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Friday, 30 August 2019

Keyboarding speed measures

Average words per minute of typists
(Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson, & Oulasvirta , 2018, p. 5)
While we would probably tend to think there is only one measure of speed in typing - words per minute - there is actually one variation and one alternative.

 Firstly, there is the measure of words per minute, or wpm. The average keyboarder keys around 40wpm, according to Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson, & Oulasvirta (2018). This average was found in a Cambridge University sponsored study of 168,960 online participants who keyed stock phrases consisting of 136,857,600 keys. This is the largest - and most recent - study completed, demonstrating some reliability, validity and generalisability.

 Secondly, the variation. Now that we can measure typing speed on a a computer, we can get people to copy type, and then measure how many mistakes they make. This gives us a cwpm: a corrected words per minute measure. Interestingly this is not a 'whole' word measure, but is done by averaging word length into five letters, then working out how many incorrect keys have been struck. It makes sense... unless you are in medicine or academia!

 Thirdly and lastly, there is the measure of keys per hour, or kph. This measure is used for data entry roles where employers want to know how many key strokes applicants can deliver in an average hour. The hour is actually only 50 minutes long as that is our 'best' concentration length, and how long data entry operators are expected to be functional in an 'average' hour. To get a kph measure, we can go to Coleman Data Solutions (here) and enter our normal wpm measure, and we will get our kph. However, I think it also useful to enter our cwpm, as that is our accurate typing speed, and will give us a range that we usually type within.

 I am not sure how useful the different measures are. I personally feel we should stick with one, but which one? Only time will tell which one has the lasting power... or will all become irrelevant when we can 'talk it in'?

 ...and that might need to be the topic of another post!
Sam

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Wednesday, 28 August 2019

History: Chrome's missing more menu

When we have 'too many' tabs open, Google Chrome can sometimes stop showing the "more" menu, that little drop down menu which shows at the top right-hand corner of our browser window "...".

I discovered this when trying to access my history, while doing some research. I needed a tab that I had recently closed. Damn that premature closing of tabs!

However, there is an easy work around: simply key chrome://history/ in our Chrome address bar, then we can access our in-browser history. To reopen a particular page, simply click on the main part of the particular page name, and it will open in a new tab.

If this is something we strike often, we can also save our history link - or any of the other Chrome function links as a bookmark.

Another tiny fix to help us work more effectively :-)
Sam

  • NB: also be aware that when there is a new Chrome download, our menu icon may be replaced with a green down arrow to show us that have an update.
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Monday, 26 August 2019

Comparing Word Documents

Have you ever wanted to compare two Word documents, to see where the differences are? This is something I need to do regularly when supervising research students and reviewing their draft work.

 Luckily, Word allows us to do that within the programme. Simply open a blank document in Word, and navigate to the Review ribbon. In the compare group, select "compared to versions of a document (legal blackline)".

 In the left-hand of the dialogue box, in the "original document" field, navigate to what you think was the original version of the document. In the right-hand field, navigate to what you think is the most recent version of the document. The drop-down box is far too short to see the full file names, so I find it easier to find the files I want by using the folder icons.

 Then word creates a document using the new file, and showing the differences against the original. Even better, you can save the compared document to talk through the changes with the student.

 This function is very useful to see the development in student thinking. You don't have to reread the entire document from the outset: you can first simply review the updates, and see if the student's ideas are developing as you would expect. I find it useful to then reread the entire work, after I know what is their new thinking, or their more polished argument.

This tool is very useful for anybody working with document versions, but it amazes me how many people don't know it exists!
Sam
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Friday, 23 August 2019

Women, work and automation

The issue of automation has been of growing concern around the planet for a while now. Early alarmists such as Frey and Osborne (2013) told us that 47% of our jobs would disappear. More careful thinkers, such as Rainer Strack (2014) and Erik Brynjolfsson (cited by Relihan, 26 June 2018), feel that there is more likely to be a labour shortage. Yes, some entire jobs will be automated, but the likelihood is that some elements of work will be automated, leaving the human resources able to focus on service, and customer interaction.

