A current project I’m working on is to create a product that will help professional service providers, who work remotely.  The core elements of this “help” are built around relationship and collaboration.

When I am in a client role, I want answers to these three questions, related to relationship and collaboration:

1. Did they listen?   If you have ever hired a contractor, I bet this story sounds familiar…  You need work done.  You contact a contractor.  Contractor asks you want you want.  You tell contractor.  Contractor does work.  Work done by contractor is not what you asked for.   Sometimes its best to shut up and (really) listen.
2. Did we work collaboratively?  We are so much more when we co-create with another.  This is the allure of working together.  We complement each other.  We create something together which neither of us could have done on our own.  So, when I hire you, what I really want is for us to work together.  I don’t want us to be two silos, each doing our own thing, thinking we know what’s best for the other (or maybe not thinking that thought at all?!)  So, break down those silos and re-build from above and below.
3. Did my life improve?  Daniel Pink, in his book, To Sell is Human, says there are two things at the core of genuine service: 1) if I buy something from you, will this improve my life?, and 2) when our interaction is over, will the world be a better place than when we began?  I agree.  It’s always a case of “yes, and…”.  It’s not just about us.  It’s also about something bigger.  A bigger relationship.

When our client answers these three questions in the affirmative, odds are pretty strong that the problem was solved, and you did your job well.

Is there another question in your client’s mind, that you focus on?

The post 3 Questions in Your Client’s Mind appeared first on Collaborative Journeys.

graphic journalist Deborah LeFrank at work at Social Media Camp

Here’s a baker’s dozen of insights, from some of the sessions that I attended.   (The speaker for the relevant session in which the content was presented is bracketed).  This stuff got my attention, for various reasons…

1. 90% of data in the world today has been created in the last two years (Mari Smith @marismith)
2. The ROI of social business is that your business exists in 5 years  (Mari Smith)
3. LinkedIn is especially effective for b2b marketing… Less so for b2c marketing, where one needs to be more creative  (Melanie Dodaro @meloniedodaro)
4. Bullying is with kids.  In the workplace, there is harassment.  There is a law against harassment.  There isn’t a law against bullying. (Sean Smith @rantingincr)
5. Do you know where your children are?  Maybe on Omegie.com, Ask.fm, Snapchat.com … (Sean Smith)
6. 54+ age group is fastest growing group adopting social media… So in 4 or 5 years, social media marketing to seniors is not a problem (Sam Fiorella @samfiorella)
7. If cant get infographic on one 8 x 11 page, then too much info. (Mark Smiciklas @intersection1)
8. What is confusing your customer about your business = opportunity for infographics (Mark Smiciklas)
9. Just press “record”…  just as 45 conversations‘ (Jane Boyd @boydjane) so exemplifies social learning
10. The word “crisis” in china means danger + opportunity (Denise Lloyd @engagedHR, Christine Mcleod @impactresults) … Yin yang
11. It’s nice to have a graphic journalist in the house (Deborah LeFrank @deborahlefrank)
12. Get out of the house.  (CC Chapman @cc_chapman)

Social media camp is a well organized event.  There is a strong focus on participant experience.   It is the full package.   Kudos to the organizers and volunteers.

Half (or more?) of the attendees were first timers at the Camp.   To me, that highlights that most people have yet to really get into and/or accept social media, at least as something that matters in their work.  Does that resonate with your experience, too?

The post A few takeaways from my 2013 Social Media Camp experience appeared first on Collaborative Journeys.

My favourite news read, old-style, is the Saturday’ Globe and Mail, delivered to my door.  In last Saturday’s “human behaviour” section was an article titled “Green by default”.   In it Cass Sunstein, author of “Simpler: The Future of Government”, offers insight into “default” rules. Sunstein is a legal scholar and former administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (2009-2012).

