Changing Google calendar colours

I am a colour junkie. So when I create new sub-calendars in Google, I change the sub-calendar colour to fit with the organisation I am delivering that collection of tasks for, as an additional aide-memoire.

However, each year I struggle to remember HOW to change the sub-calendar colour. I can create calendars hand-over-fist, but changing the colour is simply not an intuitive thing. Each year I expect the option to be in the calendar settings itself, and each year I have to search online - usually wasting a couple of hours - until I stumble across the setting again... usually by accident. 

So here are the instructions!

We create the calendar. We invite those whom we want to send a link to. Then we go out of the calendar settings. We create a couple of appointments for that calendar. Then, in our normal Calendar page view, in the left-hand pane, under the "My calendars" list, we click the three flaming menu dots alongside the new sub-calendar. And lo! The colour options pop up.

Sigh.

Sam

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Case conceptualisation for career development

So what is case conceptualisation, and why is it important for career practice? Well, let's begin with case conceptualisation itself, which could be defined as "a process of diagnostic thinking" (Słysz & Soroko, 2021, p. 87), or case formulation (Haarhoff et al., 2011). It is both a process and an outcome (Słysz & Soroko, 2021); a particle and a wave, so to speak. It is defined as "process whereby [the practitioner] and client work collaboratively first to describe and then to explain the issues a client" wants to work through (Kuyken et al., 2009, p. 3). 

Normally a function of CBT or Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy (Gower, 2011; Haarhoff et al., 2011), case conceptualisation is often not deliberately taught, nor is it well-assessed (Haarhoff et al., 2011). Yet case formulation is very important.  As practitioners, our ability to clearly 'see' the issues which the client presents to us, will aid our practice "by ensuring that individual cognitive and behavioural processes are targeted, thereby maximising" the quality of client outcomes (Gower, 2011, p. 10). So the trick with case conceptualisation is for us to be very, very good at looking, and actually 'seeing'.

Research shows that we career practitioners who focus on client skills - rather than client barriers - are better able to help our clients to achieve sound results. Developing our observational and interview skills so we can help our clients to inventory their talents, and to put those talents into words which our clients can use to seek new work is a key career development super power (Gower, 2011). Often we practitioners may see the effects of a client action, and are likely to need to derive the process in order to effectively walk back from the client's endpoint (Słysz & Soroko, 2021).

If our clients understand that career development isn't a one-off session: that, like all good relationships, putting a puzzle together collaboratively over time has value for both the practitioner and the client. Experienced practitioners are adaptive with their clients, understanding and learning the nuances of client's story and goals over time (Gower, 2011). 

However, we career practitioners need to continually and intentionally work on our theory and methods growth. We must ensure we treat each client as a unique individual, and that we have a range of evidence-based, appropriate tools, activities and strategies which we can choose to help achieve those elusive client career goals (Gower, 2011). There is an excellent text which - although also focused on CBT - walks us through many aspects of case formulation (such as modes, beliefs, assumptions, strategies and thoughts), with chapters designed to deepen our understanding (Kuyken et al., 2009).

And it is worth building our skills, as competent case conceptualisation enables us to better select and arrange client interventions. Good quality interventions means our clients can hold their motivations to the light, improving their self-belief and outcomes.

Sam

References:

Gower, P. J. (2011). Therapist competence, case conceptualisation and therapy outcome in cognitive behavioural therapy. [Doctoral Thesis, University of Exeter]. https://www.proquest.com/openview/0f3d8f328faefd6cb4508d3845a7e83c/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=51922&diss=y

Haarhoff, B. A., Flett, R. A., & Gibson, K. L. (2011). Evaluating the Content and Quality of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy Case Conceptualisations. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 40(3), 104-114. https://mro.massey.ac.nz/server/api/core/bitstreams/39f41a0d-a882-43dc-a11d-357cd0cc5d93/content

Kuyken, W., Padesky, C.A., & Dudley, R., (2009). Collaborative Case Conceptualization: Working Effectively with Clients in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. Guilford Press.

Słysz, A., & Soroko, E. (2021). How do Psychotherapists Develop a Case Conceptualisation? Thematic Analysis of Conceptual Maps. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 51, 87-96. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-020-09484-2

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Protecting Word document branding

Thanks to Susan Harkins at TechRepublic (2022), I found out how to protect the branding in my Word headers and footers. As we all know, consistent branding and a good layout makes our Word documents more legible (plus looking more professional). While many organisations have templates for particular documents, the headers and footers which usually contain the branding are often unprotected, so we can inadvertently muck things up.

To prevent that, organisations are able to protect documents, but that doesn't necessarily extend to the header and footer. However, there is a process for doing just that: but it isn’t intuitive (NB: this fix doesn't work on the web version of Word as files "with enabled protection in any section" simply won't open).

OK: so we are in MS Word, our is document all ready to go with our desired branded headers and footers, and the process is as follows (Harkins, 2022):