 It looks like how we use our skills, and the application of our training, will need to shift. Those of us who have spent time in analysis, are likely to find our jobs will need to shift focus. We will probably have to sharpen our customer service skills. We may need to sharpen our sales skills. It is possible that communication and human interaction skills may be "the new black" when it comes to what employers are looking for. We will pick up the slack once computing power - chat bots - get stuck.

 Analysis and pattern seeking may disappear from our work, as AI support through computing power becomes more honed and on-point. This will create new opportunities for us. IBM's Watson, the mainframe computer who beat the twice will champion at the American game show Jeopardy, is in high demand for analysis of workflows, demand prediction, and diagnosis. For example, US tax provider, H&R Block is using Watson for predictive chat bot work (H& R Block, to February 2017; Mahdawi, 26 June 2017). Deakin University has been working with Watson for a couple of years in trying to create a predictive student enrolment model - and I can't wait to hear an update on that!

 The interesting thing is that women may be more affected by the shift then men, according to a report from McKinsey Global Institute (2019). This seems to be because women tend to do much more unpaid work in the household than men. This includes cleaning, cooking, child raising, elder care, and planning. Women tend to support men through additional training, but men do not appear to support women in return.

 Women, whose time is already overburdened, do not appear to have the time, nor the support, to retrain appropriately for the coming work environment (McKinsey Global Institute, 2019). If, as Rainer Strack and Erik Brynjolfsson suggest, that we're going to have a skills shortage, it makes no sense to limit our available workforce by fifty percent. We need to ensure that our women - half the population - have access to required training and up-skilling, and have the time and support to undertake it.

 Time to don the apron, men!
Sam

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Wednesday, 21 August 2019

CERIC's Guiding Principles

(CERIC, 2019b)
Canadian Education and Research Institute for Counselling (CERIC), the Canadian career development body, has a set of guiding principles, which were outlined in a lovely, colourful infographic packed full of wonderful Canadian cultural references earlier this year (2019b) as follows:
  1. Career development is a lifelong process of blending and managing paid and unpaid activities: learning (education), work (employment, entrepreneurship), volunteerism and leisure time.
  2. Career development entails determining interests, beliefs, values, skills and competencies - and connecting those with market needs.
  3. career development involves understanding options, navigating with purpose, and making informed choices.
  4. Career development should be self-directed: an individual is responsible for his or her own career, but is not alone - we all influence and are influenced by our environment.
  5. Career development is often supported and shaped by educators, family, peers, managers and the greater community.
  6. Career development means making the most of talent and potential, however you define growth and success - not necessarily linear advancement.
  7. Career development can be complex and complicated, so context is key - there may be both internal constraints (financial, cultural, health) or external constraints open bracket labour market, technology).
  8. Career development is dynamic, evolving and requires continuous adaptation and resilience through multiple transitions.
However, CERIC have now released the evidence background to support their eight guiding principles of career development infographic (2019a). Drawing on almost 60 pieces of evidence, the booklet produced shows how each of the guiding principles is underpinned by research, embedded in cultural understanding, and builds on global best practice in career development.

Both the infographic and the evidential background are incredibly useful. if you haven't already seen this, check it out. It will aid all our practice.
Sam

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Monday, 19 August 2019

LinkedIn Group Rules

Many years ago when I took over the management of a LinkedIn Group, I soon realised that we needed some rules of engagement.

 This was a time when people were spamming group members and self-promoting posts were coming thick and fast. We got ads for roofing, for - ah - 'relationships' of dubious quality, conference adverts, dodgy connection requests, pseudo-journal inquiries and immigration consultants.

In response, I trawled through group rules from LinkedIn, from Facebook, from service groups and from company 'House Rules'. I determined the purpose (informational, sharing), the context (careers), the tone (friendly), the legality (public domain) and the boundaries (apolitical, secular). From those choices, I then created the following set of group rules:
CDANZ is the membership organisation for Career Development in New Zealand. The intent of the CDANZ LinkedIn group is to expand career connections and spread of ideas to improve NZ career practice.
This is not a group where members can self-promote. This is a group where we share careers ideas, professional development and knowledge.

 This is not a place to post about business opportunities or jobs. Please use TradeMe for that.

