The VIX index

Volatility is effectively a measure of predictability... or lack of it. And it is a term most often used in markets. Predictability is good: volatility is not necessarily so. How often, and how much prices move over time, is the stuff of fortunes made and lost.

I am sure there will hardly be a person on the planet this year who hasn't heard of the VIX Index, aka the volatility index. Taken from "real-time, mid-quote prices of S&P 500® Index (SPX℠) call and put options" (CBOE, 2025), VIX aims to assess the next 30 days of expected US stock market volatility. It is globally recognised measure used by financial/equity markets and the media, and is often called 'the fear gauge' (CBOE, 2025).

And of course this year with the US tariff fiasco, VIX has all become a more visible measure for we ordinary folk who don't usually hear of these things.

VIX Index (CBOE, 2025).

Larger fluctuations mean more volatility, and the "VIX Index is a measure of expected future volatility", "used as a barometer for market uncertainty" (CBOE, 2025; emphasis added). It it measures volatility that investors expect to see" coming in the market (Whaley, 209. p. 98). 

Well, there seems to be plenty of uncertainty doing the rounds.

Sam

References:

CBOE. (2025). Making Sense of the VIX Index. The Chicago Board Options Exchange. https://www.cboe.com/tradable_products/vix/

Whaley, R. E. (2009). Understanding the VIX. Journal of Portfolio Management, 35(3), 98-105. https://doi.org/10.3905/JPM.2009.35.3.098

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Word's format painter

Microsoft Office programmes are pretty much - to mix a metaphor - the lingua franca of business. And, if we are writing a document, it is MS Word we use. 

Most of the time, things go smoothly. But every now and again I will run into a problem where the formatting in Word goes glitchy, and not even undo will get me out of trouble. 

That is where the format painter tool often gets me out of trouble. Located in the home ribbon, in the Clipboard section of that toolbar, I simply highlight the formatting I want copied in my document, and click the paintbrush (aka format painter) tool to 'copy' it; then position my mouse over my troublesome text to 'paste' the formatting and enter. That usually ends the problem. 

However, there are a couple of extra tricks. 

• Firstly, hot keys. We can key Alt, Ctrl and C on the keyboard to copy a format, and Alt, Ctrl V to paste it. Too easy. And if we use the hotkeys, we can repeatedly re-paste the copied formatting to many areas without needing to re-copy (Microsoft Support, 2019)
• Secondly, to stop formatting, key ESC (Microsoft Support, 2019)
• Thirdly, toggling on the pilcrow symbol on the Word Home ribbon (¶) will allow us to see our paragraph marks. If we highlight entire paragraphs including our paragraph marks, then copy formatting, we can paste paragraph formatting around our document as well (Indeed, 2025).

But note that the format painter tool will not copy the background cell colours in a table.

Sam

References:

Indeed. (2025, March 27). How To Use Format Painter in Word (With Tips). https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-use-format-painter-in-word

Microsoft Support. (2019, July 07). Use the Format Painter. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-the-format-painter-4bb415a9-d4e4-42b7-b579-170adc594e40

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Utopia versus slavery

I was re-reading Lucassen's book The Story of Work last year, where he talked about a dichotomy of views in his introduction which led to his writing this sweeping book on the history of work. I think he was surprised by a growing polarisation he had noticed in work attitudes, where:

On one hand, utopia, arising in the 1990s, where we could "earn our money as independent entrepreneurs, hiring out our creative talents to the highest bidder. We would have to work perhaps only a few hours a day, or even a week. We would be so successful that, ultimately, we would have time – vast expanses of delicious leisure time. Our life would be defined by consumption, not by production" and "the new, true individuals are the self-employed and the entrepreneurs, and everyone craves a ‘portfolio’ career" (Lucassen, 2021, p. ix).

On the other hand, slavery; where we "work[ed] for someone else", with a taint "of conventional working people as either exploited victims or as uninventive and unimaginative dullards" (Lucassen, 2021, p. ix).  Ouch. Seems a bit harsh for what is, after all, "the daily reality for most of the world’s population", where we are being paid by 'the man' for "working five to six days a week, usually in household and wage labour" (Lucassen, 2021, p. x).