1. Toggle the Pilcrow - or paragraph mark - icon in Word (that's the icon that looks like this: ¶. Read more here). Doing this will make it easier to see what we are doing to our document
2. Key Ctrl & Home to go to the very beginning of the document
3. At the very beginning point we insert a page break so we can make header/footer changes: Layout | Page Setup | Breaks menu | select "Continuous"
4. Next we protect the document. File | Info (left pane) | Protect Document | select "Restrict Editing" 
5. Word takes us back to our document showing the Restrict Editing options (right pane). Under "Editing Restrictions", tick the option box, and select the default "No Changes (Read Only)". This means we have "protected the entire document: If [we] stopped right now, no one would be able to edit anything. That’s not what we want. We need to unprotect the body of the document" (Harkins, 2022).
6. So to unprotect the body of the Word document we select everything EXCEPT the section header. We key Ctrl & Home to put our cursor at the beginning of the first line. Then we key Ctrl, Shift & End to highlight everything onwards from that section break we inserted in step 3
7. Word will ask us for a password, so we should put in a simple password for now (e.g. "Word" or "pass"). Enter it twice and click OK. Later we will create something more secure
8. Look for the opening and closing brackets at the beginning and ending, respectively, of the unprotected area (which we can see because we turned on the Pilcrow)
9. Close the document, and reopen. Try to edit the header/footer area to check our password works. Seek feedback, make changes, then - once the document is approved for circulation - change the password to something more secure . Ensure the password is logged appropriately!
10. We can now edit the headers/footers by entering the password and making the changes we need. And without the password, the header/footers cannot be changed. Only body of the document can be edited.

As Susan Harkins notes, the "solution isn’t intuitive, and, oddly, Word doesn’t offer an option for protecting only the header and footer" (2022). But thank you to Mrs Harkins once more, for a work-around that helps us do our work :-)

Sam

References:

Harkins, S. (2022, September). How to Protect Header and Footer Areas in Microsoft Word. TechRepublic. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/protect-header-footer-word/

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Keeping control with reduced hours

What happens when our hours get cut? What happens to all the jobs that we usually fill our time with? How does the same work get done in fewer hours? They are all very good questions to ask, and sometimes we need answers to these questions because our world of work has shifted, and we suddenly need to deliver the same work in fewer hours.

It never fails to amaze me in the government sector how people have a "point one" or "point four" time allocation for a particular element of their job. That portion might get slashed in a budget round, yet the work tasks remain - and usually remain linked to the worker's performance indicators. Further, it is extremely rare that job sizing is undertaken in times of shrinkflation: in fact, I would suggest that job sizing is as rare as unicorn excrement. 

The decision on what is important is often left to those of us who are doing the work. Most times, in my experience, with little to no guidance on how we are to determine what parts of our former job still needs to be done, what gets left, and what must be handed over to someone else.

A very pragmatic senior management friend of mine is one of the coolest, calmest, clearest-thinking customers you would ever meet. Their advice is to: 

1. Firstly decide what jobs which we WANT to do; working out those things which will fit with our reduced hour budget. We aim to keep the jobs where we use our expertise, but to jettison those admin tasks such as reporting which don't require expertise, and those jobs which are 'nice to haves' as opposed to those which keep the money flowing in. And, realistically, software and AI should collectively be able to create reports. We shouldn't really need meat people for that (despite AI hallucination; Lingard, 2023).
   
   
2. Then we make a list of those undesirable tasks and remainder of our role which we have no time for. We put the estimated hours against each of those tasks. For some of us this will be immensely easy, because we will keep a daily diary and roughly note down how many hours each task takes. A simple add up will help us to get a feel for how long each one takes. For those of us who have not had the training to keep a daily log, we will need to hurriedly create one. We can go back over the past week, then try to keep a daily note for however long we have before we need to get back to our manager with our budget proposal. And hopefully, if we have been in the "damn, why didn't I keep a note of that" camp, we will keep daily notes from now on, because it is very, very handy ammunition to have in our possession.
   
   
3. Finally, we pass the undesirable list to our manager with the hour estimate, and advise them that -  as our reduced hours are insufficient for these to be completed - these tasks will need to be allocated to another. We should NOT ask what jobs we should stop doing: WE should decide what we want to leave behind, and simply pass on the remainder of our former role, which we are no longer going to be paid for, with the estimated hours each item takes. Once those tasks are passed on, they are no longer our problem. 

Of course this is ideal world stuff. But deciding ahead of the game what we want to keep and what needs to shift elsewhere leaves us at much less chance of being left with the bits of the job that anyone could do (and which is even less motivating). Being active in the process helps to give us back some sense of control.

Good luck: these processes take courage. Like many things worth doing, it is not easy, but it is liberating.

Sam

Reference:

Lingard, L. (2023). Writing with ChatGPT: An illustration of its capacity, limitations & implications for academic writers. Perspectives on Medical Education, 12(1), 261-270.  https://doi.org/10.5334/pme.1072

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What is friendship?

I was reading an article in the media where someone had written in to an agony aunt saying: a friend of theirs had separated from their long-term partner, and the friend had formed a new relationship with someone the writer didn't like (or perhaps 'didn't trust' might be more appropriate).

A relationship reshuffle is interesting: what do we do if our friend is in a relationship with someone we really don't take to?

Friendship is defined as "a state of enduring affection, esteem, intimacy, and trust between two people. In all cultures, friendships are important relationships throughout a person’s life span" (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2025). Enduring affection: that is nice; it implies respect. And trust. Which in turn implies honesty. While many of us may say we would like our friend to be honest with us, is it a friend's place to make comment on the vagaries of attraction? As one commenter said "if you can't rely on a friend [for honesty] then who can you rely on?" (Gordon-Smith, 2025). Or is our own opinion outside the remit of our friendship?

One commenter suggested that "if you watch someone move towards harm, and say nothing, you are no kind of friend, you are just a passenger" (Gordon-Smith, 2025). While this sounds true, how can we be sure that there is going to be harm? We can look for signs of gaslighting, and other mental or physical abuse, but trying to flag these with someone who is not yet able to listen (or take action) is difficult. We would need professional advice to guide us: and there are some great books which can help us to make sense of what we may be seeing (Clark, 2021; Douglas, 1997).