 If you are posting something that would be marked as spam in an email, then it is still spam if you post it here, and will be removed.
Current group rules:
  1. Ensure posts are useful for careers work
  2. Be fun, friendly and inviting
  3. Act as if all postings are in public view
  4. Be respectful of copyright, others, their IP and their privacy (including details not already made public)
  5. Secular, non-political discussions are encouraged (ie, political & religious discussions are discouraged)
  6. Post items once only
  7. Don't be overwhelming. We want to hear from you, but not every ten minutes
  8. Ask before posting advertisements, but NO spam
  9. Group Managers can block members, edit and remove content without warning
  10. These rules will evolve - so check regularly.
Interestingly, the rules have not needed changing thus far. And, even better, since putting them in place - possibly eight years ago now - group behaviour has improved to being close to perfect.

 There is nothing like setting clear expectations to ensure we all get on.
Sam

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Friday, 16 August 2019

AutoCorrecting in Word

I am a TERRIBLE keyboarder. I hit two keys together, my left hand is faster than my right, I glance past other keys on the way to the one I want: I constantly type 'inforamtion' and 'teh'. I use AutoCorrect minute by minute to unscramble my terrible typing. To complicate matters further, I also use Dragon Naturally Speaking. Despite years of training, the software simply cannot hear some elements of the Kiwi accent, so I use AutoCorrect to turn things that Dragon 'hears' as 'am Berala' into what I actually said: 'umbrella'.

An incredibly useful little piece of kit, AutoCorrect. My AutoCorrect list has thousands of entries. All I needed to do was to highlight the offending word, right click for the pop-up menu, then select AutoCorrect | AutoCorrect Options to find that my piece of garble was already in the left-hand field, so I could then add how it should be written in the right-hand field. So convenient.

However, having been forced to finally move to Office 365, I was couldn't find the right-click pop-up menu item, AutoCorrect. I assumed - how foolish and naive was I?! - that Word was automatically adding any selected suggested right-click menu corrections to the AutoCorrect list. Then I started to notice that the same mistakes were appearing. Dammit! AutoCorrect was missing: and worse, it didn't appear anywhere on a ribbon!

Apparently lots of people have complained that - as usual - Microsoft has taken away a key piece of kit without checking with users first. Why don't they ASK us?! Why don't they come and see how users actually work before taking away these tools? Grr! Anyway, at some point in the future Microsoft is going to do something about this. Possibly. For the meantime though, you can do something about this actually, if you are an AutoCorrect user.

 Simply go to your Customise Quick Access Toolbar dropdown, and select More Commands. From the "Choose commands from:" dropdown, select All Commands. Scroll down through the As until you find AutoCorrect Options. Add it to your Customise Quick Access Toolbar. Once done, you can highlight the word you want to change, and simply click that link, which is visible regardless which ribbon you are on.

 There is another step you can take if you would like to. You could go to Greg Maxey's site (here) and download a Word template, which you can install in your Word's template folder. This will restore your right click menu AutoCorrect item in Word.

 I have decided to stay with the option on my universal toolbar for now.


Sam

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Wednesday, 14 August 2019

Issues with unlimited leave

Unlimited holidays. It sounds great, doesn't it? In the 1990s, some small technology start-ups offered unlimited holidays as a recruitment tool, which was then picked up by some of the multi-national companies such as IBM. The concept probably got the most airplay when Virgin adopted it for their management team in 2014: not all staff, just the management team.

 The idea is that staff take time off whenever they feel the need for a break. The management and timing of their own workload is up to them: they are grown ups and can work out when they need to be present and meet their own deadlines.

 So what are the ramifications of this idea? One unexpected issue is that staff worry about being visible in taking 'too much' time off, or being uncertain how much time is 'too much'. As a result they end up taking less time off than they should (Spicer, 5 June 2018), because leave is not transparent within the organisation. Unlimited leave also becomes an issue when you leave a workplace: how much leave do you get paid out if you don't get an allocation to begin with (Bayern, 18 June 2019)? And, if HR stop monitoring it - which they usually do, because why go to the cost of counting it unless you need to use it - an organisational 'health' metric disappears.