Why the default rule is so important

Sunstein touches on 3 reasons rules have a big effect on outcome

1. inertia and procrastination; it takes effort to change… “why bother”
2. implicit endorsement on the default rule; it’s the right course of action… “and besides, it must have been chosen for a good reason!”
3. default establishes reference point for people’s decision; it brings into play the “loss aversion” phenomena…. “I hate to give that up”

So what default rule(s) should public and private institutions select?  Sunstein suggests, “a reasonable approach is to select the default rule that reflects what most people would choose if they were adequately informed”.

If I set the default…

Here are some default rules I’d like to see:

• disputes: the default rule for any civil court action is mediation
• collaboration: the default rule for us working creatively, together, is relationship
• trust: the default rule for gaining your trust is “be reliable”
• social media: the default rule for participation is generosity
• community: the default rule is collaboration (a rule within a rule)

The funny thing is that these defaults aren’t weird stuff.  Rather, might they be intuitive rules of thumb that we have lost touch with?

What default would you like to see?

The post What’s your default? appeared first on Collaborative Journeys.

Digital natives are different

We know that the pervasiveness of technology in current students’ lives has resulted in a generation that thinks and processes information fundamentally differently than their predecessors – digital natives versus digital immigrants.

I think we have so much to learn from digital natives.  University of British Columbia professor, and mediator, Sharon Sutherland and I recently collaborated on a workshop session, on this topic, at the North-West Dispute Resolution Conference in Seattle.  We explored several areas in which the digital native (and, in particular, the young women of this generation) are developing skills and characteristics that will lend themselves to dispute resolution careers.   We discussed in the session, and it was a lively discussion, ways in which these differences may just lead to innovative and exciting dispute resolution practices.

May 14 in Vancouver

On my own, I’ll be doing pretty much the same session (as Seattle) with a few new twists, for the CoRe Conflict Resolution Clinic, in Vancouver, on May 14.  For more info on the event, click here (CoRe website) or here (CoRe Facebook page).

Digital natives and me

When it comes to digital natives, I’m constantly surprised and humbled.  Here’s a few examples of what the digital natives in my world, including my daughter, have taught me:

• new ways to innovate, through collaborative partnerships
• the power of peer-based conflict resolution
• new storytelling techniques, merging Joseph Campbell’s hero journey with popular culture
• technology application… goes without saying!
• social entrepreneurship; commitment to changing the world, for the greater good

Totally relevant and inspiring.  Of course, the upside of connecting with those different than us should come as no surprise, at least to anyone who understands the power of diversity and collaboration.

Digital natives and you

Ok, that’s my take.  What’s yours’ when it comes to digital natives?   What are you learning from them?  If you’re in Vancouver on May 14, I hope you’ll tell me, in-person.   And, if you are a digital native, what should I know about you?

The post Geek Girls: The Next Dispute Resolution Superheroes? appeared first on Collaborative Journeys.

Place matters

Place matters.  Want to address conflict in ways that are adaptive, inclusive, context-sensitive, flexible, multi-displinary, culturally respectful, creative, inspiring, collaborative, social…? This is what place offers.

I look around my place.  What do I see?  I see people from many cultures, and their influences.  I see people, First Nations, whose restorative traditions have served them over millenia.  I see nature; landforms, plants and animals, found nowhere else on earth.  Lessons for us, from everywhere (even whales, thanks @Kariboyle). I see abundance.  I see many ways of community, local variants on living together, shaped by place.

Local, living economies are place-based.  Great public places work because they are place-based (see Project for Public  Spaces org, @rethinkurban in Victoria).  Resilient neighbourhoods are place-based.  Great traditions start in a place.

Place and Conflict Management

What about conflict management?  What’s place-based about your approaches to conflict management?  Or, are they all imports from somewhere else?  Maybe you’ve adapted those imports, in big or small ways, to meet local conditions?   Have they taken root?   How adaptive and resilient are they to budget cuts, economy changes, the latest marketing… ?

