I keep getting emailed or seeing posts about stories about teachers filling jars with pickles or ping pong balls, and asking their class if the jar is full. The tellers of these stories never seem to cite that this is the work of any particular author, despite the quite large number of people who have published this story in different formats over the years. So I am one of those annoying people, who when we see something posted on social media, we point people towards the earliest published incidence we are aware of for this story (so helpfully). I first read this allegory with stones, gravel, sand and water many years ago in a 1995 book by time management guru, Stephen R Covey, "First Things First". The story (Covey, 1995, p. 88-89) is related as follows:
One of our associates shared this experience: I attended a seminar once where the instructor was lecturing on time. At one point, he said, “Okay, it’s time for a quiz.” He reached under the table and pulled out a wide-mouth gallon jar. He set it on the table next to a platter with some fist-sized rocks on it. “How many of these rocks do you think we can get in the jar?” he asked. After we made our guess, he said, “Okay. Let’s find out.” He set one rock in the jar . . . then another . . . then another. I don’t remember how many he got in, but he got the jar full. Then he asked, “Is that jar full?” Everybody looked at the rocks and said, “Yes.” Then he said, “Ahhh.” He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar and the gravel went in all the little spaces left by the big rocks. Then he grinned and said once more, “Is the jar full?” By this time we were on to him. “Probably not,” we said. “Good!” he replied. And he reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in and it went in all the little spaces left by the rocks and the gravel. Once more he looked at us and said, “Is the jar full?” “No!” we all roared. He said, “Good!” and he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in. He got something like a quart of water in that jar. Then he said, “Well, what’s the point?” Somebody said, “Well, there are gaps, and if you really work at it, you can always fit more into your life.” “No,” he said, “that’s not the point. The point is this: if you hadn’t put these big rocks in first, would you ever have gotten any of them in?”
From the story, we can see that this was not created by the author: it was related to the author by an associate. It may originally have come from a sermon, or may even have been an embroidering or an adaptation of the Aesop Fable, the Crow and the Pitcher. It would be interesting to know where it comes from originally - but I bet it is old. Sam
Reference: Covey, S. R., with Merrill, A. R. & Merrill, R. R. (1995). First Things First: To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy. USA: FranklinCovey.
Ed Bott, of TechRepublic, has come up with another great tip. He reminds us that File Explorer (aka Windows Explorer, pre-Windows 8) displays five types or views of folders, allocated according to Microsoft's internal 'logic'. The folder views are General Items, Documents, Pictures, Music, or Videos. Each view has a folder type default display template. As Ed says, "Music folders, for example, show Track Number, Title, and Album fields, whereas folders set using the General Items and Document templates include the Date Modified, Type, and Size columns". I often find Microsoft's view logic is off-kilter, but there is an easy fix. We can manually change our folder templates. All we have to do is to:
right-click the folder name,
click Properties from the view toolbar, and then
choose a different template from the list on the Customize tab.
We can also add columns to any views that we use regularly. I add a "Created on" column to my music folders. To do that, all we have to do is to:
open a folder that's defined using the Music template,
switch to Details view,
right-click the column headings, and
add the Created on column to that view, then
drag it to the position you want the column to appear in the file view, then
When we create surveys using SurveyMonkey, we will often need to have two titles. One title is for our survey participant, which will appear on each page of our survey. Think of this as our marketing title. It needs to make sense from the end user's point of view. For example, a piece of research I have done with a colleague is entitled: Survey Title: NMIT Student Recruitment & Screening Survey The second title we are also going to need is a file name to will help us manage and identify each survey. If our SurveyMonkey account is a company account, we are best to have a naming protocol that helps us identify who owns each survey, when it was created, and when it should be destroyed. I set up a naming convention for NMIT's research questionnaire file titles, as follows: [Course code][Year][semester letter]* [Your Surname] [Short title for your survey] ([Destroy by Year][semester letter]) We simply replace the square brackets and content with our information. For example: File Name: MGT7372017aYoung ATS Research Project (do not delete) However, SurveyMonkey doesn't make it obvious that we can create two titles. But to do it, all we need to do is to go into our survey design, click the title field, click edit, click the "Add a nickname" tickbox; then enter our file name, using a sensible naming protocol. To view a quick video on how to do this, go here:
Using two titles makes managing surveys much easier. Sam * The semester letter is 'a' for semester one, 'b' for semester two, 'c' for summer semester.