 A solution to all of this is to leave a minimum leave per annum in place (Imber, 26 July 2018), and check that all staff take at least that amount of leave each year. Then there is a clear pay out to make if you leave the organisation before taking your annual allocation each year, the organisational metric still means something, and staff know that holiday is truly considered to be important within the organisation.

 The most interesting thing is that when staff take at least four weeks leave a year, then the sick leave appears to drop to almost nothing -at least in the experience of Australian consultancy firm, Inventium. Now there's an indicator of organisational health (Imber, 26 July 2018).
Sam

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Monday, 12 August 2019

Procrastination Stoppers

Carol Lieberman wrote a very interesting piece for the New York Times on procrastination, where she outlined an argument that procrastination wasn't laziness: it was self-harm (25 March 2019). She proposed this argument based on work by Piers Steel, in his 2011 book, The Procrastination Equation.

 While procrastinating literally means 'putting off until tomorrow', there is an implication that by putting things off until tomorrow we are running ourselves out of time for other opportunities, hence Carol's self-harm argument (which is actually Piers Steel's argument). By being lazy without self-critique, "we are acting against our own best interest", and worse, we know we are doing it when we are doing it.

 And the procrastination symptoms? Need to study? Watch some cat videos. Have to make a difficult call? Play an online game. Got to get a quote into a client? Potter about on BoredPanda.

 Carol Lieberman reports Dr Sirois from the University of Sheffield, who says that “procrastination is essentially irrational. It doesn’t make sense to do something you know is going to have negative consequences”, adding that people do this because they are unable "to manage negative moods around a task." Right: we procrastinate with things that then make us feel worse. Yay. Negative jobs have a greater likelihood of procrastination, and those bad moods include being bored, anxious, insecure, frustrated, resentful, or from low self-belief because the project is unstructured and we are worried about whether we can be successful or not.

 The trouble is, when we procrastinate, we feel relief that we have put the awfulness off. Great! Shot of dopamine, and we are happy. Then the reality kicks in: all we have really done is to lose ourselves some valuable project time.

 We have all done it. But how do we STOP doing it?

 What we need to do is to build ourselves a better offer than the shot of dopamine our procrastinatory behaviour rewards us with. Some ideas that Carol has are:
  • Reflect on what happens during bouts of procrastination. Watch our reactions and see where procrastination starts so we can derail our early procrastination steps.
  • Consider what we could do next, if we were going to do the thing we are trying so hard to avoid. Micro-tasks are much easier to accomplish, and might prevent us procrastinating about the larger ones. Plan micro-tasks instead of huge amorphous ones.
  • Create inconvenience in getting to our procrastination 'activities'. Carol suggests that "adding friction to the procrastination cycle [makes] the reward value of your temptation less immediate". For example, delete tempting apps on our phones, create a complicated password to access items, or lock items out during work time.
  • Make success easy. Remove as many roadblocks as we can so we can be successful. For example, if you are consistently late for meetings, have an alarm clock in the room set for fifteen minutes before you need to leave, and another one outside your office that is INCREDIBLY loud and won't turn off until you get up, go out, and turn it off. That way you are up, and will be on time for your meeting. Make the time earlier and earlier until you build an understanding of how much buffer time you actually need to ensure you are on time.
Changing ingrained habits is never simple, but being watchful of what we are doing will help.
Good luck!
Sam

 References:

  • Lieberman, C. (25 March 2019). Why You Procrastinate (It Has Nothing to Do With Self-Control). Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-procrastinate-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-self-control.html
  • Steel, P. (2011). The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done. USA: HarperCollins.
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Friday, 9 August 2019

YouTube viewing history

When researching a blog post I needed to find my YouTube viewing history. I felt certain that there would be an easy way to do it somewhere, but was unable to find a magic link that said "history" in YouTube!

 So - of course - I googled "how do I find out what I have recently watched on YouTube". Unfortunately the 'how to' instructions which appeared were old, and no longer applied to the current versions of YouTube. Back to google, and after limiting my time to the past year I found a workable answer.