Next time somebody markets you from afar… remember that the Internet has no seasons.  We aren’t all in the same boat.   Nature loves diversity.   Innovation loves diversity.  Your conflict management approaches should reflect a love of diversity.

Is the Internet a “place”?

I’m a fan of Online Dispute Resolution (ODR).  I believe in using technology for public good, to make the world a better place.  That\s my cup half full view on technology.  Even better, for me, though,  would be place-based ODR.  ODR adapted to local needs.  My local government  (BC Ministry of Justice) is doing good work on this front.

Place + Technology

Myself, I am focused on hybrid models of managing conflict and dispute resolution.  Technology is here to serve us, not master us.  Not yet, anyways!  Personal, local interactions, with conversations extended and enhanced via technology.  That’s my vision.  Place + technology.  That’s the intersection I seem to be spending lots of time on these days, towards a new service/product.

How about you?  How do you use the place you live in, to shape your approach to conflict management?

The post Place-based Conflict Management appeared first on Collaborative Journeys.

Dave knows improv, and he knows how to impart its essence to others.  Meet Dave, via his informative, and entertaining, TEDx talk, “The Way of Improvisation”:  (Note: It was after watching this talk, that I signed up for one of his classes.  Just saying.) …

(video not displaying? watch here, on YouTube)

Here’s five of my takeaways from the class:

1. Improv is a way to discover the true you:  Improv training is a way to bring out the “true” you.  When forced to act in the moment, your most visceral moments of your life lived, so far, tend to get pulled out.  What surfaces first from your memory bank tends to be what influenced you, and stuck with you, over time.  Self-reflecting on those moments can reveal more of yourself, and your  interactions with  others.
2. Accept the offer, completely: In improv, when someone makes an offer, it’s important to accept it before loading them with your two cents.  “Yes, and…” is of course a well known way to do this, though acceptance can be so much more than words.  What non-verbal way are you communicating acceptance?   Something to consider in any collaborative team and/or when mediating issues.
3. Fail, fail, fail: Dave taught skills through activities.  Each activity starts simple, then another element added, then another… and before you know it, you’re having to take action in a very messy world.  Basically, chaos.  So real.   Learning a skill involves a lot of fail, fail, fail… and laughter.    A sense of play.  More  serious training should take this approach.  Hey, this is how innovation happens, too.
4. Structure matters: Of course, improv works because it has structure, too!  Huh?  Improv scenes work best when built along a common ‘story’ format e.g.,: 1) establish a setting 2) the characters 3) offer a challenge 4) up the ante 5)  find resolution.  Improv within structure. This is why mediators can learn from jazz.
5. Body/mind connection: Big motions with the body, movement, along with the words, helps ingrain the learning.  I know there are some implications here for collaborative contexts… “okay, now… let’s everybody stand up, shake it out, and try this…”.  Workplace eurythmics anyone?

If you’re in the Victoria area, and you or your organization are wanting to learn a bit of improv, I recommend Dave.   He knows his stuff inside out, and is a joyous person to be around.   Looking for a good book on improv?  My favourite is Patricia Ryan Madson’s “Improv Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up”… which is exactly what I did.

And you… ever taken some improv training?  What did you get out of it, and how did you apply it to your world?

The post Collaboration insights gained through improv training with Dave Morris appeared first on Collaborative Journeys.

photo credit: mikecogh (on flickr)

Why online universities fail

Susskind says there are 3 main reasons why universities drop the online ball: (same applies to training professionals, in other contexts).

1. no real-time Q&A
2. no learning with cohorts in ‘safe’ ways… most people learn more from cohorts than from the instructor
3. no smaller classes that support hands-on “failure” opportunities (what I call “make it safe to fail”, the duty of every innovation leader)

“There will never be an online university that offers more than minimal vocational training — learning the material, step-by-step, by yourself, at your own pace and taking a machine-graded test.  That doesn’t come close to generating mastery (i.e. an ability to use concepts and methods in an improvisational way). Mastery can only be achieved through trial-and-error-and-coaching-and-correction-and-question-asking in a continuing group of trusted peer learners.”

