When Comment Balloons Won't Print

Ah, the joys of trying to diagnose Word problems! I was recently trying to create a pdf from a Word ethics application file that I was reviewing for a student, which I had annotated with comments 'balloons' (I call them bubbles, much nicer!).

Then, for some inexplicable reason, each resulting pdf that I created showed the right-hand side bar in grey, just as if it were preparing to show comments, but had then forgotten to add the comments themselves in at the last minute. I tried several times: checking my page layout, the print page layout, that the bubbles were set correctly on the review ribbon. Everything looked perfectly normal. I double-checked the pdf print settings. They too all looked normal. I shut down the file, reopened it. I tried again.

No dice. The comment bubbles simply didn't print. I could see them on screen. I could see them in print preview. But they did not turn up in the pdf.

What was annoying was that the same document had printed bubbles perfectly well the night before. In the meantime though, I had sent the anotations on the ethics application back to the student, the student had amended the base file, and uploaded their next version into TurnItIn. I had downloaded the update, made my comments... and now I couldn't print my annotations to pdf again to send it back to the student for round three.

So I turned to Google, and ran a search on "my comments bubbles are not printing in Word". Straight away I found someone who had the business. MCGT (18 May 2012) had found a workaround for when documents don't print bubbles, which is quite simple:

• Close Word.
• Re-open Word.
• Open the document within Word (not using Windows Explorer). Once open you will probably find that your bubbles have changed colour. This is a good sign.
• File | Print (select pdf) | Settings | Print all pages | Ensure 'Print mark-up' is ticked.
• Click Print. Please note that this does not fix the underlying issue (whatever that is): it only provides a fast and dirty way around the problem.

But at least I now magically have a pdf with visible bubbles.



Sam

• Reference: MCGT (18 May 2012). Comment balloons will not print. WORD 2010. Retrieved 5 April 2018 from https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_word-mso_other-mso_2010/comment-balloons-will-not-print-word-2010/d66bb536-a389-4a1e-830d-6b3fe21f1072

I am using still Word 2010, which I am running on a Windows 2007 platform ...and I am dreading the day my PC dies as I love this system.

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Taking Time Out

Recently I read a post on Thesis Whisperer by Phillipa Bellemore called "The tale of 23 Overdue Books". It was a great post to read, as it was about the personal tragedies which had struck Phillipa as she was undertaking her PhD.

I posted a brief reply on the blog, saying "Thanks so much for sharing your story. Boy, did it resonate with me! I have just had the most god-awful year, and am not even at confirmation of candidature. I too have just taken a brief leave to try to get my head back into PhD-Space (similar to, but different from Terry Pratchett's L-Space ;-D). This is due to a whole series of events that left my life reading like a soap opera: and one of those really unbelievable ones that most of us would roll our eyes at and say "Pshaw, what a load of cobblers! No one has a life like that!"."

It was after I had posted my reply that I got thinking: I had not really talked publicly about the full horrors of the past year for me, and that I had to take time out because the world had got too much. So I decided that there was no time like the present.

My Father died last April, unexpectedly, after a week in a hospice. We knew he was not long for this world, but we had all fully expected him to bounce back several times yet. He didn't. I was his executor, so spent some time winding up his affairs. My husband, who has congenital arthritis, had a hip replacement already booked for the end of April and was then pretty much incapacitated for three weeks of his six week recovery time. So as my husband was recuperating in May, my Uncle - my Godfather - had some bad falls, got hospitalised, and the hospital said that he needed to go into a nursing home (rightly so. He was no longer safe alone at home). My brother, my Mother and I had to pack up his house and store all his effects, get all his paperwork sorted out including powers of attorney and so forth, get him moved, and arrange a visiting roster.

Then, just as my husband went back to work in June, my Mother had a bout of pneumonia, and upon visiting her in hospital, found that she had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Without my Father to support her, I became her support person, ensuring that she received appropriate and timely medical diagnoses and care through the health system (which is quite a time consuming process), all the while keeping an eye on my Uncle in the rest home. Just as my mother was recovering, my husband went in for his second hip replacement. My Uncle then had developed some ulcers in the nursing home, and got sick as well, ending up in hospital. We live 45 minutes away from the hospital, and with my Mother, husband and Uncle all in hospital, all in different locations, all I seemed to be doing was hospital visits and driving. Showering? Eating? Pah, who needs that rubbish, eh?!