 Part of the problem is that our YouTube viewing history it is not where we would expect it to be: it is in Google's Support function. We can find our YouTube history as follows:
  • Log in to Google
  • Go on http://myactivity.google.com
  • Click on the YouTube link under Today
  • Our YouTube watched clips will appear for today, with previous days listed below that.
Not the most obvious way of finding our history, but at least we can find it.
Sam
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Wednesday, 7 August 2019

The Slow Work of Un-Stuffocation

We all seem to have lots of 'stuff'. Apparently many Westerners have a two car garage which cannot fit a single car in it (CBS Sunday Morning, 22 April 2018). We leave our expensive cars outside, while our garages drown in crap. Imagine! Whether in our workplace or at home, it seems that unless we are active, things pile up in drifts around us. Things could be as simple as recycling or unread emails, to unfiled paperwork or our intended reading pile.

 I am a conscious tidier. When I was quite young - and lazy with it - I tallied up how much time I had to spend finding things through my own disorganised laziness. I quickly worked out that I could save SOOO much time and energy by having a 'one true place' for everything, then consistently putting things in that 'one true place'. Organised laziness. I have built this habit over the years. I streamline wherever possible. I do similar things together. I try not to repeat things. I reuse, regift, recycle, repurpose tasks to limit junk tasks as well as junk.

 (Interestingly, people don't believe me when I tell them it is because I am lazy that I am organised. Ha: I save my limited time on earth for my one true love - reading - by cutting out unnecessary faffing about).

 Lately my husband has been working offshore, and I have used this hiatus to consciously tidy our lives. Over the course of this year, and in consultation, I have gone through our house, our workspaces and our storage to recycle, regift and repurpose things that no longer have a 'one true place' in our lives.

 While I have read the Marie Kondo book (review here), my printer does not 'spark joy', and folding my socks into neat little standing-on-edge soldiers just tells me that I have too many socks. Ms Kondo's philosophy doesn't fit me well. My philosophy lies more in the slow movement.

 My preference is to consider what to tackle, how to tackle it, and to deal with junk a space at a time; sometimes a drawer at a time. Like eating an elephant, the tide of stuff does not have to be dealt with at a run. Just walking faster than the dross accumulates means that your stuffocation (Wallman, 2013) slowly reduces.

 What has surprised me is how liberating getting rid of things has been. Even after only a couple of boxes of things going, I feel a lightening of spirit. And many, many boxes have gone since I started, and there are many, many boxes yet to go. This slow work in progress of paring back - of coming to realise what can be done without; then re-evaluating; then realising what else can be done without - is wonderful.

 Try the slow approach. It might work for you.
Sam

 References:
  • CBS Sunday Morning (22 April 2018). A clean sweep: Getting rid of your clutter. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/W2oN7gTbHp0
  • Kondo, M. (2014). The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. USA: Ten Speed Press
  • Wallman, J. (2013). How We've Had Enough of Stuff and Why You Need Experience More than Ever. UK: Crux Publishing Ltd
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Monday, 5 August 2019

The Symbols of Language

Recently I read an opinion piece in the Guardian about emojis, and why the writer would never use them. The article was arguing that these symbols were an anathema to right-thinking people. What quite surprised me was the vehemence in the piece, for example: "I was ranting to a friend about how infantilising these toddler-esque signifiers are, they suggested that maybe I’m not a visual person", "I have never knowingly used an emoji and I don’t intend to start now. " and "But emojis? Really? For grownups? Are we to reduce our complicated and interesting interior lives to nasty little smiley faces and erect vegetables? (Aubergines, if you are asking.) Is this actual communication?" (Moore, 17 June 2019).

 Why was my reaction one of surprise? It was my understanding that all language is symbolic. Written language is the most overt of use of language as symbols, because we can see the symbols. In oral language we can only hear the symbolism, and it can fade or be poorly remembered. With writing, the symbolism is there for us to re-read, review and to re-interpret.

 An 'n' when we read it means that particular sound because we say it does: we have standardised collective usage. Russians allocate a different symbol for 'n'. So do the Japanese. Not being familiar with Mandarin, an 'n' on its own may not exist as pictograms often illustrate whole words, but I did find one online ...and have hopefully applied it correctly in the image illustrating this post. All these 'letters' are symbols, different though they be, illustrating a single concept: the 'n' sound (Good Characters Inc, n.d.).