If I think back, whilst I may appreciate a friend's feedback, I would definitely expect them to respect the decision I gave made... and the 'saying' may well have damaged our friendship if this is was handled poorly. Personally I have usually held back from commenting on other's relationships, instead just wishing my friends all the very, very best with their partners. I feel my role is to be there to listen when things get shaky; or for support if things come completely unglued. I try not to push my point of view, but to ask my friends how THEY feel, and what THEY want to do, and what THEIR instincts are telling them). As one commenter said, "ask [them] questions. 'What was it about your marriage to X that wasn't working?' and 'what is it about Y that you find so attractive?' Questions asked without judgment attached will help you understand [their] motivations better. And answering them might give [them] cause to re-think. Or convince you that [they are] not going to rethink" (Gordon-Smith, 2025).

We could trust our friends. There may be long-term secrets, they may have prepared over a period of years for a new identity, or they may simply be taking an opportunity to try something light-hearted. Allowing our friend to be an adult, and asking instead of telling, is to me what friendship is about. We should not try to take other's power away, but allow them their autonomy. Even if our friend is experiencing something which is apparently irrational: we can still trust our friend's actions. We can - in the words of a commenter "treat [them] with loving kindness" (Gordon-Smith, 2025).

If we need to, we can take "a little break from" the relationship if we need to, and "do it kindly", because if the new relationship is poor, our friend will "need [their] friends around [them]", but "if [it]'s not, there's nothing to be gained by getting off side" with the new love interest.

And be there for our friend, in the long-term.

Sam

References:

Clark, J. (2021). Her Say: Survivors of Domestic Abuse Tell Their Own Stories. Random House New Zealand Ltd.

Douglas, K. (1998). Invisible Wounds: A Guide for Women in Abusive Relationships. Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd.

Encyclopedia Britannica. (2025). Friendship. https://www.britannica.com/topic/friendship

Gordon-Smith, E. (2025, January 2). My friend has left her husband for a man I detest. Should I tell her how I feel?. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jan/03/my-friend-has-left-her-husband-for-a-man-i-detest-should-i-tell-her-how-i-feel

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Keyboarding macrons for Te Reo

In Aotearoa there are three official languages: English, sign and Māori. In Te Reo Māori, we indicate how long the vowel - the 'standard' English five of a e i o u - is by using a diacritical - in this case, a macron. Some of us will put in Microsoft Office auto-corrects so that a word keyed in without a macron will correct to a word with a macron: others will simply copy the word from a repository to ensure that the Reo is correct.

However, there is a slightly easier way (and it is only slightly easier): we can set up a Māori keyboard (Deitsch, 2021). What we do is:

1. Click on the language icon on our taskbar (e.g. "ENG"), selecting "Language Preferences" from the pop-up menu
2. Under the "Preferred languages" area, select "Add a language" and key in "Maori". Select the Te Reo Māori option
3. Then click "Next" and "Install" (Deitsch, 2021).

Once we have installed the Māori language option, we can then switch between keyboards by clicking on the taskbar language to switch to Te Reo Māori (i.e. change from "ENG" to "MRI"). And from there, we can create our macron vowels by keying the "`", or the grave diacritical key (which is the lower case option on the tilde key), letting go, then keying our vowel (Deitsch, 2021). 

So to restate with an example: key `then a = ā

Deitsch (2021) also notes that sometimes when switching between keyboards, the macron may take two goes to action. We just need to bear with it. 

A solution of sorts: and if anyone has any other, truly easier solutions, I would love to hear them!

Sam

References:

Deitsch, R. (2021, September 10). How To Type Latin Macrons (The Easy Way). Livia. https://booksnbackpacks.com/how-to-type-latin-macrons/

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Rehab open access articles

Continuing our series on getting access to peer-reviewed journals when we are outside a university subscription system (read more here), this time we consider a few journals helpful to those of us who specialise in the rehabilitation and disability career field: encompassing conditions such as Autism, ADHD, and depression; short-and long-term injury rehabilitation; types of rehabilitation programmes and schemes; disability support, impairment, metrics, etc.

• Firstly there is the Journal of Education and Rehabilitation, or JER. This is official journal of the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation for the University of Tuzla, with all articles being fully accessible here. This journal covers all aspects of rehabilitation, with career development being a relatively minor component.
• Disabilities explores a broad range of areas, including controlled trials; case studies; feasibility and pilot studies; novel approaches to disability, support and innovations; and transnational disability studies. This journal too is fully open access, here.
• Next we consider the Health, Sports & Rehabilitation Medicine journal, or HSRM, also completely open access, found here. This journal is a bit patchy for quality, usually from Eastern European, junior researchers, but the sports rehabilitation articles can be quite interesting.
• We now turn to Disability, CBR and Inclusive Development, or DCID. This journal too is completely open access (here). The journal is hosted by the University of Gondar in Ethiopia, which teaches community-based rehabilitation. 
• The next cab off the rank is the Developmental Disabilities Network Journal, or DDNJ. This journal too is fully open access (here), and focuses on pre-service preparation, advocacy, research, community services, and info sharing between clients with developmental disabilities and their whanau.

Sam

References:

CDANZ. (2019). Competency Framework. Career Development Association of New Zealand. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tudpuDOP8vc9tG5cE_HjSn2DiRp7xBTM/view

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The Q health framework

Developed to support leaders in planning and delivering large-scale improvements across health systems, this framework (image accompanying this post; Q, 2024) was a collaboration with a broad range of British medical sector leaders.

