, health care, a public educational system, or even public recreational areas.  [...] [T]he common good lens highlights mutual concern for the shared interests of all members of a community" (Velasquez et al., 2009)
• Virtue: an old ethics philosophy suggests our "actions ought to be consistent with certain ideal virtues that provide for the full development of our humanity", to develop our character and align with "values like truth and beauty. Honesty, courage, compassion, generosity, tolerance, love, fidelity, integrity, fairness, self-control, and prudence are all examples of virtues. Virtue ethics asks of any action, 'What kind of person will I become if I do this?' or 'Is this action consistent with my acting at my best?'" (Velasquez et al., 2009)
• Care: relationships drive our compassion and care of those around us. It is not about rules or costs: it is about growth, nurturing, community, and love, growing "interdependence, not just independence. It relies on empathy to gain a deep appreciation of the interest, feelings, and viewpoints of each stakeholder, employing care, kindness, compassion, generosity, and a concern for others to resolve ethical conflicts. Care ethics holds that options for resolution must account for the relationships, concerns, and feelings of all stakeholders. Focusing on connecting intimate interpersonal duties to societal duties, an ethics of care might counsel, for example, a more holistic approach to public health policy that considers food security, transportation access, fair wages, housing support, and environmental protection alongside physical health" (Velasquez et al., 2009)

When we stop to consider these six ethical lenses, we can see that asking a range of questions after considering these can help us make a more ethical decision. By taking this range of six philosophical lenses into account we open ourselves up to many different perspectives (Velasquez, 2009, 2015). 

And, on reflection, I think that the Velasquez model is useful for background thinking, but is not the model that was used in the CDANZ work. I think that was likely to be the Bond model (2005).

However, Velasquez et al. (2009, 2015) have come up with eleven steps to follow these lenses, which I will explore in a later post.

Sam

References:

Bond, T. (2005). Standards and Ethics for Counselling in Action (Counselling in Action series) (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications Ltd.

Cavanagh, G. F., Moberg, D. J., & Velasquez, M. (1981). The Ethics of Organizational Politics. Academy of Management Review 6(3), 363-374. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1981.4285767

CDANZ. (2020, October 29). CDANZ Webinar: Ethical scenarios in career practice [video]. Career Development Association of New Zealand. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f7-cmGvGxUGK9KZraXheRaR6En2N57HE/view

Velasquez, M., Moberg, D., Meyer, M. J., Shanks, T., McLean, M. R., DeCosse, D., André, C., Kirk, O., & Hanson, K. O. (2009). A Framework for Ethical Decision Making. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/a-framework-for-ethical-decision-making/

Velasquez, M., André, C., Shanks, T., & Meyer, M. J. (2015). Thinking Ethically. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/thinking-ethically/

read more "Lenses for Ethical Decision Making"

Time for a reminder

I think it is time to remind ourselves to put our citation at the back of the sentence, and avoid, in the immortal words of Professor Pat Thomson, writing a 'laundry list' (2017; and read my take on that here). A student recently asked for feedback, when they had written:

Research by Aubusson et al. (2009) indicates that teacher professional development, supported by a positive school culture, leads to correlations between teachers who actively engage in their learning and development with positive student outcomes. Further research by Alton-Lee (2008) highlighted that when senior leaders actively participate in and lead professional development alongside teachers, they enhance their pedagogical knowledge and understanding.

The student knew this was an "X says, Y says" format, known as a laundry list (Thomson, 2017), but wanted help in transforming this. I suggested a simple reword to bring the topic to the fore, and push the author into the shadows:

Research shows that teacher professional development, if supported by a positive school culture, links teachers who actively engage in their learning and development with positive student outcomes (Aubusson et al., 2009). When senior leaders actively participate in and lead professional development alongside teachers, they enhance their pedagogical knowledge and understanding (Alton-Lee, 2008).

We can see that first sentence still talks about research. We could also start with "Studies show that..." or "A meta-analysis of 150 research projects found that..." or similar. Getting to the 'what' and the 'why' in quickly holds our reader's interest. The 'who' can trail in last 😉

We can also usually save a few words by writing with the topic at the front and the author at the back of the sentence. The laundry list paragraph was 60 words and my edited version was 52. Further, this way of writing has an added bonus: we can group multiple authors evidence on the topic together, and pop in a multiple works citation at the back of the sentence.

While we are getting our heads around writing with the topic first, we begin our draft with notes in the 'X says' format, then, once we have written enough topic fragments accumulated, we can turn our sentences around. But after a while we should get used to writing topic-first from the outset, and save ourselves lots of time 🙂

Sam

References:

Alton-Lee, A. (2008). Designing and Supporting Teacher Professional Development to Improve Valued Student Outcomes [paper]. Education of Teachers Symposium at the General Assembly of the International Academy of Education, Limassol, Cyprus 26 September 2008. https://thehub.sia.govt.nz/assets/documents/42443_Designing-and-Supporting-Teacher-Professional-Development_0.pdf

Aubusson, P., Ewing, R., & Hoban, G. F. (2009). Action learning in schools: reframing teachers’ professional learning and development. Routledge.