As Lucassen points out, utopia, with "entrepreneur [a]s a hero" at one end and "the ordinary worker a slave" at the other, is not realistic (2021, p. ix) for a process which most of us spend a third of our lives contributing to. Maybe it is more a continuum: with self-employment or entrepreneurship at one end, and fully waged worker at the other end: but this is not an either/or choice. Many people have their own side-hustles and gigs that they do as passion projects. 

Of course, we have come to think of work being what we are paid for. And what we are paid for is not the end of what could be termed work, as "Work includes any human effort adding use value to goods and services" with "most work tak[ing] place outside of regular jobs" (Tilly & Tilly, 1998, p. 22). Most of us do a lot of unpaid work each day: preparing food; cleaning; organising; planning; social obligations and care. 

If we stop trying to think of work so narrowly (i.e. as a 'job'), and embrace it as that which we have to do, want to do, and which feeds our soul, we are less likely to get trapped in these narrowed definitions of utopia and slavery.

Sam

References:

Lucassen, J. (2021). The Story of Work: A New History of Humankind. Yale University Press.

Tilly, C., & Tilly, C. (1998). Work under Capitalism. Westview Press.

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Avoiding the anxiety zone

The term 'status' refers to our position in society, or our value to society (de Botton, 2005). That status might spring from a legal, professional, or social base (de Botton, 2005): our 'worth' as an artisan or creator, for example, might over time become iconic; or fade from the social gaze. It is our societies which confer status on desired people - e.g. warriors, priests, or seers - but in the West, we seem to venerate making money (de Botton, 2005). Having high status brings benefits: money; more resources than others; respect; and - potentially - self-importance (de Botton, 2005).

Being viewed as high status may be openly sought - such as in the USA - but may not be sought in all nations (de Botton, 2005). For example, the answer to the question "what do you do?" tends to give us a speedy idea of a person’s societal status (Inkson et al, 2015), yet in a society such as New Zealand, where we have societal values of egalitarianism and equality, the question may be asked and answered simply out of interest.

The idea of status then leads us onto status anxiety (de Botton, 2005). This is the fear that we fail to meet society's standards of success; worrying we will lose social respect if we fall behind what is 'expected' of citizens (de Botton, 2005). Our anxiety can be triggered by job transitions, by over-comparison with others, or through social pressure (de Botton, 2005); either real or imagined.

It seems to me that status anxiety is where we see our self-worth as EXTRINSIC to ourselves, instead of being intrinsic. That perhaps we worry too much about the 'look' of things, and not enough about the content (form over substance). If we are anxious, we tend to be reluctant to try new things; to make suggestions, or to ask those around us for help (Edmonson, 2022). Our anxiety may paralyse us (Edmonson, 2022). This can be compounded if we are working in an environment where we are watched over and tightly controlled; in a climate of negativity (Daft, 2007). In such situations our anxiety may increase, potentially leading to burnout.

There are connections between "status anxiety and job dissatisfaction" where, if "status anxiety reduces" we "could potentially increase job satisfaction and, in turn, employee performance and productivity" (Keshabyan & Day, 2020, p. 9). With more workplace trust, we can move ourselves from the anxiety zone into the learning zone, where we are able to collaborate, to innovate, and to learn by guided trial and error (Edmonson, 2022). We end up in a positive workplace (Daft, 2007).

And a positive workplace works for all of us.

Sam

References:

Daft, R. L. (2007). The Leadership Experience (4th ed.). Thomson South-Western.

de Botton, A. (2005). Status Anxiety. Penguin.

Edmonson, A. C. (2022). Psychological Safety Does Not Equal “Anything Goes”. https://amycedmondson.com/psychological-safety-%e2%89%a0-anything-goes/

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

Keshabyan, A., & Day, M. V. (2020). Concerned whether you’ll make It in life? Status anxiety uniquely explains job satisfaction. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1523, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01523

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Turning docx files into ePubs

If we want to create an ePub from an MS Word file, all we need to do is to set up our file as a .docx file. If we want all the bells and whistles in our ePub file, then we need to set up a title page, a table of contents, chapter headings, illustrations, and a reference list or appendices in the .docx file before we begin.