Eight weeks past that, at the very beginning of September, my Uncle died. As with my Father, I was also my Uncle’s executor. The winding up of his estate is still ongoing. I am still trying to sort out bank accounts, trust arrangements, and transfers.

Then, in December, my sister-in-law was found to have grade 3 breast cancer. She was told that she would need to undergo very intensive chemotherapy, and that the prognosis was uncertain. Everything seemed to take a long time to organise, and it almost seemed like the Australian health system was more convoluted, arcane and ambiguous than on this side of the ditch.

I was at the screaming "ENOUGH, ENOUGH ALREADY" point. But no, just as I was hoping that the year was over and things would improve, my lovely old dog died of cancer in January; and we have now heard that my sister-in-law’s cancer is not responding to treatment, along with a previously undetected lump being found in her other breast.

Of course, all amongst this I have been working - I teach year three management papers on two undergraduate degrees - and have tried to finish off one review article, one research project/article and push on with my PhD proposal.

Luckily - am I crazy?! - we got a new puppy in January as well. He had been on order for the past year... and has taken a lot of time and training to get his behaviour where I would like it. I also have two new supervisors who I am training for one of the papers - a capstone management project paper - that I co-ordinate. Overwhelmed? Not at all...!!!!!!

After all that lot, I have just bitten the bullet and talked to my supervisors about taking three months out. My supervisors are great, and were very supportive of a leave. While I know that three months won't won't be long enough, I am hoping it will buy me a brief breathing space so I can at get my Proposal completed enough to get my PhD project underway.

I feel like there is a wall keeping me out of my project at the moment. Here's hoping it is like Jericho and will come tumbling down... without any more casualties.

Sam

References:

• Bellemore, P. (4 April 2018). The tale of 23 Overdue Books. Retrieved 4 April 2018 from https://thesiswhisperer.com/2018/04/04/the-tale-of-23-overdue-books/
• Pratchett, T. (1992). Small Gods. Bury St Edmunds, UK: Victor Gollancz Ltd.

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Ideas on being Pakeha

I had an interesting discussion on Facebook recently, about what Pākehā is. This arose in response to a post I shared about the wish to have Pākehā added back into the census ethnicity options. I am not Māori, I am not a European New Zealander: I am a member of the other half of Te Tiriti O Waitangi New Zealand partnership: Pākehā.

Other. Not Māori. I am not 'European': my race is human, not Caucasian; my influences are those of the South Pacific in general, and Aotearoa in particular. I was born here. My great-grandfather arrived on the Hauroto into Ōtepoti. I am Tangata Pākehā. These ragged hills cloaked by fragrant bush in shades of green and brown call to me, pulling me back to this land from journeys. Aotearoa sustains me, nurtures me, and returns me to peace at the going down of the sun.

Aotearoa is both my identity and turangawaewae. While I have English, Scots, Irish and Portuguese heritage, the place where I stand is Te Tau Ihu o Te Wai Pounamu. I am not tauiwi - a foreigner - due to the longer roots my ancestors grew over more than 120 years into the Ōtepoti stern post of Te Waka o Maui. As Chris Cately said "I have always taken it for granted that I am a New Zealander who belongs, fully, to nowhere else on earth. What else could I be?" (King, 1991, p. 37).


What surprised me with my facebook post were the comments of friends who were born in Europe, but who feel Pākehā. They were disturbed about the implication that there is a division between 'born' and 'made'... and how that related to their own sense of identity. Is birth a barrier to being Pākehā? Should there be a barrier? I looked to two of our seminal writers on the nature of Pākehā are Michael King and Paul Spoonley: a historian journalist, and an activist academic, for guidance.