The framework falls into two halves: the first half is focused on sustainable development and creating the conditions for a sound health/wellness system; the second half is on how that service should be delivered, via service and outcome transformation. Within each half are thee sets of activities: collective vision and leadership; an aligned operating model; capability, connections and culture in the sustainable development half. In the service and outcome transformation half there is: system and pathway redesign; continuous quality improvement; and targeted innovation. Around these six activities are 18 key considerations which all stakeholders must address for this type of system change to work and to stick (Q, 2024). They are:

• Co-creating a vision and narrative for change
• Building leadership support
• Understanding together the nature of the system
• Engaging with all partners and communities
• Redesigning management systems to enable improvement 
• Aligning resources and incentives
• Agreeing priorities and mediating expectations
• Developing goals and the ability to measure progress
• Enabling productive cross-silo connections and reflections
• Creating collaborative learning habits and structures
• Building skills and space for everyone involved in the change

And in the second half:

• Understanding the context, needs and assets of those served
• Diagnosing and redesigning end to end pathways and service models
• Delivering multi-strand 'transformation' programmes
• Incrementally improving hundreds of processes with service users
• Adapting roles, ways of working, metrics and linked systems
• Ongoing monitoring, adaptation and control of service performance
• Testing, experimenting, scaling and embedding innovations
• identifying priority gaps and/or innovations
• Understanding the current situation and desired futures

In order to create the right conditions, the framework emphasises building a collective vision, prioritising transformation efforts, and developing sustainable change through culture and capabilities. These elements rely heavily on engagement with partners and communities, shared understanding, and strong leadership support across organisations (Q, 2024). The delivery aspects focus on three key areas: system redesign, continuous improvement, and targeted innovation. These require deep understanding of local context and population needs, iterative testing with real-time data, and identifying promising innovations that can be scaled effectively across systems. This will need programmes combining pathway redesign with changes to funding, IT, and infrastructure. Tools for reviewing and planning large-scale change is built into the system. This is not easy work, but will require investment over multiple years, and a government committed to making change. I am not sure than any government on the planet is realistically in that space right now... and as for making cross-party long term funding commitments... well. I think that too is a wait and see thing.

The framework is a partnership between the Health Foundation, the Q community, and NHS Confederation. It will be nice if it works, and if the UK government actually fund it and back it. 

Sam

References:

Q. (2024, August 29). Improving across health and care systems: a framework. Q, The Health Foundation. https://q.health.org.uk/resources/improving-across-health-and-care-systems-a-framework

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What are amenity values?

The Welsh poet W. H. Davies first published the rhyming couplet poem Leisure in 1911, which begins with the famous pair of lines:

"What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare." (Palmer, 1982, p. 82)

Davies was a great believer in a 'natural' outdoor life, which was somewhat unconventional at the time: perhaps his stance was in part a reaction to industrialisation, and in part because of the influence of Wordsworth in his early education.

I think what Davies was really referring to - outside of nostalgia for old ways which were disappearing - was/were amenity values. These are the qualities and characteristics of a place which contribute to our appreciation of the area's pleasantness, cultural, and recreational qualities. This is the "aesthetic coherence" (Brown, 2020, p. 1) of the place we find ourselves in. However, amenity values go further than simply the view, as portrayed by Davies: encompassing "factors as noise, lighting, smells and awareness of activity and movement[; ... including] the full spectrum of sensory factors that contribute to perception and appreciation of an area’s character, pleasantness, aesthetic coherence and identity" (Brown, 2020, p. 1).

So amenity values are the benefits or pleasurable qualities that we get from our natural or 'built' environment, including scenic beauty (like mountain views or waterfronts), the opportunity we have for recreation (such as national parks or tracks), places of cultural or historical significance, and those environmental qualities of clean air, quiet, and uninterrupted enjoyment. 

(NB: our rural landscapes are also a built environment; as are those rolling English hills, hedges and lanes so beloved of the British. Ancient forest is natural; farms are built).

Amenity values need to be factored into zoning and planning rules, and how we implement public policy in our societies. When governments and local bodies want to make changes, meaningful community consultation needs to take place to discuss how or whether the amenity values may be impacted, and how those impacts may be mitigated. But often our organisations seem to not consider how the community may see amenity values, and that perception gap leads to disharmony.

We need to consider amenity values when we want to make change, because we may not see what amenity values our change of use may be damaging for others. If we communicate what we are trying to do, and why, we can have meaningful consultation with all stakeholders. 

Things tend to go much more smoothly with a good korero.

Sam

References:

Brown, S. (2020, October 4). The Assessment and Management of Amenity. New Zealand Association for Impact Assessment Association [NZAIA]. https://www.nzaia.org.nz/uploads/1/2/3/3/12339018/impact_connector_6_-_landscapes_-_stephen_brown.pdf

Palmer, B. J. (Ed.). (1982). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

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PISO and CIMO frameworks

Have you heard of PISO and CIMO before? Well, if not, they stand for population, intervention, study design, outcome; and context, intervention, mechanism, outcome (Cochrane Library, 2025; Costa et al., 2018).

PISO (Cochrane Library, 2025) is:

• Population (or Patient or Problem): "What are the characteristics of the patient or population (demographics, risk factors, pre-existing conditions, etc)? What is the condition or disease of interest?"
• Intervention: "What is the intervention under consideration for this patient or population?" So what are we going to do, treat, change, or action?
• Study design: "What is the alternative to the intervention (e.g. placebo, different drug, surgery)?" What else will we consider, and how will we plan this?
• Outcome: "What are the included outcomes (e.g. quality of life, change in clinical status, morbidity, adverse effects, complications)?" What do we expect to happen, what would we like to happen? How will we measure and know if this has worked?