I prefer to use Calibre, a piece of 2006 freeware/shareware created by Kovid Goyal, using Linux OS. I have been using it for years to read my ebooks, and I find it is really easy for reading almost any published format. Even better, Calibre will allow me to convert one format into another, which means if I have a format that doesn't read well on my phone, I can convert it on my PC, copy it across and then be able to read the item on my phone's e-reader.

Our first step is to ensure that Calibre is installed, and that we have the latest version. We set up our Calibre preferences, including setting default upload folders for Calibre files.

Once we are ready, we copy our Word file to be converted into our default upload folder. We open Calibre, and click the "Add Files" button and upload our Word file. Once our file has been uploaded, we select our newly included Word file, and click the Convert button on the toolbar. A dialogue box will appear: simply select the EPUB format. In the Page setup tab, we might want to select an output profile to match our particular e-reader; and in the Heuristic processing tab (in the left-hand icon bar) if we tick "Enable heuristic processing" is ticked our table of contents should link automatically. Most of the rest of the settings we can leave alone.

In a few minutes, we will see that our file now has an EPUB format showing alongside the Word format. Click on the EPUB Format and the ePub format will open. It is that easy.

If any of the layout or flow doesn't work as we expect, we can have a play around with the settings to get our ePub to look just as we want it. The EPUB output left-hand icon may help here: we can edit fonts, layout, styling etc. 

I hope that helps!

Sam

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The advertised job market

We have looked at the hidden job market before (here). I have realised that the term the 'hidden' job market troubles me. I don't think it is hidden at all: I think these are positions which are filled because the candidate is already known. What I mean by that is that there are jobs which simply don't get advertised: instead they are filled because an employer or recruiter already has a candidate in mind; an employee finds their own replacement; someone internal is appointed; or someone is specifically headhunted.

In chatting with Edin Zubovic on LinkedIn - who did his Master's on this topic (Zubovic, 2018) and is now a recruiter himself - Edin advised that how jobs are found often "depends on the availability of the person's [i.e. the recruiter's] network" (Zubovic, personal communication, 25 March 2025). In his research and recruitment experience, recruiters "will first look within the[ir] network and then" go public if they can find no one suitable. That is when the job gets advertised.

I suspect that what is really meant when we talk about "the hidden job market" is not roles which are hidden, but those which are unadvertised. Which leads to another question: what percentage of unadvertised roles are there? Edin advises that he only has "a rough estimate" where "if I were to throw a number at a dinner table I would say 1 out of 3 never sees the public eye, and sometimes more" (Zubovic, personal communication, 25 March 2025).

Which I think means that about 30 to 40% of jobs form the unadvertised job market. Which in turn means that 60 to 70% of roles ARE advertised. So the next time someone tells you that 95% of jobs are not advertised, point them to the person who did their Masters research looking at just that, and that they say:

60% to 70% percent of jobs ARE advertised

Another researcher, often cited as having explored this area, is Mark Granovetter (1973). His PhD and a later article considered what he called 'weak networks', consisting of acquaintances, former work colleagues and so forth (Granovetter, 1973); not a 'hidden job market'. In a follow-up book chapter, Granovetter (1983) considered the research done in the field since his initial 1973 study. He explored the strength of the connections that people have, and was most interested as to whether the ties were strong or weak. For example, he found that "professional, technical, and managerial workers were more likely to hear about new jobs through weak ties (27.8 percent) than through strong ones (16.7 percent), with a majority in between (55.6 percent)" (Granovetter, 1983, p. 205).

He also noted that research using "a large sample of men and women in a branch of the Quebec provincial government [found that] 42.7 percent of the 2,553 individuals in the sample found their jobs through personal contacts" (Granovetter, 1983, p. 205, citing Langlois, 1977, p. 217). This is close to what Zubovic thinks is the scope of the unadvertised job market (2018, 2025).

And Edin suspects that we use the term 'hidden' job market as it "sounds more sexy" 😉 (Zubovic, personal communication, 25 March 2025).

Doesn't that sum us up!

Sam

References:

Granovetter, M. S. (1983). Chapter 7 The Strength of Weak Ties: A network theory revisited. In R. Collins (Ed.), Sociological Theory (pp. 201-234). Jossey-Bass.

Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360-1380. https://doi.org/10.1086/225469

Zubovic, E. (2018). The Role of Social Capital in the Search for a Job: A qualitative study investigating “the hidden job market” on Sørlandet. [Master's thesis, University of Agder]. https://uia.brage.unit.no/uia-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2562203/Zubovic%2C%20Edin.pdf?sequence=1

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Counselling career journals

Those of us who work as career counsellors are trained career development professionals who walk alongside our clients as they develop self-awareness, awareness of opportunities, explore how they may transition between roles or skills, and make decisions about their careers (Law & Watts, 1977; Lent & Brown, 2021). We will see many of clients kanohi ki te kanohi (one to one); although younger people at a school or university may see a career educator in groups as well as singly. 

While there are a range of open access or free career development journals publishing in this specialty which I have explored earlier in this series - CJCD; CDI; NICEC; APCDA (see here for more details); there are also some additional journals which have not yet been mentioned but relate to the counselling specialty.

Those additional career counselling journals are:

• Firstly, the African Journal of Career Development or AJCD (which is the same as the Australian journal initials) here. This is completely open access, and publishes research on the African continent with an eye to decent work.
• Then we have the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance or IAEVG. This is a for profit journal, hosted on the Springer Link site, here. Some articles are open access (but not all), and articles within the journal can be searched here.
• Next there is the Journal of Career Development is a for-profit journal, hosted by SAGE, here, but has a number of early publication articles which tend to be open access. This journal tends to focus more on the career education end of career counselling (it was formerly known as the "Journal of Career Education"), but it does cover the entire specialty.
• Then there is the Journal of British Guidance and Counselling (BJGC), here. This is a Taylor and Francis journal which also offers some early publication submissions as open access articles.
• We now move onto Work and Occupations, which is also a for-profit journal hosted by SAGE: here. This too has a number of early publication articles which tend to be open access. The journal focuses on work attitudes, behaviours, and dynamics; ER; LMI; globalisation and migration; career networks, OSH, OCM; transitions and working in later life; diversity and discrimination.
• Like the previous two, the Journal of Counselling and Development has some early publication articles which are open access here. However, this particular journal is hosted by for-profit publication house, Wiley.
• Another Wiley publication is the Journal of Employment Counseling, here. Again, early publication submissions may be open access.
• Although coaching and mentoring really should be a specialty, I will include the International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring (IJEBCM), here for now. This journal is fully open access
• The Journal of Counselling Psychology has a VERY few free articles here. This is definitely a journal where we generally have to pay. 

As we can see there are a lot of potentially free journals to read articles from, even if our pockets are not deep.

Sam

References:

Law, B. & Watts, A. G. (1977). Schools, Careers and Community: A study of some approaches to careers education in schools. Church Information Office.

Lent, R. W., & Brown, S. D. (2021). Chapter 1: Career Development and Counseling: An Introduction. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Career Development and Counseling: Putting theory and research to work (3rd ed., pp. 1-30). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Converting avif files to jpg

I don't know if you have ever been sent an AVIF file and been unable to open it? If so, it is an Apple compressed image file format.

In order for us to be able to open avif files on a Windows system, we need to be able to convert the format to a jpg or similar type of file. 

What we have to do is to:

• Head over to the free conversion website at https://cloudconvert.com/avif-to-jpg
• In the header, select "avif" in the left-hand dropdown
• In the right-hand dropdown, select "jpg"
• Use the red box under the header section to navigate to and to upload the avif file we want to convert
• Download the resulting file once it has been converted.

Too easy.

Sam

References:

Cloud Convert. (2025). AVIF to JPG Converter. https://cloudconvert.com/avif-to-jpg

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Te Whare Tapa Whā & Maslow

Mason Durie's holistic wellness model (1985), Te Whare Tapa Whā, has been discussed before (here), but there is always more we can explore.  Health and government agencies in Aotearoa have used Te Whare Tapa Wha for forty years, including as a self-assessment tool for training new recruits in the Defence Forces (MAS Team, 2024). 

Te Whare Tapa Whā was created in 1982 (Durie, 1985), consisting of four pou, or pillars, for "life – te taha hinengaro (psychological health); te taha wairua (spiritual health); te taha tinana (physical health); and te taha whānau (family health)" (Careers New Zealand, 2020).