Thomson, P. (11 September 2017). Avoiding the laundry list literature review. https://patthomson.net/2017/09/11/avoiding-the-laundry-list-literature-review/

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Word Navigation Pane

In MS Word, there is a left-hand sidebar that enables us to navigate documents, called the "Navigation Pane". If we use standard Word tools - headings, shortcuts and bookmarks - the Navigation Pane allows us to skip through the document outline quickly. Hierarchies of headings can be collapsed, so we can navigate to chapter headings, making large documents more workable. I seem to recall that the Navigation Pane is on by default.

However, the problem arises when I turn it off. Most of the time I have it open, but every now and again I turn it off to conserve screen space (in Zooms, for example). And I close out my apps, shut my PC down and only come back to it the next day... to find no Navigation Pane. And I KNOW there is an easy place to find the magic turn-on... and it MUST be on the View Ribbon, but I cannot see it.

So I sigh and run a search. Luckily, I am not the only one who has trouble finding this. MissKathy (2021) does too. Luckily, Stefan Blom, a volunteer moderator, was able to provide the answer.

And well, that magic turn-on IS on the View Ribbon. But not where we would expect: it is tucked away as a wee tickbox in the "Show" section. I expect to see it in the "Views" tools section, and try heaps of things there. But no. It is in the "Show" section.

Hopefully by writing this aide memoire I mayn't need to look this up again (but I probably will!).

Sam

Reference:

MissKathy. (2021, January 19). Word 365 How to show document outline on side of screen. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/word-365-how-to-show-document-outline-on-side-of/98210619-c918-4470-aca8-5ec7a8972ecc

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When to refer on, part 2

In a previous post, we considered when we should refer a client on (here), and I suggested a few considerations for us to reflect upon, so we could see if we had missed some steps in our practice. However, if we reverse those reflection prompts and if we have experienced any of the following, we do indeed need to refer on:

• We feel we are working beyond our level of competency
• We feel there is someone better suited to working with this client
• The expertise required for this work is better suited to another practitioner or agency
• The work between us and the client is not related to the contract we originally negotiated 
• A psychological issue emerges in our session which cannot be contained within the session
• A health issue emerges within the session which cannot be dealt with in the session.

But further, in considering the first item listed above, we could also take five minutes, and ask ourselves the multiple choice questions in the image accompanying this post - and we can select as many items as we think apply (Cooper, 2011, p. 144):

• Which of the following are components of burnout?
• Which job factors in healthcare settings contribute to the most distress?
• Affective signs of work stress include [what?]
• Accumulated loss phenomena include which of the following[?]

Suffering on in our practice does not help either the client or ourselves. We are much less able to bring our best selves to our practice. So if we answer a and d; b and e; b; and a and b, we should seek some help (Cooper, 2011, p. 146). That "support can be emotional (clinical supervision/mentorship), or accessing practical support to help solve a work task" (p. 144). And that includes referring a client on.

For best results for our client, we refer on with a 'warm' handover (Fletcher, 2021), hosting our client into the hands of the new practitioner by "directly introducing" them (p. 30).

And so lightening our load.

Sam

References:

Cooper, P. A. (2011). Chapter 10: The implications of workplace stress on service development. In D. B. Cooper (Ed.), Developing Services in Mental Health-Substance Use (pp. 137-146). Radcliffe Publishing Ltd.

Fletcher, S. (2021). "It's one less thing I have to do": does referring patients to a co-located psychology service impact on the well-being of primary care health providers?. [Master's thesis, Massey University]. https://mro.massey.ac.nz/server/api/core/bitstreams/0bf33e5f-b236-409b-aca9-af77c9ff6a93/content

read more "When to refer on, part 2"

The Learning Organisation

I cannot believe that I have not previously compared two nearly 20 year old organisational models: those of efficient performance and the learning organisation (Daft, 2007). Why should we think about this? Because organisations designed for efficient performance are different to those designed for continuous learning, and we can see how by looking at Senge's five elements of learning organisations:

In a previous post (here), I mentioned Senge’s five elements of learning organisations: those of systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, a shared vision, and team learning (1990).

The efficient performance organisation is based on a hard, rational model, characterised by a vertical structure, formalised systems, routine tasks, competitive strategy, and a rigid culture (Daft, 2007); whereas the learning organisation emerges from a soft, intuitive perspective of organisations. Structures are more horizontal and employees are empowered to act independently and creatively. Strategy emerges from collaborative links within and among organisations, and the culture encourages experimentation and adaptability (Daft, 2007; Semler, 2015).

When environments are stable, leaders can effectively use rational management to maintain organisational control and stability. But because we live in a globalised environment where change is expected, designing organisations strictly for efficient performance is generally not effective (Daft, 2007). Consider the crises experienced by South America through the latter part of the 20th century, and the founder "learning organisation" of Semco (read more here) which weathered some pretty significant financial, governmental, and production storms. And survived. They learned to be a learning organisation by jettisoning all that weighed them down. They focused on what would keep them afloat, and largely, that was flexibility (Semler, 1993).

Knowledge, information, analysis and insight are probably more important than production machinery. Forward thinking firms are being reconfigured as learning organisations, where all staff are problem-solvers. The learning organisation is skilled in acquiring, transferring, and building knowledge that enables the organisation to continuously experiment, improve, and increase its capability. The learning organisation is based on equality, shared information, little hierarchy, and a shared culture that encourages adaptability and enables the organisation to seize opportunities and handle crises (Daft, 2007; Semler, 2015).