CIMO (Costa et al., 2018, p. 3) is:

• Context: "The results that human actors aim to achieve and the surrounding (external and internal environment) factors that influence the actors". What are the circumstances or environment where we research the intervention?
• Intervention: "Purposeful actions or measures (products, processes, services or activities) that are formulated by the designer or design team to solve a design problem or need, and to influence outcomes". What is the action or change we introduced into the situation?
• Mechanism: "The mechanism that is triggered by the intervention, in a certain context, by indicating why the intervention produces a certain outcome. It can be an explanation of the cognitive processes (reasoning) that actors use to choose their response to the intervention and their ability (resources) to put the intervention into practice". How will/might the intervention work? Quantitative research will be in order to produce the outcomes in the next step; qualitative will be more "how might the intervention work?" and being open on outcomes.
• Outcome: "Result of the interventions in its various aspects". What did we ended up with; what were the impacts of the intervention?

The key differences between these concepts is that PISO is more likely to be used in clinical or experimental research designs, and often in healthcare. PISO tends to emphasise who is being studied and how (Cochrane Library, 2025). On the other hand, CIMO is a management and social science tool, seeking to understand why and how interventions work in specific contexts or cases (Costa et al., 2018). Either framework will assist in systematic reviews as well as evidence-based research projects. 

Following either a PISO or CIMO framework assists researchers in how to ask their research question (or questions), what type of methodologies, methods and data collection should be chosen, determining variables, and analysing and organising findings.

Anything that helps us to create stronger, more deliberate ways of researching has to be a bonus!

Sam

References:

Cochrane Library. (2025). What is PICO?. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/about-pico

Costa, E., Soares, A. L., & de Sousa, J. P. (2018). Exploring the CIMO-logic in the design of collaborative networks mediated by digital platforms [paper]. Collaborative Networks of Cognitive Systems (19th IFIP WG 5.5 Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises), PRO-VE 2018, Cardiff, UK, September 17-19. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99127-6_23

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Possible selves

Our career identity, as part of our broader identity, is our "internal compass [...] in the midst of all the turbulence" (Inkson et al., 2015, p. 32, citing Hall, 2002). Imagining ‘possible selves’ in roles different to our current experience can be quite powerful. Reflecting on our internal dialogue can help us to identify our dominant ‘selves’, and those which need more light to flourish (Arthur et al., 2019). 

There are several selves (Inkson et al., 2015, p. 192):

• "Potential self: What type of person do you think you might become?"
• "Ideal self: What type of person would you most like to become?"
• "Feared self: What type of person are you afraid of becoming?"
• "Ought-to-self: What type of person do you feel you should become because of pressures or expectations in your environment?"
• "Alternative self: What type of person could you have been today if certain things had happened differently in the past?"

The 'ought-to' self - constantly telling us what we should be fulfilling in our differing roles - is the identity that is most likely to provoke internal conflict, shame and guilt, giving us role conflict (Inkson et al., 2015). The 'ought-to' self may tell us we are selfish in wanting time for ourselves; while the potential self says advises us to find space and take the time so we can be refreshed... and so are better able to care for others. I suspect that women find themselves performing more roles than men: those of parent, carer, educator, counsellor, spouse, cook, cleaner, professional, daughter and grand-daughter. This may lead to "inter-role conflict" (p. 198), where we hold incompatible and opposing roles which are difficult to reconcile (for example, parenting young children alongside heavy work commitments). Further, if we also work from home, we may find boundaries bleeding across work and home life: living in "a reality where we are all in constant contact with each other" (Inkson et al., 2015, p. 200).

Society conditions men and women to fit - to a greater or lesser degree - with gender-specific traits. These then shape our expectations when we perform our various roles. We have "these gender ‘master identities’ [which] influence how different roles are taken up". These master identities in turn influence "how work and career roles are taken up or rejected" (Geldenhuys et al., 2019, p. 2). The sexual revolution enabled women to preserve or to take on work identities, but it seems that we were less able to shed the more traditional roles... so have role conflict because it is still less socially acceptable for men to share all the unpaid work. 

Being able to focus more on the other 'selves', such as our potential self, helps us to regain balance: providing we can find solutions for those traditional, unpaid roles. The idea of 'possible selves' is powerful in helping us to reflect not just on who we are now, but also who we want to become, creating hope and a sense of 'future identity'.

Sam

References:

Arthur, N., Neault, R., McMahon, M. (2019). Career Theories and Models at Work. CERIC Publications Ltd.

Geldenhuys, M., Bosch, A., Jeewa, S., & Koutris, I. (2019). Gender traits in relation to work versus career salience. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 45(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajip.v45i0.1588

Inkson, K., Dries, N., & Arnold, J. (2015). Understanding Careers. SAGE Publications Ltd.

read more "Possible selves"

Long URLs

Do you know, I had totally forgotten about the TinyURL site. When we have - say - character entry limits on some media and messaging platforms, we can go to www.tinyurl.com, paste in our long URL, and get a shortened version which will still point the user to the full address. Additionally, if we are wanting a cleaner looking link for branding/printing, to avoid breaking lines, or to make for easier sharing, TinyURLs fit that bill too.

While we don't need to create an account, if we do have one, we can also create custom alias URLs which make it easier for us to remember than thus share links... and we can use that custom link to help track clicks (although TinyURL itself does not track). 

We should note that there are also some limitations: we users are unable to see the final destination from the shortened URL, and many of us have been bitten too many times. We are only likely to click on a TinyURL that we know comes from a reputable forwarder; and if the TinyURL site is down, the link doesn't work. 

To make a TinyURL, simply follow these steps:

• Copy the long URL (Ctrl & C)
• Go to https://tinyurl.com/
• Paste the URL - Ctrl & V - into the text box
• Click the "Make TinyURL!" button
• TinyURL will generate a shortened URL
• Copy the shortened URL (Ctrl & C again) and use it where we need it.