King says that Pākehā are from "predominantly European descent [...] a descriptive word applied to people that derive originally [...] from the United Kingdom". He explains that Pākehā "is an indigenous New Zealand expression that denotes things that belongs to New Zealand via one major stream of its heritage, things that are not Polynesian", then clarifies that Pākehā are Britons who "derive from abroad but which, through the transformation of history and experience [...] are now unlike their sources and antecedents" (1985, p. 17; 1991, p. 19). Suggesting that those who who are "one, two or even four or five generations removed from Europe" are European seems ridiculous (King, 1985, p. 15). This to me suggests 'born' over made.

However, what is 'one generation'? I see it the American way: those who are born in the new country from parents without. Others will see this the English way, as those who were born elsewhere and have become naturalised. Their children are second generation. Unfortunately, Michael King's untimely death in 2004 means we can no longer ask him what his original intent was. However, he explains elsewhere that we arose from the UK but through change, we become of this place. Being Pākehā emphasises "New Zealand-ness", and our connectedness to and affectedness by Māoritanga. It seems that King's implication may be that you are born here, but, if strongly connected and affected by Tangata Whenua, perhaps it is possible that you may become Pākehā (1985).

However, Spoonley seems to deny this possibility. He says "New Zealand-born people of 'European' descent I label as Pakeha - it is an appropriate term to mark those who are culturally of New Zealand and who are manifestly not 'European' much less 'Caucasian'" (1988, p. xiii). It is possible that being born in the South Pacific changes our viewpoint. I tend to align with Spoonley's 'born' view, but worry that this does not allow space for kindred spirits to 'join' us.

Ko Kapukataumahaka te māunga
Ko Ōwheo te awa
Ko Hauroto te waka
Ko Tangata Pakeha ki Ōtepoti tōku iwi
Ko Te Whare Wānanga o Te Tau Ihu o Te Waka a Maui tōku Marae
Nō Atawhai Aotearoa ahau
Ko Sam Young tōko ingoa


Sam

References:

• King, M. (1985). Being Pakeha: an encounter with New Zealand and Maori renaissance. Auckland, NZ: Sceptre.
• King, M. (Ed.) (1991). Pakeha: The quest for identity in New Zealand. Auckland, NZ: Penguin Books.
• Spoonley, P. (1988). Racism and ethnicity. UK: Oxford University Press.
• Spoonley, P. (1994). Racism and ethnicity. In P. Spoonley, D. Pearson, & I. Shirley (Eds.), New Zealand Society. NZ: Dunmore Press (pp. 81-97).

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Gmail Signature "Too Long"

I recently found that I had a stash of 500-odd gmails which I had not replied to (oops). In managing those, I decided that it was well past time for me to create a signature.

So, rather than recreate things, I simply cut and pasted one of my existing Outlook signatures into gmail. However, when I went to try and save it, I kept getting a "your email signature is too long" message. Even when I deleted all the characters in the signature box, I still kept getting this error. Hmm....

I did a bit of digging. It is the formatting that we inadvertently copy in from MS products which creates thousands (literally) of hidden characters. This overloads the rather generous 10,000 characters which Google allow you in a gmail signature. In hindsight, I should have realised that the problem was code, but I didn't think of it.

My work-around was to run a two step process. I copied my email signature from Outlook into WordPad, to strip out all the formatting. From there I copied my text only into the gmail signature box (which you find under Settings). In that box I then edited colour, font size etc. I had no trouble saving.

It is not an elegant fix, but it worked without problems.


Sam

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Do It Before You Die

A fellow writer on 750Words recently posted an article on their learning over 366 plus days of writing. What was very interesting about the post was that the writer is also an organist, and has played at over 150 funerals. They noted that the stories people tell are often of themselves, not of the dead (Hall, 3 January 2018). We tell stories of our intersections, our collisions, with those who have gone.

This writer's emergence over a year of writing was an interesting and sometimes challenging read. I enjoyed sharing the learning gleaned: it made me reflect on my own meandering path. I thanked the writer for the share and explained that I too had discovered 750 words (thanks Kellianne and Buster!), and had made it a tool for my writing. However, I felt that Hall had made it a sword.