Many organisations become victims of their own success, clinging to outdated values and behaviours because of rigid cultures that do not encourage adaptability and change. But a learning organisation has a strong, adaptive culture which includes the following values (Daft, 2007; Semler, 2015):

• The whole is more important than the part, and boundaries between parts are minimized. People are aware of the whole system, how everything fits together, and the relationships among various organisational parts
• Everyone considers how their actions affect other elements of the organisation
• Equality is a primary value. The culture of a learning organisation creates a sense of community, compassion, and caring for one another
• Each person is valued, and the organisation becomes a place for creating a web of relationships that allow people to develop their full potential
• The culture encourages change, risk-taking, and improvement. A basic value is to question the status quo, the current way of doing things
• Constant questioning of assumptions opens the gates to creativity and improvement.

It is not an easy organisation to work in. We have to give up trying to control the process, be flexible, and fluid. That takes a certain kind of person.

But the rewards are great.

Sam

References:

Daft, R (2007). The Leadership Experience (4th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Semler, R. (1993). Maverick!: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace. Warner Books.

Semler, R. (2015). TEDx Rio de Janeiro: Radical wisdom for a company, a school, a life [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/k4vzhweOefs

Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Currency Doubleday.

read more "The Learning Organisation"

Peeling back the layers

I mentioned in my previous post that Thesis Whisperer, Professor Inger Mewburn from ANU, had written a post touching on her PhD research findings (here). That post linked a side issue she talked about with social construction; but I want to come back to a more central point that she made, which is how being focused on a particular outcome can blind us to what is actually going on - and which may end up being the more interesting story.

Through her PhD research, Inger found that, of the video footage gathered on gestures architects used in presenting:

"Later I found out that I had unwittingly only filmed, or kept footage of, the top performing students. I asked some of these students about their family background: of course, they had architects as parents. My theory is they learned to ‘talk architecture’ (which includes ways of gesturing ‘properly’) at the kitchen table.

"These people had an invisible advantage, one that possibly would last all the way through their career. This would have been a much better argument to further in my thesis than the kind of anodyne one I pushed about gesture being ‘important for teaching practice’. Since gesturing is a basic human trait, there’s a broader question about what role it plays in the commonly observed phenomen[o]n of children prospering in the same profession as their parents. Those ‘bad’ interactions, full of lingering silences and awkwardness were potentially far more interesting than the ones full of people talking and having a good time. But they were hard to make sense of, so I deleted them.

"I still kick myself about this oversight (Thesis Whisperer, 2025).

While I take Inger's point about seeking the wrong story in the data, I think it also takes a long time for us to truly see: and sometimes many years must pass for us to be able to peel back the layers. Reflection is a time skill: mastery accumulates, like patina on aged furniture from all the living going on around it. Our oversights are not something that we CAN see straight away; we are too close to the event to gain perspective. It time that allows us to see that s-l-o-w-l-y developing image of each more interesting story.

I suspect that most of us can only peel back the onion one layer at a time. 

Sam

References:

Thesis Whisperer. (2025 , May 1). The Power of No: Learning to Refuse in Difficult Times. https://thesiswhisperer.com/2025/05/01/the-power-of-no-learning-to-refuse-in-difficult-times/

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Dinner table social construction

This year I had a kōrero with my students about how we are socially constructed within our family environments, potentially providing us benefits - or barriers - in our chosen fields. Social conditioning can be defined as "the process by which people of a certain society are trained to think, believe, feel, want, and react in a way that is approved by the society or the groups within it. There are many causes, dimensions, beliefs, programming, and barriers that are interwoven within social conditioning" (Maxwell, 2022, p. 8), while social construction is about the knowledge we create "via communication and interactions with others [… in our community]. Through socialization, interaction, and communication (particularly language), [we] collectively construct the realities in which [we] live” (Sanner et al., 2020, p. 2).

An example to illustrate my point was for us to consider migrants who arrive in Aotearoa New Zealand from places which have superb public transport infrastructure: those migrants may not may not have driven in their origin nations nor have a family driving culture. They had no need to. Whereas we Kiwis have to drive. We are a long, thin country, 29 times smaller than Australia, with the population the size of Sydney. To get places, we need a drivers licence, because running comprehensive public transport like Singapore or London would tax us out of existence.

We Kiwis learn to drive at the dinner table, in the stories we tell, in movies we see, in watching other drivers, and as we travel in vehicles with our whānau. Most New Zealanders can ride a bike, horse, skateboard or scooter long before we get a drivers licence. Rural children also learn to drive tractors, quad bikes, and the farm ute before they get near any formal driver training. Driving is rehearsed in front of us in a myriad of ways. And that immersion in a driving culture gives us a head start over migrants arriving here from a non-driving culture.

So I was very interested to read a blog post from Professor Inger Mewburn from ANU, the Thesis Whisperer, in the same week that I had that chat with my students about social construction (2025):

"During my own PhD about how hand gestures work in architecture classrooms, I threw away a lot of my video data. I also couldn't film everything, so I had to make on the fly decisions about when to start and stop the camera. (In my defense, it was 2007 and disc space was expensive). I only filmed 'good' interactions, where the gesture was clearly participating in creating shared understanding.