Gareth Morgan, in his book "Images of Organization" (1998), came up with a range of metaphors - or lenses - which would enable us to identify the type of organisation we were dealing with. His metaphors help us to unlock our organisational culture. He thought of organisations in a range of metaphors: as machines, organisms, brains, cultures, political systems, Flux and transformation, and, as gruesome as these last two sound, as instruments of domination, and as Psychic Prisons. What interests me in particular is his model of culture, like a biological culture, is a living system. Morgan describes culture as "an active living phenomenon through which people jointly create and recreate the worlds in which they live" (1998, p. 135). He suggests that when we want to analyse culture, we ask three questions (p. 141):
"What are the shared frames of reference that make organization possible?
"Where do they come from?
"How are they created, communicated, and sustained?"
They are great questions to ask ourselves.Morgan also suggests that there are four key reasons to use a culture metaphor:
It keeps us thinking about the human side of our organisations, and helps us to see how our surroundings affect us. It allows us greater use of psychology and organics.
It shows the importance of creating shared meaning to align people to meet goals.
It makes both followers and leaders understand the impact of their own behaviour on culture. Morgan says we should ask themselves: "What impact am I having on the social construction of reality in my organization?", and "What can I do to have a different and more positive impact?" (p. 141)
It reminds us that our perceived relationship between the external environment and our organisation can be skewed by our assumptions about ourselves.
Powerful stuff.
Sam References:
Morgan, G. (1998) Images of Organization. USA: Sage.
Slack, T. (1997). Organization Theory and the Management of Sport Organizations. In Understanding Sport Organizations: The Application of Organization Theory. USA: Human Kinetics. (pp. 9-12)
When we want to make change in organisations, we often don't think enough about how we will make change stick. It is all very well to think about the change itself, but the ramifications of change run far further and deeper than we may initially consider. Hellriegel and Slocum have an excellent graphic which shows us just how culture knits an organisation together, and so reminds us of exactly what else needs to be modified to support our intended change. Called the Diagnostic Model of Change, it allows us to consider the broader elements of change in an organisation. They suggest that we think of our intended change in seven categories, and determine the change requirements for each category:
Organisational Design: how your organisation is put together - whether it is centralised, de-centralised, in autonomous teams, business units or geographically isolated will all have an impact on whether your cultural change works or is rejected. Culture, strategy, and structure are intertwined, so a new culture is likely to need a new combination of tasks and responsibilities. Be prepared to consider initiating a reorganisation, but wherever possible, don't make people redundant (redundant people may become bitter, and those left behind feel guilty).
Organisational Systems: implement the process and systems changes identified in your audit; for example, to green your entire work processes, you will need to consider strategy, finance, IT, marketing, manufacturing, value chain, supplier-customer relationships, and inputs and outputs.
Reward Systems: Change HR processes so new personnel are introduced to the culture and are rewarded for behaviours that benefit the organisation. You may need new rewards systems, evaluation, induction, socialisation & social functions to support the changed culture
Leadership: you will need new stories & rituals to convey and drive down the new vision - the cultural artefacts that are the warp and weave of the fabric of an organisations culture and legitimise your new way of doing things.
Teams: shake people out of their silos and comfort zones. Lack of team participation is a common way for cultural innovation to fail.
Individuals: though acts of leadership by individuals throughout the organisation, the new culture is embedded, story by story, act by act, ritual by ritual, until the change takes. This means you need to select people who will embrace the change and help drive it down through the organisation, and absorb their gritty understanding of the detail of their work, linking that with the intended change.
You can watch a video clip explaining this at:
I use this a lot. It is very, very practical.
Sam References:
Hellriegel, Don & Slocum, John W. Jr. (2007). Organizational Behavior (11th Edition). USA: South-Western College Publishers (p. 457, Figure 16.2).