Hall (3 January 2018) shared the quote, "In the graveyard are buried all of the unwritten novels, never launched businesses, unreconciled relationships, and all of the other things people thought, ‘I’ll get around to that tomorrow.’ One day, however, their tomorrows ran out” (Henry, 2013, p. 15.5/364). This led me to investigate Todd Henry's books, which encourage us to make small steps in the direction of things we want to do. Today.

I too am working through with a 'do it before you die' imperative. One of my friends - a uni buddy of my husband's - has the bulbar palsy type of motor neurone disease. This form first paralyses the trunk, causing speech, breathing and swallowing to decline before extremity failure; with unaffected brain function. Trapped within a failing container. When first diagnosed, two and a half years ago, life expectancy was between two months and two years (I love this exceeding of expectations. Long may it continue).

When first told, I retreated to think. What I would have to do with such a potentially close event horizon? The blazing, first, unedited thought was "I would have had to have started my PhD". This shocked me. While I am fairly reflective, I had no idea that completing work at this level was so important to me. My friend's living journey had collided with mine.

I listened to myself. I rearranged my present to change my future. My doctoral work may still be a graveyard story - because we can't see what is coming - but I am working towards dying empty.


Sam

References:

• Hall, L. R. (3 January 2018). The 11 Lessons I Learned Writing Half a Million Words Over 365 Consecutive Days. Retrieved 29 March 2018 from http://leesareneehall.com/11-lessons-learned-writing-half-million-words-365-consecutive-days/ .
• Henry, T. (2013). Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Everyday [mobi]. New York, USA: Penguin Group.
• Henry, T. (2011). The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice [mobi]. New York, USA: Penguin Group.
• KeepCalm Generator (n.d). Welcome to the online Keep Calm Generator. Retrieved 29 March 2018 from http://www.keepcalm-generator.com/ .

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Custom Dictionary Error Workaround

From time to time our network profile can have problems. One of the early signs is that our custom dictionary stops working in Word and Outlook email. Unfortunately, I have had this problem many times, and the IT team have had to reinstall my profile - often overnight.

Of course, it is usually only when we go to add new words to our custom dictionary that we find out that our profile is starting to malfunction. And how do we find out? The "Add to dictionary" option is greyed out.

Often we are in the midst of preparing a document or email under deadline when we discover this, but there is a short-term way to prevent this being a problem while your profile is being repaired in the mid-term. To workaround, we can simply make a list of the words which we want to add to our custom dictionary. Then in Word, go to Home | Proofing | Custom Dictionaries | Edit Word List... and add in the words that are correctly spelled for our uses. Add them all in. Click OK, OK, OK to back out.

You may have to save your document and restart Word for this to take effect. If that doesn't work, it is worth a try to shut down and restart completely. A key factor as to whether this works or not will depend on your network permissions. Some networks don't allow access to the custom dictionary.

If you want your custom dictionary updated for Outlook, you need to add the words into a Word document. There appears to be no ability to change the custom dictionary in Outlook using this workaround (though if anyone knows how, I would be happy to update this!).

Give it a try and see.

Good luck!


Sam

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What is a degree for?

Recently I ran across a interview about higher education, where the interviewee was suggesting that Higher Education was a waste of time, resources and investment. The interview was about a book that the interviewee had written, "The Case Against Education: Why the education system is a waste of time and money". The argument was that "public education is waste of time and money and we should stop investing in it" because "the payoff for education isn’t really coming from learning useful job skills. Nor is it coming from students savoring the educational experience. Rather, most of what’s going on is that people are showing off — or, as economists call it, they are 'signaling'. They are trying to impress future employers by showing how dedicated they are" (Illing, 16 February 2018, citing economist, Bryan Caplan).

That's an argument I haven't heard before: education as 'showing off'. I do think that completing an undergraduate degree that tells an employer that you can stick at something for 3-4 years and get it done. Tenacity. Perseverance. Completer-Finisher. But I don't think that this is 'showing off'.

Putting aside my doubt about the validity of the 'showing off' statement, I feel that Mr Caplan's argument has another flaw: that the job of higher education is solely to make us employees. He also thinks that we should all pay for our education, right the way through from Kindergarten. He thinks that "Kindergarten through 8th grade tends to serve as a daycare center for kids while their parents are at work. The educational waste really becomes a problem in high school because at that age kids could be doing something far more productive, like an apprenticeship or a vocational school" (Illing, 16 February 2018, citing Bryan Caplan).