"Later I found out that I had unwittingly only filmed, or kept footage of, the top performing students. I asked some of these students about their family background: of course, they had architects as parents. My theory is they learned to 'talk architecture' (which includes ways of gesturing 'properly') at the kitchen table.

"These people had an invisible advantage, one that possibly would last all the way through their career" (Thesis Whisperer, 2025).

Pretty much exactly what I had been explaining to my students: we are given a professional leg-up in our family environments (Maxwell, 2022). while this was only a partial illustrator of what Inger was talking about (she was talking about finding what we are looking for in research; rather than what we are blind to - but more about that another time).

Fascinating how sometimes one thing reinforces another. 

Sam

References:

Maxwell, C. D. (Ed.). (2022). Shatter the System: Equity Leadership and Social Justice Advocacy in Education. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Sanner, C., Ganong, L., & Coleman, M. (2021). Families are socially constructed: Pragmatic implications for researchers. Journal of Family Issues, 42(2), 422-444. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X20905334

Thesis Whisperer. (2025 , May 1). The Power of No: Learning to Refuse in Difficult Times. https://thesiswhisperer.com/2025/05/01/the-power-of-no-learning-to-refuse-in-difficult-times/

read more "Dinner table social construction"

Front-loading keyboarding practice

I stumbled across a piece of research recently where the aim was to see if different timings of practice might affect participant keyboarding improvement/development. To check that, the researchers used an online keyboard training platform (Typing Club), which measured participant keying speed and accuracy. All participant groups spent five hours practicing their keyboarding during the programme, but each group's scheduling of their practice differed (Mugglestone, 2024) in one of three ways. 

• One group 'front-loaded' their practice, by doing the bulk of the training early in the programme, then doing smaller top-up practices to cement the learning later on. 
• The second group had a linear practice load, spread evenly throughout. 
• The third group 'back-loaded' practice, doing less practice initially, then increasing the practice session durations toward the end. 

What was interesting was that the front-loaded group significantly improved their keyboarding speed, despite practice being the same overall. While the findings suggest that early intense practice may better increase performance, practice timing didn’t affect accuracy. Additionally, there wasn’t enough evidence to see whether the front-loaded group also retained their skills after training ended (Mugglestone, 2024). A similar study considering long-term retention could be very useful.

But. This does show that when we practice might be just as important as how much we practice. If the research findings are transferrable, front-loading practice may help us speed up our learning. To make learning more efficient, schools or companies could design training programs to build early practice into programmes (Mugglestone, 2024). 

The early bird may indeed get the worm: getting off to an early start may well give us a competitive advantage.

And it may keep us engaged for longer. 

Sam

References:

Mugglestone, R. (2024). Beyond Marginal Gains: The Search for High Performance and ‘High-Hanging’ Fruit. Routledge.

Typing Club. (2025). Home. https://www.typingclub.com/

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Creating a background fill in Adobe Acrobat

I needed to recreate a lost page in a book recently, and thought that I could simply copy the missing text into a text box, then fill the box with colour.

But no. Adobe Acrobat does not allow text boxes to have colour fills. It seems that Adobe considers pdfs to be the equivalent of a 'print' output: and Adobe Acrobat is not an editing tool. Despite the fact that many of us use it as such.

So what we need to do is: 

1. Firstly we create an image file - i.e. .jpg, .png - in the colour we need (I used PowerPoint with a background fill, and Saved As a .jpg)
2. Then, going into Adobe Acrobat, I navigated to the page, and selected the edit tool
3. I clicked the "insert image" in the toolbar, and navigated to the saved location of my colour image to insert it on the page
4. I used the pull handles to align the coloured image with where I wanted it to cover on the page
5. At this point the edit tool had lost focus on the page, so I closed the edit function, saved the file, then reopened edit
6. I was then able to click the image again and send it to back.

Job done.

But who would have thought something so simple would have required so many steps?

Sam 

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Rogerian versus Eganian career practice

In the beginning of client-centred career practice, there was Carl Rogers (Feltham & Horton, 2006). What I take out of the Rogerian approach to career development is my client is the focus and has my "unconditional positive regard" (p. 73); my job is to listen, and to 'mirror' my understanding back to the client; and I must be my authentic self in the space. Three of the "'necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change' [...are] (1) be yourself, (2) trust the client, and (3) listen. Collectively, they prescribe a quality of openness to experience - [i.e. the practitioner]’s own experience and the client’s. They demand at least tentative trust" (p. 66). 

This latter point is particularly important in career practice, and - in our domain, or unless we are also a trained counsellor - the discussion should stay on the side of workplace wellness, if we will; not illness. If we find ourselves straying into areas of grief, loss, or unwellness, we should refer on. Feltham and Horton note that "The remaining three conditions were that client and therapist be in psychological contact, that the client is in 'a state of incongruence' [which could be unwellness], and hence potentially motivated for therapy, and that the client perceives, to some degree, the presence of the other conditions" (2006, p. 66).

I am not invisible in the process, but I am 'behind the camera', so to speak. The client is foregrounded, like the image accompanying this post. My aim is often to make the client think deeply about what they want, and then work with them to consider what comes next. I help them take their first step: and they may only need me for that. I think of Rogerian client-centred therapy as a relational approach to career practice. 