What is really interesting is that the four pou of Te Whare Tapa Whā align quite well with Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs (see the image accompanying this post (Purohit, 2024, p. 11). For example, te taha tinana (Durie, 1985) aligns with safety and psychological needs (Maslow, 1943); te taha whānau (Durie, 1985) with belonging and love needs (Maslow, 1943); te taha hinengaro (Durie, 1985) to esteem needs (Maslow, 1943), and te taha wairua (Durie, 1985) to self-actualisation (Maslow, 1943).

However, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (1943) has been taught in a very structured way: that until our physiological needs are met, we cannot move up the model to self-actualisation. Yet Maslow intended the five areas of his model to be rungs on a ladder not a pyramid (Bridgeman et al., 2019, more here). Our individual priorities might mean we meet some areas more than others: Maslow does not want to "give the false impression that a need must be satisfied 100 per cent before the next need emerges" (1943, p. 389). The following example shows that a person might reach "85 per cent in [their] physiological needs, 70 per cent in [their] safety needs, 50 per cent in [their] love needs, 40 per cent in [their] self-esteem needs, and 10 per cent in [their] self-actualization needs" (Maslow, 1943, p. 390). This, more accurate view of Maslow (1943), fits in better with Te Whare Tapa Whā (Durie, 1985). 

All four pou of Te Whare Tapa Whā can also be at differing stages of development (Durie, 1985). At different times of our life we will need to focus on different areas. Helping others to grow their “self-awareness is key to creating balance and harmony in all aspects of life, including career development” (Careers New Zealand, 2020), while embedding all four components over time will hopefully establish more “fulfilling and sustainable professional" working lives (Passmore, 2023). 

It is interesting to see the similarities across national divides of models, birthed within different philosophies, which can be used in similar ways to help others. 

And we have a national Taonga.

Courtnay & Sam

References:

Bridgman, T., Cummings, S., & Ballard, J. A. (2019). Who Built Maslow’s Pyramid? A History of the Creation of Management Studies’ Most Famous Symbol and Its Implications for Management Education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18(1), 81–98. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2017.0351

Careers New Zealand. (2020, October 18). Te Whare Tapa Whā. https://www.careers.govt.nz/resources/career-practice/career-theory-models/te-whare-tapa-wha/

Durie, M. H. (1985). A Maori perspective of health. Social Science & Medicine, 20(5), 483-486. https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(85)90363-6

MAS Team. (2024). Well in every way - Te Whare Tapa Whā. Mas. https://www.mas.co.nz/hub/well-in-every-way-te-whare-tapa-wha/

Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-96. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346

Passmore, S. (2023, September 25). Applying Te Whare Tapa Wha to Career Wellbeing. https://www.pickapath.co.nz/post/applying-te-whare-tapa-wh%C4%81-to-career-wellbeing

Purohit, P. (2024). EPIC Transformations: Redefining Career Paths for Solo Parents in the New Era by Leveraging the Te Whare Tapa Whā Framework- a Māori Healthcare Model [Image]. In the Proceedings of the Asia Pacific Career Development Conference (APCDA). https://asiapacificcda.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/apcda_cp0001_03.pdf

 * Courtnay Fraser has kindly prepared much of the material for this post

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What is a Veblen good?

Have you heard of a "Veblen good" (Boyle, 2024, 1:50)? I hadn't until late last year. A Veblen good is one which, despite an increasing and eye-watering price, the demand remains high, or goes even higher, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve... in an apparent contradiction of the law of demand (Boyle, 2024; Veblen, 1899). Think Hermès Birkin bags; Michael Jordan sneakers still unworn in their boxes; vintage bottles of wine; rare coins; bitcoin; high-end watches.

Veblen appeared to think that "modern business elites [...] distort and waste the benefits of technology in order to slake [the consumer thirst] for ever-increasing power and status" (Plotkin, 2015). This leads to another Veblen construction: "conspicuous consumption" - and how fabulous that this idea was coined and formalised in one of Veblen's most noted works, way back in 1899 during the gilded age. Conspicuous consumption is "the competitive and extravagant consumption practices and leisure activities that aim to indicate membership to a superior social class" (Patsiaouras & Fitchett, 2011, p. 154). Veblen was an acid-tongued commentator on what he saw as a society going rotten, who "is credited with having recast ‘economics as the cultural history of material life’" (Banta, 2010, p. x). He saw the inventing engineer selflessly building better mouse-traps, then being predated upon by the "pecuniary" selling entrepreneur (p. ix). A classic hero and villain trope.