Wow. Early learning is day-care. Being in secondary school is why people are no longer doing apprenticeships. Crikey, talk about an 18th century approach to education. I was amazed that Princeton published it. OK: I am probably being somewhat unkind, as Mr Caplan does imply that some students will be "savoring the educational experience", but the main thrust of his argument seems to be an economic one, and not a developmental one.

Funnily enough, I don't think that 'day-care' and 'vocational training' present valid arguments either. Nor do those who sign up apprentices think this way. The minimum age is 15 to begin an apprenticeship here in New Zealand, requiring a dispensation to get out of school a year early. There are some sound reasons why we don't want younger people going into apprenticeships: there is good evidence that our brains do not fully understand consequences until we are 18 or more (Moffitt, Poulton, & Caspi, 2013). Health and safety, customer service, process and procedure, and self-directed learning all tend to be better understood if we just hold off the start by a couple of years to get a little more maturity.

I did my degree for interest. Yes, I assumed I would find a job, but primarily, it was so I had some training in something that I was interested in. In my view, higher education is there to train us to refine our thinking, our curiousity and to develop an understanding of what professionalism looks like in our field. For me, a degree is to teach us to learn, not to create drones who can get a job.

If my summary of the article is correct, then Mr Caplan's argument is that the sole purpose of higher education is to get work. I assume an educational and economic fail on his terms would be if we didn't get a job in our field.

In my view, an educational fail is if we don't develop life-long learning... that and the understanding that no learning is ever wasted. Quite a different philosophical approach.

Hmm. I wonder what Mr Caplan's qualifications are...


Sam

References:

• Caplan, B. (2018). The Case Against Education: Why the education system is a waste of time and money. USA: Princeton University Press.
• Illing, S. (16 February 2018). Why this economist thinks public education is mostly pointless. Retrieved 26 March 2018 from https://www.vox.com/conversations/2018/2/16/16870408/public-education-libertarianism-democracy-bryan-caplan
• Johnston, A. (28 February 2018). Provocative Article: What do YOU think? Retrieved 20 March 2018 from https://www.linkedin.com/groups/2774663/2774663-6371911518627385347?midToken=AQGAxGsctAQ4_g&trk=eml-b2_anet_digest_of_digests-hero-11-discussion%7Esubject&trkEmail=eml-b2_anet_digest_of_digests-hero-11-discussion%7Esubject-null-az11i%7Ejexci6oq%7Ep0-null-communities%7Egroup%7Ediscussion&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Aemail_b2_anet_digest_of_digests%3BfhUBy60cSZe77JjO9y%2BD%2Fw%3D%3D
• Moffitt, T. E., Poulton, R., & Caspi, A. (2013). Lifelong impact of early self-control. American Scientist, 101(5), 352-359.

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Some Pros & Cons of Amazon Go

I will be interested in hearing updates on how the new Amazon Go grocery shop is going in Seattle.

While I like the idea of no lines, I am not so fond of check out staff possibly losing their jobs. However, it looks instead as if it will be retraining time for them: in customer service. Amazon needs staff to answer people's queries. They probably - excuse the pun - won't be hitting the breadline. I have had heard that Amazon allows all their staff to do any study they want to, at the company's expense, so those who work for Amazon and don't want to make the shift to customer service should be well-looked after.

However, Amazon is not everyone. What about other staff who may well find their supermarkets taken over by Amazon, or retooling to automation, in the relatively near future? I suspect that the Amazon model will be the way which many retail stores will go fairly quickly: with seamless self-check out technology app, supported by on-hand customer service staff. As the kinks are ironed out, and economies of scale kick in with the technology, the automated format will apply to almost every type of retail there is. Some may rely on a store card rather than an app: it may simply work with your visa card.

On the first few days, the Amazon go store was choked, but things are now evening out. It seems to be running smoothly, but I am sure there will be plenty of opportunity for things to go wrong, for code to need tweaking, for fraud, and for all the things we humans like to complain about!