The risks are that we have too much hui and not enough do-ey. It is always nice to talk about ourselves, but we are on the side of wellness, so should get to action at some point!

In the 1960s, springing from Rogerian, client-centred practice, Gerard Egan began working on a more pragmatic approach to career development, focused on managing client problems. This is framed as a "practical model for doing counselling" (Egan, 1975, p. v; emphasis added). Eganian practice takes a more change-oriented approach, often drawing on practitioner - helper - knowledge, tools and techniques at different times within the counselling process, and "emphasizes [the] clients' resourcefulness, resilience and capacity for constructive change" (Feltham & Horton, 2006, p. 334). Eganian practice "is relentless in incorporating new approaches, optimistic in its emphasis on the innate potential of human beings to move forward, to work with and resolve intrapersonal and interpersonal problems" (Jenkins, 2000, p. 163). There are lots of acronyms and frameworks to improve the process.

While I am feeling my way a little on this, I see Eganian practice as having a dual focus: one is on meeting client outcomes and goals; the other is on using/inventorying the career practitioner skills-bank. And as a result, this model - despite focusing on client change/action and therefore being transformational - feels more transactional and task-oriented. A bit prescriptive. There is more of a sense of haste, about the derived action, and getting the client to their next gig. 

The risks are that the client may not have reflected deeply enough, talked out the what-ifs, the exploration may have been too superficial as a result, and - as a result - the client may have made expedient decisions. 

Two approaches. Both serve their purpose.

Sam

References:

Feltham, C., & Horton, I. E. (Eds.). (2006). The SAGE Handbook of Counselling and Psychotherapy (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications Ltd.

Jenkins, P. (2000). Gerard Egan's Skilled Helper Model. In S. Palmer, R. Woolfe (Eds.), Integrative and Eclectic Counselling and Psychotherapy (pp. 163-164). SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446280409.n9

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A tripartite approach to career

I was thinking that in many ways, Hall (2004) was a seer. In 1976, he described the protean career, "a career orientation in which the person, not the organization, is in charge, where the person’s core values are driving career decisions, and where the main success criteria are subjective (psychological success)" (Hall, 2004, p. 1). Protean careerists have two key drivers: being self-directed, and being values-driven (Inkson et al., 2015).

In our ever-changing world of work, there is a great need for proactivity - self-directed - due to factors such as globalisation and technological advancements (Arthur et al., 2002; Kundi et al., 2024). A protean career attitude allows us to take charge of our career, to adapt, and to hopefully find career satisfaction.

Hall could see that we were going to move away from jobs for life into life-long development (2004), which today leads us to skill clustering. By gaining mastery in a range of skills which interest us, we can apply our particular skill set to any field.

And it is this act of applying our existing skills to any field which reminded me of a tripartite research approach: the dimensions of business research (Veal, 2005). This model has us consider three dimensions of approaches from our central idea in order to refine our ideas, using: contexts/domains; themes/issues; and approaches/methodology (Veal, 2005, p. 20; see diagram accompanying this post):

• Contexts & domains: Human Resources; Industrial Relations; Succession; On-boarding; Retention; Training and Development; Information Technology; International Management; Event management; Project Management; Strategic Management; Governance; Operations Management; Supply Chain; Logistics; Company law; Commercial law; Consumer law; Private sector; Public sector; Not-for-profit; Marketing; Economics; Financial Management; Accounting; Management Accounting; Marketing; Buyer Behaviour.
• Themes & Issues: Communication; Conflict; Culture; Entrepreneurship; Environment; Ethics; Gender; Ethnicity; Age; Stage; Leadership; Learning organisations; Managerial effectiveness; Motivation; Organisation development and change; Organisational behaviour; Climate change; Corporate Social Responsibility; AI; Digitisation; Technology convergence; career management; decentralisation versus centralisation; globalisation versus localisation; local versus national versus international.
• Approaches & methodologies: Subjective versus Objective; Positivist versus Critical/interpretive; Qualitative versus quantitative; Inductive versus deductive; Experimental versus non-experimental; Theory-building versus theory-confirming; Primary data versus secondary data; Self-reported versus Observed; Questionnaire-based surveys versus interviews versus Case study methods versus observations versus Focus groups; Exploratory versus descriptive versus explanatory.

We can consider our approach to our own career as a context (e.g. being people oriented, task-oriented, or values-oriented) or a domain (e.g. organisational development, private practice, career educator); in line with a theme (e.g. sustainability, refugee resettlement, or rehabilitation) or an issue (e.g. green energy, DEI, or access to services); using an approach (e.g. Rogerian client-centred practice or Eganian skilled helping) (Egan, 1975; Rogers, 1942) or a methodology (e.g. choosing tools and techniques). 

Now, while methodologies (Veal, 2005) might be a bit obscure, we could consider this as "The science of method, ‘methodics’; a treatise or dissertation on method; Nat[ural] Hist[ory], systematic classification. Also, the study of the direction and implications of empirical research, or of the suitability of the techniques employed in it" (Simpson & Weiner, 1989, p. 693). Determining the most suitable tools for the our issues - the work which is about us - makes perfect sense in this instance.