The shortened link will work immediately and never expires. How's that for awesome?!

Sam

References:

TinyURL. (2025). The Original URL Shortener. https://tinyurl.com/

read more "Long URLs"

What is career capital?

Career capital on an individual scale is the learning and experience which we can "walk out the door" with when we transition between education institutions, organisations, and the interests in our private lives. When we work for an organisation, our career capital can be drawn on as a knowledge bank, and is a key source of value to the organisation: and a key negotiation point for us (DeFillippi & Arthur, 1996; Lamb, 2007). Career capital is not just what we do; it is also what we know; and know how to do; when to do; and why we should do it. Our career capital skills aid cross-fertilisation between roles, departments, external organisations, and across industries.

There are considered to be three ways of "knowing" (DeFillippi & Arthur, 1996; Lamb, 2007). They are - as previously mentioned - knowing-why (i.e. our motivation, our personal attachment to career, our values, and our work identity); again, knowing-how (our role-specific skills, our tacit and explicit knowledge, and our expertise); as well as knowing-whom (our professional networks, our relationships, our reputation, and our social connections).

But career capital not only relates to individuals: organisations and industries also have career capital - also known as human and structural capital - which accumulates over time (Lamb, 2007), rather like nacre being laid down in an oyster. But while we could also consider the DeFillippi and Arthur (1996) model, it is more 'usual' to use Bourdieu's capital dimensions for organisations (cited by Lamb, 2007). They are economic capital (financial and liquid resources); social capital (relationships and connections that strengthen other capital areas); cultural capital (educational and accumulated learning); and symbolic capital (industry recognition, stakeholder and public renown).

Our career capital evolves as we shift focus, and accumulate new skills, achieve mastery in some areas and begin to explore new fields. As we develop as professionals, our career capital becomes more recognisable - and financially valuable - to both ourselves and the organisations we contribute to. But our overall value will vary: expertise is dependent on industry and context (Inkson et al, 2015; Lamb, 2007)... and economic demand. 

With the shift from traditional career progression within a single organisation to portfolio careers (read more on this here), the responsibility for personal and professional development has fallen more on the individual (Inkson et al, 2015). Organisations have reduced the development and training they are prepared to invest in people because staff members may move on before the organisation gains value from the investment. Career capital is important for our personal career development and organisational competitive advantage (Lamb, 2007). I am sure we have all heard the old saw: "what happens if I train this person and they leave?" with "what happens if I keep this untrained person and they stay?" Both are a cost to the business, but industry stagnation and loss of morale - both risks with low career development investment - is likely a greater cost. 

It is our career capital which grows when we build our networks, share our knowledge, accept new challenges, learn to trust our abilities, develop mastery, and gain respect from our industry peers... and ourselves.

Sam

References:

DeFillippi, R., & Arthur, M. (1996). Boundaryless contexts and careers: A competency-based perspective. In M. B. Arthur, & D. M. Rousseau (Eds.), The Boundaryless Bareer: A new employment principle for a new organizational era (pp. 116–131). Oxford University Press.

Inkson, K., Dries, N., & Arnold, J. (2015). Chapter 10: Careers as Resources. In Understanding Careers. SAGE Publications.

Lamb. M. (2007). The components of career capital for knowledge workers in the global economy. [Master's Thesis: University of Pretoria]. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=1a69404ad618a99e87e3c7117d0e5b68ca820306

read more "What is career capital?"

To do action lists to embed CPD

With digital technologies, accessing continuing professional development (CPD or PD) is easier than ever (Drude et al., 2019). The challenge, however, lies in ensuring that our PD is sticky: that we get value from the effort of self-development, and the opportunity cost that this has in our busy lives.

But it is not only ensuring that the learning stays with us: how do organisations assess how effective our learning has been? Because, despite decades of research, accurate assessment of effective training seems to continue to elude the professional development field (Drude et al., 2019; Thalheimer, 2024). Professional development assessment is "inadequate", with most - read "90%" of - programmes using what are known as 'smile sheets', which focus on superficial yet measurable attributes of speaker performance and premises over meaningful learning outcomes (Drude et al., 2019, p. 457). It is also difficult to track whether there were meaningful changes in participant knowledge, skills, or attitudes over time (Drude et al., 2019; Thalheimer, 2024). How many courses have we completed where there has been a follow-up survey some months later (Drude et al., 2019)? I think I remember one such course survey in my career, and I would roughly complete over a hundred hours of PD annually.

To stay current in our practice, we need lifelong learning. If we don't, each year our clients progress further and further away from our practice abilities, culture, language and technology level. To ensure then that we stay relevant, we need PD: and our professional development activities must add value to our practice. And if we can't meaningfully assess whether our upskilling is doing what it should, why would/should we continue doing it?

Additionally, what if we are undertaking self-directed learning? How do we assess our learning in that case: without any framework, not even smile sheets? Rather than simply taking notes, a potential approach could be to create and periodically review action-oriented to-do lists. This moves us from comprehending material to taking action and building our learning into our practice (Drude et al., 2019). We focus instead on making practical changes, working with our clients, to apply our learning (Drude et al., 2019). Although this is a suggested solution for self-directed learning, I think this is a solution that works for any training: we practice it.

Further, the Career Development Association of New Zealand has a great set of skills and experience we need in a competency framework (online here; see image accompanying this post; CDANZ, 2025). We can use the framework to evaluate where our practice needs a bit of a refresh, and seek out appropriate training. This doesn't need to be complicated: it could be as simple as popping an annual note in our diary to find training in a particular topic area.