One customer asked "I know it was always coming but I'm not ready...I don’t even like the self checkouts, I like humans and having a chat? Give me the good news?"

I think the good news is that you won't have to stand around waiting for someone to change the receipt roll in there till, or behind someone else who is just rushed back to pick something else up while you wait and wait and wait, or in a line behind four people with huge trolley-loads. You can still talk to the staff who stock the shelves and staff the Deli: you just don't have to wait for the someone to find their wallet, drop their wallet, try to find their customer card, dither about whether to buy the item which turns out to not be on special, replace the can of beans because it has a ding in it...

And I, for one, am looking forward to that!


Sam

References:

• NewsTalkZB (23 January 2017). Amazon opening first checkout-free supermarket. Retrieved 24 January 2018 from http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/early-edition/audio/chris-wilkinson-amazon-opens-first-checkout-free-supermarket/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_recent_activity_details_all%3BPq499NSsSE6P%2BfZb2U22vw%3D%3D
• King 5 (22 January 2017). Amazon opening first checkout-free supermarket. Retrieved 24 January 2018 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmURnEOIen0

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Going dark on Facebook

Since the blow-up over Cambridge Analytica, I have been thinking about Facebook, and what it is for. For me, it used to once be a way to connect with friends and family.

However, of late, FB is not doing well in that regard. The way the FB algorithms work, I am no longer seeing posts from close friends and family. To find out what my friends are doing, I have to deliberately go in through a 'friends' shortcut I have bookmarked (https://www.facebook.com/[your_name]/friends), then go into their posts. When I do go in and look to see what friends and family are up to, I am having to constantly "Hide" plaguey advertising because it is "Not relevant to me".

Now that I know how companies like Cambridge Analytica are harvesting my data, I now won't sign up for anything using my FB logon, nor will I do any more of the quizzes or click-throughs. I used to enjoy those, but don't now, because there is something sinister slithering underneath. It is harvesting all my clicks, likes and comments for marketers to use, without my permission. Even, a lot of the time, explicitly without my express permission. "No means No" holds no water with FB.

It is acquaintances' posts which fill my FB feed, even when I have - in theory - 'silenced' them for 30 days, unfollowed them, and blocked them, ad infinitum. I am growing steadily more irritated with a continual barrage of FB updates, even though I have turned all reminders off. The feed order is always by "most commented" and not by timeline on my phone, so is effectively worse than useless.

Worse, the poor quality / falseness / skewedness of posts is making me despondent. I have so many questions! Why can't FBers actually fact check? Why did I have to find out that someone I like is actually a bigot? Why did I have to see a disturbingly low level of critical thinking from a colleague? Why did I have to keep answering an acquaintance's posts about their inability to accept reality? Why? Why? Why?

Then I got to the good question: "why?" moment. The "Why am I even bothering?" moment. The shine has gone. I have fallen out of love with FB. It is time to say goodbye.

At this stage, I am doing a soft close, and am simply 'going dark'. I will keep using FB's network for things that benefit me: blog updates and messenger. But I won't use anything else, and will quietly disentangle myself from any old FB logins, and do a background data purge.

We will see how that goes for a while. If I hear that messenger is compromised as well, I will consider only using WhatsApp.

So goodbye ...for now.


Sam

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Workplace Conflict can be Healthy

I read an article by Amy Gallo on HBR blog where she said that "we’ve come to equate saying 'I see it differently' or 'I don’t agree' with being angry, rude, or unkind" (3 January 2018). That is a very interesting statement.