All this makes even more sense when we are considering our clients - the work which is before us - within our practice. We could consider our client's approach; taking a client-centred approach to our practice; working out the best tools to enable our client to meet their goals in our sessions.

I need to do more thinking on this, but I am quite liking this as a tool to frame options.

Sam

References:

Arthur, M. B., Khapova, S. N., & Wilderom, C. P. (2005). Career success in a boundaryless career world. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior, 26(2), 177-202. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.290

Egan, G. (1975). The Skilled Helper: A Model for Systematic Helping and Interpersonal Relating (7th ed., Instructor's ed.). Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.

Hall, D. T. (2004). The Protean Career: A quarter-century journey. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 65(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2003.10.006

Kundi, Y. M., Presti, A. L. & Khan, H. (2024). Designing your own job: how protean mindset and adaptability resources shape the modern workplace. Career Development International, 30(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1108/cdi-05-2024-0223

Inkson, K., Dries, N., & Arnold, J. (2015). Understanding Careers (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.

Rogers, C. R. (1942). Counseling and psychotherapy: newer concepts in practice. Houghton Mifflin.

Veal, A. J. (2005). Business Research Methods – A Managerial Approach (2nd ed.). Pearson Education Australia.

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Copying a Google Calendar from 2025 to 2026, part 2

In a recent post (here), I looked at the first stage of exporting a Google Calendar as an .ics file, and the next stage; working out how to update the dates so that I can import the updated version back into Google Calendar.

In the previous post, I had my data in a text file, as a vertical list of text strings containing the dates which need to be updated (depending on the type of calendar item each relates to). There are three 'types' of data in the export, all at various lengths, with the key date information that I want slopping around nicely on the far right in the unbracketed entries below, but lurking somewhere in the middle on the two bracketed examples:

DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250210 (or DTSTART:20250210T070000Z or DTSTART;TZID=Pacific/Auckland:20250210T070000)

DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250210 (or DTEND:20250210T080000Z or DTEND;TZID=Pacific/Auckland:20250210T080000)

Of course it couldn't be too simple, could it!

I needed to work out how to extract the date - 20250210 - from those various length strings, so then I could convert the date to a full date format (I wanted to see the formatted dates and days so I could work out which items needed to be moved to a particular day. This is for me to see which dates need to change to a particular day rather than a year less a day when moving items year to year: Zooms tend to be on a particular night of the week, so being able to see the date in date format with the day makes it much easier to make the right adjustment. To do that, ended up having to do a three step process (despite trying all sorts, I ended up giving up and doing it an easy way!). First, I extracted the data from the colon in each data string, using a 'mid' function in Excel in column I:

=MID(B30,FIND(":",B30)+1,LEN(B30)-FIND("T",B30))

Secondly, in column C, I ran the following:

=LEFT(I30,8)

Thirdly, I then picked up the product of that C30 in D30 with a date reorganise using Excel's 'left', 'mid', and 'right' functions, also with a custom date format with days ([$-en-NZ]dddd, d mmmm yyyy):

=DATE(LEFT(C30,4),MID(C30,5,2),RIGHT(C30,2))

Crikey. And that got me to being able to begin to update the calendar data.

Now I need to work out an easy way to bulk change dates...!

Sam

read more "Copying a Google Calendar from 2025 to 2026, part 2"

Career clusters and vague roles

The world of work has become much more complex. The world today is full of 'vague roles', where we have gone from structured professions where we have a pretty clear idea about what people do in those careers, to something that is a lot more amorphous and hard to define (Lengelle, 2019). In the 1970s, The Netherlands did some research and found there were around 5000 defined roles and few vague roles (Lengelle, 2019; Young, 2019). However, if we roll the clock forward to 2012, "the Central Bureau of Statistics in the Netherlands[ repeated that research, and ...] What they found was that there were only about 1,000 of those definable professions[ left: ...] like dentist, English teacher, nurse, those type of things; and - if you can believe it - 23,000 of those vague roles (Lengelle, 2019; Young, 2019).

In 2018, the consultancy firm AlphaBeta produced a report For Tertiary Education Commission - aka TEC - to help guide departmental policy. The research team analysed over a million New Zealand job ads and identified six career clusters, as follows (AlphaBeta, 2018):

1. Inventors "have technology and business skills, alongside creativity and problem solving"
2. Organisers have "service-oriented and administrative skills"
3. Healers "have caregiving expertise and some administrative and corporate skills"
4. Operators have "manual skills, good communication skills and a positive attitude"
5. Engagers "have sales skills combined with deep interpersonal skills"
6. Crafters have "sophisticated industrial skills and organisational skills" (AlphaBeta, 2018, p. 5; Betts, 2024, p. 18).

The result of this is that employers are unwise to seek narrow, overly-defined skills to fit a candidate to a particular job. Instead we should hire on broader transferrable, interdisciplinary skills, and assume, as the report found, that training for one job has portability to another 12 (AlphaBeta, 2018, p. 5). 

This should help employers find fewer skill gaps. It may also encourage recruiters and employers to write more accurate job descriptions. 

In addition, our systems may put a lot of pressure on school leavers to pick their career, rather than to begin experimenting. Other actions that young people can take are: networking, internships or job shadowing, working part-time, and trying many roles for potential fit (Betts, 2024). 