Conspicuous consumption, or "high-end, luxury retail consumption [...] is primarily associated with urban living" (Currid‐Halkett et al., 2019, p. 83). From that, I assume that by moving into cities, where we get to see what the Jones' are buying, our desires to display how wealthy we are is magnified. We learn to desire the newest, shiniest, most expensive new toy because smart people all around us already have it, and we have FOMO. And we may well put ourselves into debt to buy it, in order to look richer - higher status - than we actually are (Currid‐Halkett et al., 2019).

However, the Veblen good only works where there is product exclusivity and the item becomes a status symbol. If too many of an item appear, then the exclusivity begins to be eroded, and the good loses its appeal to the high-end purchaser.

Then we get the next trend arising. 

Sam

References:

Banta, M. (Ed.). (2010). Introduction. In T. Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class: An economic study of institutions (revised ed., M. Banta, Ed., pp. x-xxvi). Oxford University Press. (Original work published Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1899

Boyle, P. (2024, October 7). Watch Market Collapse! Why Did Secondary Market Prices Fall So Much? [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/wpQQZQN0sXQ

Currid‐Halkett, E., Lee, H., & Painter, G. D. (2019). Veblen goods and urban distinction: The economic geography of conspicuous consumption. Journal of Regional Science, 59(1), 83-117. https://doi.org/10.1111/jors.12399

Patsiaouras, G., & Fitchett, J. A. (2012). The evolution of conspicuous consumption. Journal of historical research in marketing, 4(1), 154-176. https://doi.org/10.1108/17557501211195109

Plotkin, S. (2015, June 29). Thorstein Veblen. Oxford Biographies. https://doi.org/10.1093/OBO/9780199756384-0124

Veblen, T. (1899). The Theory of the Leisure Class: An economic study of institutions. George Allen & Unwin Ltd.

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Aligning PowerPoint voice over and animations

This time we have a bit more on solving problems with creating a voice over PowerPoint. We look at how we can align the entry of animations to cue with our voice over in our sound file. This should be easy... right?

Well, it isn't. At least, not as far as I have found. I was able set up my animations on clicks, then record my voice over... then not be able to have the animations appear automatically as my voice over played. It didn't matter whether I used the "with" or the "after" timings: I was unable to crack this. I ensured that I set up the slide show, with "show without automation" being unticked; and "using timings, if present" being ticked. I set up my slides under Transitions with the Advance Slide set up to auto-forward after the number of seconds of the voice over plus a buffer. I had my sound file as the first item in the animation pane in the Animations tab. 

But the sound file remains the only element of animation that works as expected... until we are about to leave the slide, when all the other animations appear at once. So I went looking for some solutions. And once more a user problem was answered by Steve Rindsberg, MVP Volunteer Moderator. Steve's superb reply is paraphrased below (Freeman, 2023): 

"PowerPoint has *never* been able to make transitions/animations 'fire' reliably against a timeline. What [we] can do instead is use bookmarks and triggers."

"Add [...]our audio file, start it, then pause it when it reaches a point where [we]'d like an animation to occur."

"On the Playback tab [NB: Playback - on the far right of the ribbon - will only show if we are already clicked onto our embedded sound file], click Add Bookmark. [We then] Add bookmarks at each point where [we want] an animation to occur. It'll help later if [we] keep a list of each added bookmark, what the audio cue is and what action it's supposed to trigger. If [we] haven't already added [...]our animations" we need to do that before we can add the bookmarks. 

At this point I deleted all my existing animations and recreated them.  

"Now select the first animated shape, and on the Animation tab | Advance Animation group, click Trigger, click On Bookmark and choose the bookmark [we] want to act as the trigger for the animation."

"Now when the audio reaches one of your bookmarks, it will trigger the chosen animation."

Then, to move our slide on after our animation and voice-over is aligned, we go to the Transitions tab, and - in the Advance Slide area - enter our slide timing (i.e. the length of a voice over plus a second or two) into the "after" box.

Thank you very much, Steve. This actually works!