Even action-oriented to do lists are relatively easy to organise: if we use a hardcopy diary or planner, write the action on a post it note and move it back each week until we have practiced the item. If using a digital diary, create an event and do the same. This is not inappropriate 'practicing' on clients: this is a considered exploration with an appropriate client, trying a new method together, and to see if it adds value to the client, and to you. Co-discovery of potential solutions, in a safe and measured way.

Good luck with practicing good practice!

Sam

References:

CDANZ. (2025). Competency Framework. Career Development Association of New Zealand. https://cdanz.org.nz/ModularPage?Action=View&ModularPage_id=27

Drude, K. P., Maheu, M., & Hilty, D. M. (2019). Continuing professional development: Reflections on a lifelong learning process. Psychiatric Clinics, 42(3), 447-461. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psc.2019.05.002

Thalheimer, W. (2024, October). The New LTEM Reveal [slide deck]. https://woexgg.clicks.mlsend.com/tf/cl/eyJ2Ijoie1wiYVwiOjIzMTM0NCxcImxcIjoxMzc4ODY5NDMwMDk1NzIxODQsXCJyXCI6MTM3ODg2OTU2NDk2MzU2NDIxfSIsInMiOiJmZTNiZTVhMzVlMzVhY2UwIn0

read more "To do action lists to embed CPD"

Networking and informational interviewing

Our current labour market is volatile; career paths less clear; educational choices more broad; with a vast quantity of advice being available... which tends to be of variable quality or applicability. That is where I find informational interviewing comes into its own: we can go and talk to a 'real' person, who has gained experience, training, and education, and who now do a real job. A couple of recent posts has looked at this topic (here).

Informational interviewing is a technique where the interviewer contacts "a previously unknown person (usually a career model), conducting background research (on the person, occupation, and organization), meeting the person for between 30-45 minutes, and acting in a professional manner" (Kanar, 2020, p. 2, citing Decarie, 2010). While Kanar (2020) suggests that the interviewee is unknown to the interviewer, initial interviewees in New Zealand tend to be family friends, then the circle moves outwards as the interviewer seeks different or more specific information. Those already in the field of interest tend to connect us with others in the field: we literally use our networks. 

Not only does undertaking interviews with family connections and then onto others in the field helps us to build networks, it also helps those of us about to enter the workforce realise just how critical networking is in helping us to find our next opportunities. Those of us who tend to end up in interesting roles have often developed our own self-efficacy in networking because we collect people along the way via our professional experience across organisations. 

Deliberately building networks is an excellent professional development skill to hone. Broad networks can be immensely useful when changing roles, when changing fields, or when changing country. We never know when chatting to someone in an airline queue, alongside the sportsfield, at a cafe, at a gallery opening, or outside the meeting room at a job interview might lead us to our next rewarding role.

Not only can informational interviews help to better match us with jobs, and build our career preparedness skills, undertaking the interview also boosts our networking self-efficacy (Kanar, 2023). The more we practice, the better we get - now there is a surprise!

Sam

References:

Kanar, A. M. (2023). Effectiveness of informational interviewing for facilitating networking self‐efficacy in university students. The Career Development Quarterly, 71(2), 147-159. https://doi.org/10.1002/cdq.12318

Kanar, A. (2020). Increasing student engagement in human resource management courses through informational interviewing. Journal of Human Resources Education, 14(3/4), 1-13. file:///D:/+Customer%20Files/Lecturing/CD%20Articles/Kanar%20-%20Increasing%20student%20engagement,%202020.pdf

read more "Networking and informational interviewing"

APA citing webinars

I will often use webinars, or show clips from webinars, in my teaching (with permission, of course). The citation is completely as we would expect with APA (i.e., Author, date). If we want to quote what the author said, we simply add a time stamp for the video - but we do that using US time notation, which is a colon separator, not a full stop; presented as "(Author, date, xx:xx)" (Mueller, 2023).

However, the APA reference for webinars is a little more involved:

• We use the presenter's name as the Author (and as usual, family name, then first name initials so we degenderise the entry). Treat multiple authors as normal (i.e. presenters separated by a comma and an ampersand before the final author).
• Then we have the date that the presentation occurred in brackets: year, month, date (YYYY, Mmmm dd).
• The title of the webinar, with [webinar] in square brackets at the end of the title, and before the full stop.
• Then the name of the organisation or the webinar hoster or publisher, followed by a full stop.
• Then the URL the webinar is located or streamed from.

So that's (Mueller, 2023):

Presenter, A. A. (Year, Month Date). Title of webinar in sentence case [Webinar]. Publisher/Sponsor. URL

Or:

Presenter, A. A., & Presenter, B. B. (Year, Month Date). Title of webinar in sentence case [Webinar]. Publisher/Sponsor. URL

It is easy when we know how.

Sam

Reference:

Mueller, J. (2023, June 7). How to Cite a Webinar in APA. https://www.wikihow.com/Cite-a-Webinar-in-APA

read more "APA citing webinars"

Google Calendar and ics appointments or events

If you use Google Calendar because you are working across multiple platforms - as I do - then you may find the following tip helpful about creating appointments based in Google Calendar when you are sent a Outlook ics file.

The reason I begin all my appointments in Google Calendar is because I work across four devices, and I want all of them to remind me of the same things at the same time (I invite my work self and my home self to all appointments that my Google self sets up - and sometime soon I will find a solution where I don't have to manually add all three of me, but that is a problem for another day!).