It all sounds so easy. 

Sam

References:

AlphaBeta. (2018). Hidden Links, New Opportunities: How big data and job clusters can improve the 1.2 million job matches in NZ each year [report]. https://www.tec.govt.nz/assets/Reports/49efa6f071/Hidden-Links-New-Opportunities-Report.pdf

Betts, R. (2024, August 31). Just the Job. New Zealand Listener, 34, 16-21.

Lengelle, R. (2019). Scared, Lost or Confused? Develop Your Warm Inner Compass through Career Writing [webinar]. CERIC. https://ceric.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Reinekke-Lengelle-Presentation-CERIC-Webinar-Career-Writing-2019.pdf

Young, S. (2019, October 14). The growth in vague roles. https://www.samyoung.co.nz/2019/10/the-growth-in-vague-roles.html

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When to refer on, part 1

How do we 'know' when we are working within our own practice competence? And from there, how do we then decide to refer clients on?

We should consider referring on in any of the following scenarios. A client may have become 'stuck' with us and no progress is being made. Emerging client problems may appear too complex or demanding for us to make meaningful progress. We may feel we have lost our way. Our own lives may suddenly become too complicated, so we need to lighten our load: and we can be "hesitant to admit to feeling stressed because of fear of being labelled weak, unable to cope or incapable of professional practice" (Cooper, 2011, p. 137). It takes courage to refer clients on to other professionals. But doing so can make us a better practitioner.

But how do we know, in the midst of practice, that we need to refer on? We need to 'practice' reflection. So after each session, we reflect (no matter how briefly), but running through anything that was good, could be improved, or surprised us is likely to need more attention. We can deliberately consider a time when our work with a client felt 'too hard', or when client sessions were producing nothing new: then we are likely to gain some insight. The following questions may help:

• Did we feel competent to work with this client?
• Did we stop, and let them know that we felt stuck?
• Did we ask the client what they needed?
• Could we have referred them to someone else at that time?
• On reflection what would we do differently next time?

And remember that we need a safe pair of hands to share this with. As we learn or formalise our practice, and as a reflective practitioner, we learn that we too need to seek "support, advice, and consultation" (Nelson, 2014) from our colleagues - or specialists - to assist our client work; to both keep us safe, and to further develop us. In an NCDA article, Nelson provides us with a few sensible pieces of advice:

• "Know when to refer a client to a therapist; it is okay to suggest putting aside career work until personal issues are worked through"
• "Don't be afraid to refer clients to colleagues whom you think would be a better fit; colleagues will refer clients to you"
• "Consult with colleagues when it makes sense, to learn about resources or for their particular expertise. This experience will enrich your practice by learning from your peers. Don't underestimate how important fellow counselors are not only for support but for future career opportunities"
• "Always maintain the confidentiality of your clients unless they give you permission to disclose. Even if you have permission, disclose as little as possible"
• "Take care of yourself. You can't give anything if you're empty yourself. Counseling can take a lot out of a person" (Nelson, 2014).

It sounds simple, but it isn't: we need to be able to step out of our practice and observe. And like most things in our field, this too is a learned skill.

Sam

References:

Cooper, P. A. (2011). Chapter 10: The implications of workplace stress on service development. In D. B. Cooper (Ed.), Developing Services in Mental Health-Substance Use (pp. 137-146). Radcliffe Publishing Ltd.

Nelson, M. (2014). 30 Tips for New Career Counselors. National Career Development Association (NCDA). https://www.ncda.org/aws/NCDA/pt/sd/news_article/5417/_self/layout_details/fals

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Copying a Google Calendar from 2025 to 2026, part 1

Firstly, I would like to say that I am very grateful that Google calendar exists. It allows me to harmonise all my appointments across three systems: my 'trinity' selves. I invite myself at two workplaces, and to my cellphone - across three email addresses - using GCal as my Master calendar. It is a bit complicated, but I have managed to make most things work so I keep track of my commitments.

Secondly: I have a little niggle with GCal. I would love to have a way to "copy" this year's calendar to next year. I have not yet QUITE worked out how to copy one year's appointments in Google calendar to the next year, including moving all the appointments/events/tasks back one day so they all fall on the appropriate day of the week. I have been fiddling around the edges of this problem for years, and not really getting to a clear solution. However, recently I have got a bit closer to a solution.

It began with me posting a question on Google Calendar Help, earlier this year:

Copy Google Calendar Events from 2024 Calendar year to 2025 year
I am sure there must be a way to do this, but I cannot work it out. I am a lecturer. For each of the papers I teach, I create a sub-calendar in Google containing all the reminders, week numbers, assignment starts, topics, meetings and deadlines. However, I have not been able to successfully export LAST year's sub-calendar for each paper - say to Excel, change the dates to THIS year - then reimport it as a new sub-calendar into my master Google calendar. Is there a way? Can someone help?

I got a reply from Priya Chandra, who said that I could "use the export/import feature of Google Calendar to bulk edit events. This video shows you how to do that: https://youtu.be/hJdGBmHDafA", pointing me towards a GCalTools video (2020).

On watching the video, it showed me how to delete a calendar which was wrongly imported. It explained clearly how to export a calendar as an .ics file, open it in a text editor (like Notepad) and edit a repeating line of code to then reimport the calendar to bulk remove the wrongly imported entries (GCalTools, 2020).