 I feel no overt pride nor shame in using symbols. Symbols are used to communicate an idea, when the speaker is not there to tell us their story in person, whether they are a letter, a pictogram… or an emoji.

 And that is rather the point: when we are not there in person, writing - symbols on a page or screen - can make missing tone and context all too easy. Emojis - where social media has created fairly universal agreement about what the symbol means - is more useful than the different letter 'n's. This universal meaning, across many cultures and driven by users, is probably happening for the first time on the planet: we have an agreed symbolic understanding which is greater than our unique languages.

 I can send a Hungarian a wee string of emojis and they can understand what I am trying to say. Babel fish, swim out of my ear (Adams, 1979): emojis can tell a story without you.




Bring on the emojis, I say: let's have more of them.
Sam

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Friday, 2 August 2019

3 Ways to Make Your Website More Attractive to Customers

Of all things digital, websites are one of the key marketing tools. Yes, they cannot be considered ads proper, as their primary purpose differs from that of direct advertising, but prospective customers definitely pay attention to what your company’s or project’s website is like. If it is drab, looks suspiciously outdated and fails to load properly, the chances are your visitor will go search elsewhere.

Of course, no nifty package can – and should – be used to trick people into buying from you when your product or service is of poor quality. The things stated below are for those who offer quality products and have already ensured the thing their customers come for is great.

But what if your page appears to be deterring visitors from purchasing from you despite the high quality of your goods? Let us take a look at what possible causes there may be.

  1. Slow loading
    Is there anything that prevents easy access to your website? One of the most unexpected reasons why few people use your website is that it may be too slow. Slow loading may be caused by a lot of things, but the most common culprits are unoptimised content, poorly-written code, and failure of your hosting provider to ensure decent load time.

    The first two things are your responsibility. Check what may be slowing your pages down: analyse the content (images, videos, forms, etc.), and use only those scripts that were created by professionals and lead to no errors. The third possible cause is due to the technical performance of your hosting provider. Server problems are not uncommon, and they may well result in slow loading.

    You can try to prevent it by monitoring your website load time and up-time with the help of special tools (there are plenty of specialised websites and plugins, like Pingdom, for instance), and checking whether the performance of the hosting provider you are interested in has recently been great before setting up your website or moving it (this can be done using Hrank).

    Rarely are visitors patient enough to wait for more than a couple of seconds, so if it takes a lot of time for your page to load, it may be one of the reasons why prospective customers are reluctant to use your website. Improving it may result in more traffic.
  2. Make sure you have included relevant information
    Your website is supposed to be the place where your audience can find the information they need, be it the cost of your services, articles on how to tackle common problems, or what exactly you can offer. A website that is predominantly ad-oriented is unlikely to succeed. Gone are the days when ads were all about “BUY NOW ELSE IT WILL BE TOO LATE”. It is time we switched to a more productive way of using websites, that is making them really useful to users.

    The majority of people who come across your page understand it when the focus is on SELLING. A much better strategy is to offer help – and yes, it is normal to include things that are provided for free. Think about posting really informative articles or helping your audience some other way. By doing this, you can boost the value of your website and thus make it more attractive.
  3. Design matters
    Last but not least, your website should be designed with regard to what your target audience is. There are still a lot of websites that fail to be user-friendly and easy to navigate, and the colors used also matter: quality of design is a multi-faceted thing.

    Make sure all the elements of your pages are easy to find. Mobile-friendliness is a must, as more people are using portable devices to access websites. Consider updating website design or even overhauling it if it is outdated. It does not mean you have to spend a fortune on a venerated designer, though. The takeaway here is that if your website looks cheap, it may also look less reliable. Being reliable is a priority, but reflecting it via website design may even be considered a sign of respect for your visitors. Neat websites are better than those with blinking banners and chaotic ads.

    These are basic things, but they are often overlooked by website owners. Analyse your pages and improve them so that it can be a better place for your audience.


 Natalia
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