Peters, Thomas J. & Waterman, Robert H. (1982). In search of excellence: lessons from America's best-run companies. USA: Harper & Row. (7S Model for Change Management)
I posted a question on the CDANZ LinkedIn group in July of last year, asking: "Anyone tried JobTabs Free Resume Builder?". I was wondering if anyone had had a crack at downloading and using this freeware to put a CV together (as opposed to a resume, which is what it was designed to construct). However, no one had used the software, and although the ads said it was free, it appears to require an account, and payment for anything past the most rudimentary of layouts <sigh>. If anyone is interested in giving it a try, JobTabs is downloadable here.
So I went looking for some REALLY free software. I came across many, many sites, but most were only offering a free trial (some as short as 14 days), or a VERY pedestrian layout for a single free version, or you couldn't export to a pdf (or only to a watermarked pdf), or that any add-on layouts and options were hidden behind a paywall. However, I did find two options which appear to be genuinely free.
They are both free CV builders: A1 Free Resume Builder and Slash CV. Slash CV has a much nicer user interface than AI Free Resume Builder. Both are in beta, so expect them to be a little buggy from time to time. But it is nice to think that there is some freeware out there which can provide our career development clients some structure to start their CV construction. Sam References:
How most of us power our homes and businesses is on the cusp of change.
When we first built our house, we put in photovoltaic cells on the roof to cover our generation requirements over the summer months, with the infrastructure to double the capacity later on, if we felt the need to. However, batteries at that point were going to cost us another $15k, so we decided to go with a grid-tie system, where we sold our micro-generation into the grid, then drew back what we needed. Batteries at that time were also very, very heavy, and only lasted ten years. It seemed like a great idea. We signed up with the only electricity company in New Zealand who was paying for micro-generation at that time - Meridian - and we got a 'one for one' contract. What we generated, we got free back out of the grid. Our first couple of years were neutral, as our summer power generation was more than we needed, so also covered our supply charge. Then the prices paid started to shift down. And down. After seven years, now we pay $0.28 per unit used, and receive only $0.08 per unit we generate. We reorganised our internal system so that during the day we use our own generation ourselves before feeding it into the grid - otherwise we would be giving Meridian $0.20 for every unit we generate. Despite this, our power bills now cost us between $70 to 80 per month. So I am watching what is happening in the US with Tesla with great interest. The Tesla Powerwall only costs around $7k per battery. Better still, the technology has been vastly improved with the Powerwall 2, which has the added advantage of a built in inverter, and landed in New Zealand with New Zealand taxes paid. While the cost is one and half times the first version at $11k, it looks like this one battery will have enough capacity for our house to be permanently - and easily - off-grid.
Vector in New Zealand has the commercial licence for Tesla Powerwall. I'm keen. Sam References:
Despite delivering more than eight papers, seminars, symposia and conference presentations a year to a range of international and domestic students for more than a decade, from year one under-graduate to post-graduate level, I have never really been challenged with poor behaviour from attendees in those learning spaces. However, I was recently reading a LinkedIn post from a fellow lecturer who had so much trouble, she ended up writing an open letter to students, outlining how her class should work. Perhaps I have been lucky, but a couple of things occurred to me that may have prevented me from having difficulty. Firstly, I have observed that people handle what they consider to be challenges to their authority differently. A challenge for someone who is new to teaching may be as simple as a question. As I run my lectures as workshops, I have a strategy of deliberately welcoming questions. Regardless of how obvious the answer may be, I answer all questions, or let the student know where they can find the answer. I answer each question with respect for the asker. In return, I think I get respect from the students. I think the respectful relationship has to start with me, be modelled by me, and be continuously, consciously maintained by me. To maintain that respect though, I need to not be the big "I am" in the room. To stay 'human', I aim to use three statements: "Great question: I don't know. I will find out"; "Sorry, I was wrong"; and "Wow: I didn't think of that". They are levelling, and let us all share the learning. Secondly, in each paper's first lecture, we talk about how we will all be quiet when each other is talking. I am quiet when they speak: in return, they are quiet when I speak. If students are talking while I am, I stop speaking and stand quietly until they become quiet. It is amazing how powerful a minute's silence is, and how others in the room who cue in quickly will pass the silence to those who are slower to note the change. It sets the tone. In addition, I aim to consistently raise my left hand, with a soft palm out, whenever I want us to all quieten down (say for reporting back after discussion). Over just a couple of weeks student cue into that signal, and I hardly have to say anything. Respect. Sam