To return to the "we have been sent an ics file" in Outlook. We don't add it to Outlook. Instead, we download and save the ics file on our device. Then:

• We log in to our Google calendar
• Over on the top right of the page, we click on the Settings icon (as per the image accompanying this post)
• We select Settings from the drop down list
• Then, in the Settings page, from the left-hand menu bar, click Import & Export (about half-way down the list)
• Click the blue "Select file from your computer" button and navigate to the downloaded ics file
• In the next blue button, we select the calendar we would like to add this event to (the default is our primary calendar).
• Click "Import"

Then we are done!

Sam

References:

Google Calendar Help. (2025). Import events to Google Calendar. https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37118?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform=Desktop

read more "Google Calendar and ics appointments or events"

Legal profession stages and barriers

Over time, our occupational preferences and competencies, along with our life situations, evolve (Super, 1980). The theory of career stages can be seen in many industries around the world, including the legal profession in Aotearoa New Zealand.

For example, the stages involved in becoming a Barrister in New Zealand include completing a Bachelor of Laws degree, taking a Professional Legal Studies Course, gaining a certificate from the New Zealand Council of Legal Education, holding a current Law Society practising certificate and obtaining a certificate of character from the Law Society (New Zealand Law Society, 2025). All these elements being satisfactorily completed enables legal professionals to eligible for admission to the roll of Barristers and Solicitors of the High Court of New Zealand.

More women than men are entering the law profession (Dyer & Jones, 2008). While the gender distribution practising law is fairly evenly spread for now (New Zealand Law Society, 2020) the roles within the field held by men and women differ. It appears that "Women make up 52% of lawyers working in law firms with more than one lawyer", yet "contribute just 34% of the directors and partners" (New Zealand Law Society, 2020). It seems also that "Women far outnumber men in the in-house and community law centre sectors but are under-represented as [King]’s Counsel[s]" (New Zealand Law Society, 2020). It seems likely that the establishment stage (Super, 1980) may differ between men and women, so influencing their career development opportunities in the longer term.

Research has found that female lawyers tend to be initially placed in administration roles in law firms, unlike men who are given more challenging work (Dyer & Jones, 2008). Further, women are "less likely be to be linked to training and development opportunities necessary for advancement” (p. 34). Anecdotally, women returning to work after maternity leave in this profession struggle with workload and networking expectations.

The number of women entering the profession should guarantee change (with roughly 60% of graduates each year being women), but it will probably require many of the old guard to retire before that change is truly felt.

Then perhaps everyone will be able to progress through the stages as their ability evolves, rather than because they started on a lower step than everyone else.

Sam

References:

Dyer, S., & Jones, D. (2008). Young law and management students’ perception of their future career. New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 33(2), 33-44. https://www.nzlii.org/nz/journals/NZJlEmpR/2008/3.pdf

New Zealand Law Society. (2025). Admission. https://www.lawsociety.org.nz/for-lawyers/joining-the-legal-profession/admission

New Zealand Law Society. (2020). Diversity in the New Zealand legal profession: At a glance. https://www.lawsociety.org.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/138567/Diversity-in-the-NZ-legal-profession.pdf

Super, D. E. (1980). A life-span, life space approach to career development. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 16(3), 282-298. https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-8791(80)90056-1

read more "Legal profession stages and barriers"

Excel number formatting on trim

I was recently trying to trim a page number from a journal title in some imported text data, to log in my articles database. I wanted Excel to automatically recognise the imported data as a number, and it wouldn't. I wanted a one step auto-function, rather than me having to apply another step to the text clean-up.

Grr.

However, a quick DuckDuckGo search found a nifty formatting formula (Exceltip, 2014) which we can apply alongside a trim: we specify value in the function. Even better, if we are after a standard number format, we don't even need to specify exactly what type of value we want.

Our formula looks like this: =VALUE(LEFT([cell reference],[number of characters we want to trim])); so for my purposes, this was:

=VALUE(LEFT(Q3,4))

And I got my page range, formatted as a number, all in one step.

Result!

Sam

References:

Exceltip. (2014, October 20). Make LEFT Function recognize a number in Excel. https://www.exceltip.com/excel-text-formulas/make-left-function-recognize-a-number.html

read more "Excel number formatting on trim"

Corporate career open access articles

Continuing our series on getting access to peer-reviewed journals when we are outside a university subscription system (read more here), this time we consider a few journals helpful to those of us who specialise in the corporate career field: i.e. those of us in organisational development, career mapping, leadership, corporate coaching, strategic development, and organisational fit.

• Organisational Dynamics, here. This is a ScienceDirect publication (a marque of Elsevier) which publishes in the corporate space with an HR focus. Those of us who work with adults who are established in their careers may find the research content useful. 
• The Human Resource Management Review is also open access, here. This is also a ScienceDirect/Elsevier publication in HRM, industrial/organisational psychology, human capital, labour relations, and organisational behaviour areas. 
• Asia Pacific Management Review, or APMR (here). Focusing on corporate and management issues around the Pacific, this journal has some open access articles, while others have only the abstract available. It is worth a look.
• Similar to the APMR, the Human Resource Development International Journal has some open access articles. Again, this can be a bit hit and miss, but it too is worth a look here.
• Lastly, there is the Journal of Human Resource Management or HRMJ, which has a number of open access articles here. This too is an international journal, and is the flagship publication for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. 

There are also databases which list open access journals by DOAJ here and ISSN here. 

I hope you find these organisational career development open/semi-open access journal sources useful. Next time we will move onto another of the six remaining specialist areas (Counselling; Disability/mental health/rehabilitation; Career development programmes; Research; Policy; and Supervision; CDANZ, 2019).

Sam

References:

CDANZ. (2019). Competency Framework. Career Development Association of New Zealand. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tudpuDOP8vc9tG5cE_HjSn2DiRp7xBTM/view

read more "Corporate career open access articles"