Amy explains that there some great benefits to regularly stating our worries (Gallo, 3 January 2018). We Kiwis just need to remember to do that with respect and build our muscles slowly, as:

• Our work results are improved if we keep hunting, arguing, teasing out ideas for better group solutions. We are likely to generate "creative friction". Amy states that "Conflict is uncomfortable, but it is the source of true innovation, and also a critical process in identifying and mitigating risks" (Gallo, 3 January 2018, citing CEO Liane Davey).
• We get learning and development from challenge. From hearing others' perspectives and through "listening and incorporating feedback, [we] gain experience, try new things, and evolve". For this, we have to learn to trust, so we can welcome the opportunity to grow... not shrink from it.
• Our team is more tightly knit. Work groups which can disagree positively learn greater trust and respect through "good fights". The ability to disagree is stimulating, and also teaches us to develop the ability to let go of 'bad' ideas and move on.
• We get more job satisfaction. Being able to constructively say what we really think makes us feel more valued and increases our satisfaction. Aiming for win:win outcomes that are organisation-focused - not ego-centric - requires positive leadership though.
• Our team becomes more inclusive. Amy says we need to stop thinking "that consensus is an end in and of itself. In a well-run diverse team, substantive disagreements do not need to become personal: Ideas either have merit [...] or they do not" (Gallo, 3 January 2018, citing a case by Parker, Medina, & Schill, 2017).

It is particularly difficult to disagree if you are a Kiwi. We are very, very poor at disagreeing, conflict, or speaking out. As a result, we have a national tendency to save up all our angst to spit out when we can't possibly hold it in any longer, and are feeling overwhelmed. We are "all good" and easy to deal with until we uncharacteristically blow up. This, of course, makes for excellent work relations.

There are better ways of saying that we are hesitant or have other views, and we can build good habits to voice those ideas in ways that aren't combative, hasty or downright explosive.

One way is to ask questions. A great way I have found of doing this is by using the naive inquirer model (Miller & Rollnick, 1991; Kuhn, 1970), which you can read about here.

We can also have some stock phrases to help us start to ask more questions, such as:

• "Interesting. Will everyone feel that way, do you think?"
• "OK. Are there areas which might have trouble with that?"
• "I get where you are heading and why. Can you tell me a bit more about the part where..."
• "You make a very a valid point. I am worried about..."

Good luck!


Sam

References:

• Gallo, A. (3 January 2018). Why We Should Be Disagreeing More at Work. Retrieved 19 January 2018 from https://hbr.org/2018/01/why-we-should-be-disagreeing-more-at-work?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter_monthly&utm_campaign=leadership&referral=00206&spMailingID=18857675&spUserID=ODI5MDQxMTUwS0&spJobID=1181254236&spReportId=MTE4MTI1NDIzNgS2
• Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd ed.). The University of Chicago Press.
• Miller, W. R. & Rollnick, S. P. (1991). Motivational Interviewing: Preparing people for change (2nd ed., 2002). The Guildford Press.

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Hidden File Explorer Tools

Ah, the great Ed Bott from Tech Republic just keeps these tips coming.

When working with groups of files in File Explorer, there is a tick box option that we can activate to select files with folders by going to activating this function at:

• File Explorer | View File | Item check boxes option (from Windows 8.1 onwards)
• Tools | Folder Options | View | Use check boxes to select items (Windows 7)

This enables us to select different files without having to hold down the Ctrl key: and there is a handy little tack on extra. We can select all the few files in a folder we want to keep, then go to the Home | Invert selection (or in old money, Edit | Invert selection) to swap the selection and click delete to get rid of most of the files we have in an area.

Very handy!


Sam

• Reference: Bott, E. (7 March 2018). Windows tip of the week: How to save time selecting objects in File Explorer. Retrieved 12 March 2018 from http://enews.techrepublic.com/hostedemail/email.htm?CID=49970070250&ch=9CBF4861BACB0EEA817C6393449431CA&h=5bfb6a8c326fafae4b24fd19e20fb4f5&ei=sF8oybVNY&schema=echo3

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Exploring what Mental Models Are

I was asked recently to explain what mental models are. While I have written about mental models before (here), I thought I would give a bit more insight into what they are.

To cite myself, they “are ‘theories people hold about specific systems in the world and their expected behavior’ (Daft, 2008, p. 133). The implication is that a mental model is something that we have about the world, based on assumption, experience, belief and perception; which may be accurate or inaccurate. They give us the ability, using imagination and our current level of understanding, to project what we know into the unknown, to explore “what if” scenarios, to mentally simulate and to rehearse times which have not yet arrived. Our mental models tend to go unchanged until challenged by circumstances; and once challenged, there is an opportunity to reassess, or to believe that no change is required.” (Young, 2018, p. 33).