A concept map is a type of graphic organiser used to help us lay out our knowledge of a subject and its interconnections (see the image accompanying this post; Veal, 2005). Concept maps begin with a main idea (aka concept) and then branch out to show how that main idea can be broken down into specific topics (Novak et al., 2005). The conceptual framework is often the weakest part of research projects: where researchers haven’t clearly determined what the concepts involved and what the relationship is between them (Veal, 2005). A concept map may help. There are a number of benefits from doing a concept map. They help us to brainstorm and generate new ideas. They encourage us to discover new concepts and the propositions that connect them. They allow us to more clearly communicate ideas, thoughts and information. They help us to integrate new concepts with older concepts. They enable us to gain enhanced knowledge of any topic and evaluate the information we have gathered. Building a concept map is as simple as starting with a main idea, topic, or issue to focus on. A helpful way to determine the context of your concept map is to choose a focus question—something that needs to be solved or a conclusion that needs to be reached. Once a topic or question is decided on, that will help with the hierarchical structure of the concept map. We then start adding key concepts or related ideas. We throw in anything that connects and relates to our main idea. Later on we rank them; with the most general, inclusive concepts come first, then linking - branching - out to smaller, more specific concepts. Some ideas might get taken off because we realise that they are outside our scope. Or we might realise we have missed out an area, and need to add more in. We start formalising our map by connecting all the ideas with linking phrases and words to illustrate the relationship between each. Once those links between the concepts are created, we finish up by adding cross-links, which connect concepts in different areas of the map, to further illustrate the relationships and strengthen our understanding and knowledge on the topic. You can see a video on this here: Sam References:
Buzan, T. (1988). Super-Creativity. USA: St. Martin's Press.
Inspiration Software Inc. (n.d.). Teaching and Learning with Concept Maps: An introduction to concept mapping. http://www.inspiration.com/visual-learning/concept-mapping
Novak, J. D., Mintzes, J. J., & Wandersee, J. H. (2005). Chapter 1 - Learning, Teaching, and Assessment: A Human Constructivist Perspective. In J. J. Mintzes, J. H. Wandersee & J. D. Novak (Eds,), Assessing Science Understanding: A human constructionist view (pp. 1-13). National Institute for Science Foundation.
Veal, A. J. (2005). Business Research Methods (2nd ed.). Pearson Education.
Each year I have students make presentations to their peers. Each year some students do remarkably well, and others struggle. Yet they all get the same information on the course.
I think some of them take my messages to heart, while others don't.
On reflection, I think part of the reason we can find presentations difficult is that we don't do the base work before we present. And the base work is to practice. Aloud. Many times. To learn our script, not just like lines, but like a conversation that can morph and wend as our moods morph and wend, and as our audience give us feedback in terms of energy, body language and focus. The more we practice, the better our presentation will be: provided we continue to think of what we say as a conversation with the room. Following is a screencast which I put together for my students on tips and guidelines for having that conversation:
I hope you find it useful! Sam
Reference: Young, S. (2014). MGT737 09 01 Lecture 9a Presentation Guidelines. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/n82LI3XOTyA
I keep a spreadsheet of all my journal articles, along with notes, the file name, and the full bibliographical reference. While I am generally good with ensuring that, as I download items, I load them into my spreadsheet, sometimes circumstances overwhelm me and I end up with a pile of items to catch up on.
To import, I often use the folder DOS command "printit.txt" (see how to do this here), which is great.
I drop the contents of that export into Word, and use a find (double space) and replace (^t; tab), then cut and paste the information from Word into Excel. Once in Excel, I delete the times column, sort by date to get those which have not yet made it into my spreadsheet at the top, then I am nearly ready to add in those new items to my resources spreadsheet.
Except I have the file size in numbers firmly stuck to the beginning of each file name, which would leave me with lots manual tidying up, were it not for a couple of handy Excel functions.
To get rid of the first word, I simply key "=RIGHT(C2,LEN(C2)-FIND(" ",C2))" into the column next to the file name I want to get rid of the first word (ie, a solid text string without spaces).
=RIGHT(C2,LEN(C2)-FIND(" ",C2))
Et voilà! I now have the raw file name, which I can paste out into my resources spreadsheet. Problem solved.