Sam

References:

Freeman, N. (2023, March 26). PowerPoint Animations will not occur automatically following a time schedule. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/powerpoint-animations-will-not-occur-automatically/24e49ca7-475d-42c0-af11-9107c55941c0

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Equality versus Equity

Our ability to be 'normal' in society is often affected -impacted - by our inherited factors. If we grow up in lower socio-economic status (SES) families, we tend to find work in agriculture, manufacturing, and construction. Our peers who begin in more socially advantaged circumstances tend to find work in the service sectors; such as trade, transportation, and public administration (OECD, 2024). Our rangatahi from lower socio-economic backgrounds often see themselves with a future in manual agriculture, manufacturing, and construction occupations more than their more privileged peers (OECD, 2024); their identity is as manual workers.

Merit, Equality, and Individuality (MEI) looks at success factors. MEI overlooks structural and historical barriers which limit individual access to opportunities, ignoring the detrimental impact of financial status, social class, gender, ethnicity, and disadvantage. These barriers may play out as unconscious bias in hiring, a lack of qualifications from the 'right' schools, or applicants having limited professional networks. As lower-educated rangatahi are already on the back foot entering adulthood, MEI can reinforce the status quo (Ahsan, 2025). Societies adopting an MEI approach may be known as a "meritocracy". It is also reflective of equality: everyone has the same chances, so should be TREATED THE SAME (IISC, 2016; The Equity Tool, 2024). 

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) acknowledges that there are systemic inequities. DEI promotes a more nuanced approach to fairness, emphasising diversity, equity, and inclusion. Providing the inside of our organisations looks the same as we New Zealanders do collectively (i.e. as our broader society in Aotearoa), our organisations will effortlessly stay current with our national culture. It is when our organisations get out of step with social norms that they more likely to appear in media headlines. Or in court. Representation of all society's groups, supported by resources and opportunities tailored to  our individual circumstances, and creating environments where we all feel valued and can contribute according to abilities, makes for a healthy society (Ahsan, 2025). This is reflective of equity: everyone has DIFFERING NEEDS, and we should assist those who need more help because we are a compassionate and humanistic society (IISC, 2016; The Equity Tool, 2024). 

A DEI approach helps us to confront the structural barriers that affect our lives within our society; while MEI is an 'ideal', our societal value is based on our individual success (Ahsan, 2025). 

So let us consider the image accompanying this post. On the left, we have an illustrator of three differently aged men watching a baseball game over a fence, with all three male figures given the same box to view the game - equality (IISC, 2016, commissioning Angus Maguire). We then have the same figures supplied by what they NEED to all see the game - equity (IISC, 2016). Then on the right we have an expansion of the IISC idea of three figures watching a sports match over a fence (2016), which may or may not be football/soccer, showing a man, a young woman wearing glasses - who may or may not be of Asian ethnicity - and a small figure in a wheelchair (The Equity Tool, 2024, after Angus Maguire). The Equity Tool (2024) illustration is more representative of systemic barriers for women and minorities, and adds value to the original (IISC, 2016).

However, The Equity Tool (2024) should have cited IISC (2016) and Angus Maguire. We must honour our sources :-)

Bronnie & Sam

References:

Ahsan, M. (2025, February 6). DEI vs. MEI: The complex balance between equity and meritocracy. Electricity Human Resources Canada. https://ehrc.ca/dei-vs-mei/

IISC. (2016, January 13). Illustrating Equality VS Equity. Interaction Institute for Social Change [commissioning Angus McGuire]. https://interactioninstitute.org/illustrating-equality-vs-equity/

OECD. (2024). Challenging social inequality through career guidance: Insights from international data and practice. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/619667e2-en

The Equity Tool. (2024). Equity and Wealth. https://www.equitytool.org/equity/

 * Bronnie Gunn has kindly prepared much of the material for this post

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Jevons' paradox

I had not heard of Jevons’ Paradox before the DeepSeek AI scare in late January 2025. So why did I hear then? Well, Jevons' paradox is that energy efficiency improvements can lead to increased energy consumption (Sorrell, 2009): i.e. efficiencies lead to more resources being available, so we use more (York & McGee, 2016). These two ideas - Al and Jevons' paradox - come together for me because suddenly it was possible that the more AI power we have, maybe the more AI power we might want to use (Boyle, 2025). And with DeepSeek, AI was free.