While I didn't want to remove imported entries, the video made me think that perhaps I could export one of my calendars, change the dates to next year, and reimport the edited .ics file. I started trying to work out how to do that. I exported one paper's calendar, which had 48 calendar items. I opened the .ics in Notepad, highlighted the export data, and copied the resulting lines of code into Excel. Then I realised it was over 1000 lines long. Ouch.

OK. So maybe I should filter the entries to see if there was a logical set of entries with 2025 in them. That might help me decide which were the key lines of code I should edit to change the appointment dates. Ah: 255 lines containing 2025 for 48 appointments. And I might not need to edit all the lines...

I unfiltered. I could see no obvious 'master' lines for each calendar item. Hmm.... what if I create a 'test' calendar with a couple of different appointment types in it - one multi-day appointment, and one repeating appointment. If I exported the test calendar, I might be able to see what I should be looking for. I did that, and it worked PERFECTLY. It seemed that the lead entries for each new calendar item began with the following two prefix lines:

DTSTART

DTEND

Different types of calendar item had different text following those prefixes, but at least I knew what separated each appointment. Now all I needed to do was to work out which, and how many dates, I might need to change.

So I took another look at my test export data. I wondered what would happen if I only changed the DTSTART and DTEND dates. These were formatted as number strings with the year first, then the month, and lastly the date: 20250210.

I opened my exported Test .ics file, and changed the DTSTART and DTEND dates to one year ahead, and one day back: to 20260209. I reimported it to my next year's version of my Google Calendar for this paper. And it worked perfectly.

However, now I have 48 appointments to change with variable dates, in variable formats. That will be an Excel formula job which I will begin to tinker with in Part 2 (and maybe part 3 if it gets too complicated - we will see) :-)

Sam

References:

GCal Tools. (2020, November 12). How to undo an import to Google Calendar [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/hJdGBmHDafA

Google Calendar Help. (2025, January 1). Copy Google Calendar Events from 2024 Calendar year to 2025. https://support.google.com/calendar/thread/319764201/copy-google-calendar-events-from-2024-calendar-year-to-2025-year?msgid=320864848#

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Phased learning and practice

So what happens if we attend a training course, but never have the need - or have the ability - to practice the skills that we learned? I suspect this often happens with workplace-organised computer or IT system training courses. We go to a course to learn about a new thing, and perhaps we don't have access to the app, or we don't end up needing to apply those skills in our work, and - over time - the skills we learned erode away.

But just how fast do those skills erode? Well, apparently, when we undertake training without the opportunity to practice for extended periods of time, we lose something between 71% and 84% of what was taught... all within 28 days of delivery (Arthur & Day, 2018, p. 9). Ouch. That is QUITE fast.

In addition, some skills we learn in phases. For example, we can see three phases in learning to keyboard as follows: 

"first, the 'Cognitive phase', different movement patterns for keystrokes are learned, relying on declarative mediation and visual feedback of the keyboard. In the second, the 'Associative phase', the movement patterns become more internalized, and [learners] begin to rely more on kinesthetic feedback. At the end, in the 'Automatic phase', [learners] rely primarily on kinesthetic feedback, and can spend most of the time gazing at the screen (Johansson et al., 2009), while allocating minimum attention to the typing process (Trubek, 2011). However, since touch-typing is a complex cognitive, affective, and psychomotor skill (Poole & Preciado, 2016; Weintraub, Gilmour-Grill, & Weiss, 2010), its acquisition requires systematic instruction and much practice (Rieger, 2007)" (Weigelt-Marom & Weintraub, 2018, p. 133).

That's pretty cool to know. And it is not just Weigelt-Marom and Weintraub who have found three stages. Donica et al. (2019, p. 2) also report a similar three phase process with keyboarding: 

"Keyboarding skills develop in a three-step motor skill progression (Stevenson & Just, 2014). Stage 1 uses cognition and vision while addressing letter identification and locating letters on the keyboard through touch keyboarding instruction. Stage 2 uses home keys and the development of muscle memory to select the keys using good technique. Stage 3 involves the mastery of the muscle memory and decreased use of vision to locate the keys. During Stage 3, speed increases and keyboarding becomes increasingly more automatic (Stevenson & Just, 2014)."

So as well as being aware that we need time to build our skills into our automatic memory, we must remember that holding onto our learning needs practice. Or it will disappear like water poured onto sand. 

Disturbingly quickly.

Sam

References:

Arthur, W., & Day, E. A. (2018). Skill Decay: The Science and Practice of Mitigating Skill Loss and Enhancing Retention. In P. Ward, J. M. Schraagen, J. Gore, E. M. Roth (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Expertise. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198795872.013.47

Donica, D. K., Giroux, P., & Kim, Y. J. (2019). Effectiveness of two keyboarding instructional approaches on the keyboarding speed, accuracy, and technique of elementary students. The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy, 7(4), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.15453/2168-6408.1599

Weigelt-Marom, H., & Weintraub, N. (2018). Keyboarding versus handwriting speed of higher education students with and without learning disabilities: Does touch-typing assist in narrowing the gap?. Computers & Education, 117(1), 132-140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2017.10.008

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