If, however, I wanted to remove the LAST word, I would instead use the trim function, so kindly created and supplied by ExtendExcel (2009):
Each semester when some of my research students decide to use surveys as their primary data collection instrument, I go through some of the same theory again. But each time I do it, I get more clarity in explaining exactly why we do what we do. All surveys need an informed consent section at the beginning, with a "next" button that by clicking, our participants agree to our research conditions. We should always get volunteers to test our questionnaire, and ask them to time how long it took them, so we can put a realistic time estimate in the informed consent section; so our research participants know what they're letting themselves in for. I find it very interesting how theory easy it is for us to present our survey questions in a way that will "turn off" our research participants. By that, I mean that we tell our research participants in our consent section that our survey data will be completely anonymous; we get them to agree to participate by clicking the next button; then the first questions we ask are very personal questions about demographics. Our participants immediately feel that we are invading their privacy. While what we are asking them does not necessarily make them immediately identifiable, it undermines the spirit of our psychological contract with our participants. Instead, we need to warm up our participants, by asking them questions that are more related to our actual research question. We start with questions which are fairly simple, then as our participants get used to how we ask questions, we can ask our more important and complex questions. Then lastly, we can have a section on what are the absolutely important demographics that we absolutely have to know in order to cross-tab without other answers for our research to be successful. We aim to have only 10 to 15 questions overall. Part of our question will include the instructions on how each question needs to be answered. We ask all our questions - where possible - and exactly the same way. If we are using Likert scales, we use the same Likert scale throughout our questionnaire. We cluster similar questions alongside each other. We use closed questions before asking open ended questions, to give our participants time to consider their answers before they give them. I would recommend we normally close with a large and welcoming text box, asking participants if they want to provide any additional information, or make any comments on the survey. This text field often contains an amazing amount of "gold" when you extract and analyse your data. After this we ask any demographic data questions that we need. By this stage we have built a relationship, of sorts, with our participants; they will be more willing to trust us. Then lastly we have a thank you page, which also contains our email address, should the participants wish to get in touch with us. This should be common sense. But it is surprising how often we can all forget these simple principles. Sam
References: Remenyi, D. (2012). Field Methods for Academic Research: Interviews, Focus Groups and Questionnaires. UK: Academic Conferences Limited.
I had a rogue entry on a two month old bank statement, and wondered if it were a TradeMe payment made to me on an auction, without the purchaser having remembered to load the reference number. Being tax time, I really wanted to know where this transaction had come from, so I could classify it correctly. So I thought I would pop into TradeMe and view my sales history. This is something I do regularly with Amazon and eBay. However, when I got to TradeMe, I was only able to access the last 45 days. That can't be right, I thought. I checked every single link in 'MyTradeMe'. I checked the 'help' files. I googled it. Nothing. Nada. Zero. OK, I thought: I must just be tackling this the wrong way, or using the wrong words.So I emailed TradeMe to ask. A bit over one week later, I got a very polite response, which was great. But the content was not so great. In summary, I had to PAY $20 to get an extract of my data. I also needed to specify what period I wanted the data from, and what particular data I wanted from a helpfully provided list (Sold items; Won auctions; Ledger; debits & credits; GST Receipts; or the Pay Now ledger). What peeves me is that to access my own sales and purchase transactions for any time longer than 46 days ago, I would have to pay $20 for the privilege. It also might well be that if I specified the wrong data set, I would have to pay another $20 to get the right data set. Ouch.
TradeMe cheerfully takes our commissions, but then refuses to provide OUR OWN data unless we pay them again. And possibly have to pay again, if we make a mistake on our requested data set. So let's have a think about why we want our old data. It is because we have forgotten the transaction. That doesn't happen within 45 days: that happens months down the track. It happens at GST time (a 60 day cycle plus 30 days before it is due) or at tax time (a 365 day cycle).
eBay allows customers to access at least three years of our own sales and purchase transactions online. Amazon allows access to all our transactions since we started our account (I have 17 years of history that I can browse whenever I want to). So why can't TradeMe allow at least two year's worth of our own data? All in all, I have decided to take a bit of action, and let people know about TradeMe's lack of customer service (never mind taking eight days to come back to me when promising a turn-around on queries in 24-48 hours). Together, perhaps we can change their views.
Forward this post to people you know and leave a comment. Sam