Where is the economic driver in that model, I hear you ask? Well, that is a good question. We will come back to that. 

Let's begin with Jevons' paradox. The brain-child of William Stanley Jevons, an economist way back in 1865, the idea is that efficiencies may inadvertently lead to profligacy - running counter to many economic sustainability theories (Sorrell, 2009). Jevons' is a subset of the rebound effect (York & McGee, 2016) where energy efficiency improvements in early-stage, energy-intensive technologies are more likely to backfire (Sorrell, 2009). Jevons looked at steam-engine coal consumption, showing that efficiency improvements lead to increased energy use (Sorrell, 2009), with similar patterns in steel production where energy efficiency gains spurred greater demand; and lighting efficiencies leading to significant energy consumption increases. We do more with the energy we have, so we don't reduce consumption. Think cars: fuel efficiency meant we could now have a heater, air conditioner, heated seats, electric windows; and China's energy efficiency improvements since the 1970s with per capita energy use increasing at the same or greater rate (York & McGee, 2016). Fuel-efficient cars may entrench a car-centric economy, over public transport (York & McGee, 2016). Capitalism rewards profit: efficiency may reduce build costs, driving production and consumption (York & McGee, 2016). 

A more refined take on Jevons’ paradox, called the Khazzoom-Brookes (K-B) postulate (Sorrell, 2009) is where high-quality energy inputs are a primary driver of economic growth, focusing on energy quality and efficiency (Sorrell, 2009; York & McGee, 2016). More conventional economic theory downplays energy in favour of capital, labour, and technological change (Sorrell, 2009). So, if energy plays a more significant role in productivity improvements than mainstream economics acknowledges - i.e. the K-B postulate/Jevons' paradox - energy efficiency improvements might (a) increase energy consumption, (b) improve productivity, and (c) be a better driver of economic growth (Sorrell, 2009). But. There isn't a consensus on efficiency as a driver of environmental reform or degradation: and it seems likely that efficiency may drive economic growth AND resource consumption, over conservation (York & McGee, 2016).

The more we have, the more we use. Is it bad to want more of a good thing? Perhaps the rebound idea really comes down to an opportunity cost judgement call. We humans are a switching predator, after all, so efficiencies seem to lead to over-consumption, not to greener practices. 

Using historical correlations between energy efficiency and economic output, Brookes (of the K-B postulate; as cited by Sorrell, 2009) highlighted the importance of energy quality and the potential for energy efficiency improvements to stimulate demand for energy services. He thought that energy efficiencies could lead to higher energy use ...via the mechanisms productivity and economic growth. Further, Saunders (as cited by Sorrell, 2009) thought that energy efficiencies might backfire, leading to energy use rises, not falls; challenging conventional energy-economic models, and potentially underestimating rebound effects. Basically, we don't know which way any system will go: perhaps it is a continuum with Brookes on one end and Saunders on the other.

Jevons’ paradox brings up questions about how energy efficiency, productivity, and economic growth relate to each other; and question whether rebound effects will cause unforeseen problems in general-purpose technologies with broad economic impacts (Sorrell, 2009). We need to be awake to that backfiring potential (Sorrell, 2009), and to realise that environmental practices require other drivers, as the market is likely to consume all it can (York & McGee, 2016).

That may mean that, if we have more AI, we will use more AI. If AI is free due to China's AI models actually being open source (Boyle, 2025) - providing DeepSeek et al are of appropriate quality - we may consume all that we can eat. And that seems likely to make the economics of the USA 'Tech Bros' AI models precarious (Boyle, 2025). 

Watch this space.

Sam

References:

Boyle, P. (2025, February 2). DeepSeek - How a Chinese AI Startup Shook Silicon Valley [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/xUzzWUlSk98

Sorrell, S. (2009). Chapter 7: Exploring Jevons' Paradox. In H. Herring, S. Sorrell (Eds.), Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Consumption: The Rebound Effect (pp. 136–164). Palgrave macmillan.

York, R., & McGee, J. A. (2016). Understanding the Jevons paradox. Environmental Sociology, 2(1), 77–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2015.1106060

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