Think of them as scripts we use to live and explore – within our heads – our yet-to-arrive futures. Peter Senge says they are "are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action" (1990, p. 8). They are a map of what we understand about how things work in our worldview: our understanding of our terrain. We have LOTS of mental models about all aspects of our lives. Some are inherited (until we think about them), some are unconsicous, some are deliberately learned, some are superb and some hold us back.

Our ability to live in our futures is a purely human thing. Other animals can mimic it, but they can't conceptualise a time which has not been experienced. We are, apparently, the only animal that has imagination and the ability to think about future situations which have not yet arrived (Gilbert, 2005). Fascinating!

The trouble is, our scripts – mental models – can get fixed in place. We will hold onto our old scripts which are still working for us, and then the world moves on, leaving us and our scripts behind. We are unable to see a more in-tune-with-the-times point of view because we are stuck in the past… fossilised. We won’t be able change unless (a) we consciously and deliberately set out to see why our old scripts are no longer getting us what we used to get, or (b) are forced into change because the world around us will no longer accept us or allow us to operate as we are (usually through legislation – think the anti-smacking bill. New Zealand wasn’t ready for it – old mental model for the whole country – but now, ten years on, we have a new mental model - and a deeper understanding - about how family violence is perpetrated. We now understand our national need for change, through the rear vision mirror).

If anyone is interested in reading more on these, below is a tiny starter reading list.

• Adamides, E. D.; Stamboulis, Y. & Kanellopoulos, V. (2003). Economic integration and strategic change: the role of managers’ mental models. Strategic Change, 12(2), 69-82.
• Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2005). Chapter 8: The History of Mental Models in K. Manktelow, M. C. Chung (Eds) Psychology of Reasoning: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives (pp. 179-212). USA: Psychology Press.

Sam

References:

• Daft, R. L. (2008). The Leadership Experience (4th ed.). USA: Cengage.
• Gilbert, D. (2005). Stumbling on Happiness. New York, USA: Vintage Books.
• Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline. New York, USA: Doubleday.
• Young, S. (2018). Mental Models in the Sport Governance Boardroom. Griffith University: PhD Research Proposal.

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Reset end of active Excel sheet

Spreadsheets are one of the organising tools I use, for my lecturing, for my projects, and for my study. A spreadsheet that I use as a log had been accidentally formatted down to row 2,100, so whenever I used the hotkeys Ctrl and End (which I do constantly), it would take me well past the end of my actual, entered data.

I was sure that Excel would have a way to reset the actual end of a spreadsheet, so I had Google with a search of "How to reset end of active document in Excel for Ctrl end". amazingly enough, that search was good enough to get me a couple of what looked like good answers.

However, when I applied both answers (Microsoft Support, 8 January 2017, n.d.), neither worked. After a short play, I realised that we have to clean, then delete the rows or columns. There is a missing last step.

So my process for resetting the Ctrl & End point on a spreadsheet is:

• Click on the first "blank" cell of the first row we want to delete
• Key Shift, Ctrl & End (together) to take us to the last row we want to delete
• On the Home ribbon, go to the "Editing" area, click the down arrow beside "Clear", and select "clear all"
• Highlight all rows from the last row we want to delete back to the first row, and on the Home ribbon, go to the "Cells" area, and click the "delete" button.

If we key Ctrl & End on our spreadsheet now, it should take us to our last active row. We simply replace the row part of the instructions with column if we have columns we want to get rid of.

Now I can Ctrl & End without difficulty once more.


Sam

References

• Microsoft Support (8 January 2017). How to reset the last cell in Excel. Retrieved 7 March 2018 from https://support.microsoft.com/en-nz/help/244435/how-to-reset-the-last-cell-in-excel
• Microsoft Support (n.d.). Locate and reset the last cell on a worksheet. Retrieved 7 March 2018 from https://support.office.com/en-us/article/locate-and-reset-the-last-cell-on-a-worksheet-c9e468a8-0fc3-4f69-8038-b3c1d86e99e9

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