The better e-training approach

Summing up Susskind’s basic 4-step approach to e-training:

1. before class: use videos, with relevant content, to prime the training to come
2. in the class: pose new learning scenarios… and interact around those
3. shift to small groups: groups interact internally, to create response to yet another real-world focused scenario
4. cross-group sharing: each small group shares their “best” stuff

What I like about Susskind’s  approach is that its hybrid (it mixes communications channels),  iterative (think/do, repeat), and diverse (self-help, big group, small group…).

The question is not how to adapt this model for in-person professional development training. That’s being done, all over the place; e.g., JIBC.  The challenge is to do it all online… to create the “mastery” model, online.

E-training delivery options

I see 3 basic options for delivering e-learning:

1. online real-time… all online, instructor-led, interacting with participants in real-time, with virtual breakouts (small groups)…
2. online hybrid… some of the online components are replaced by in-person class time; e.g., for group work… this is a nice option, if location co-operates
3. online self-help… the user goes at their own pace, everything is still online, synchronous discussion is replaced by asynchronous quizzes, tests… not quite as rich a learning experience, though still of value

With all of the above, there are many web-based tools which can be used, either together, or pretty much “as is”, to support online delivery.

The technology is not the big issue.  The big challenge is coming forward with vision , commitment, and a game plan, for what needs to be done, and acting on that.

What do you see as a good way to deliver experiential conflict management training, online?    Examples you like?

The post e-Training Conflict Management skills: How to keep it interactive and experiential? appeared first on Collaborative Journeys.

Digital Native: photo by TF28 (Flickr)

Hybrid conversations

Sliding fluidly between communications channels is becoming an essential skill for mediators, and go-betweens, of all sorts.  This fluidly is an attribute of what I call a “hybrid mediator”, someone comfortable operating along a continuum of channels.  The hybrid facilitator isn’t constrained by channel.  In fact, if you believe (as I largely do) that the “medium is the message”, then fluidity across mediums, i.e., channels, is of huge importance.

I attended the North West Dispute Resolution Conference in Seattle a week ago.  Sharon Sutherland (@ssuth) and I co-presented on “Geek Girls: The Next Dispute Resolution Superheroes”.   Geek girls, and digital natives  in general, are fluid in using online channels; chat, text, phone, video…   An older generation of professionals (like me), who grew up with face-to-face as the mantra for “serious” communications, is less fluid.  Yet, both ends of this communications spectrum are vital.  Each has its’ place.  Each channel offers up its own intensity level, idiosyncrasies , pros and cons….

Choreographing conversations

At the Seattle conference, Jim Melamed (@mediatecom), talked about the ‘choreography of conversations’, figuring out when best to use synchronous (real-time) vs. asynchronous (e.g., text, email) communications, and flipping fluidly between the two.  And, on top of that, making those channel switching decisions in an intentional and purposeful way.  How often are we constrained by our grasp of a particular channel?  A lot, I dare say (looking in the mirror).  Ideally, we’d match channel to need, and rock it from there!

Larry Susskind’s blog I’ve followed for some time.  He, too, did a session in Seattle.  One take-away quote stuck with me… “Who cares what you call your type of mediation …do whatever it takes to get it done… be ambidextrous”.  Exactly!

Mediation is facilitated negotiation.  There are so many smart people I’ve connected with through the web, who aren’t mediators, and yet who I’ve gain mediation insights from.  I’ve learned much from them, though, when it comes to interpersonal communications, virtual and face-to-face, and how to bridge the two; e.g., like this post last week by Joitske Hulsebosch.

Building conversation channels fluency

Here’s 3 ways one can improve hybrid, cross-channel, communication skills:

1. Be aware of your channel strengths and weaknesses, and why that’s so.  Do you prefer email over text?  Why?  Is phone a last resort for you?  Does a Skype video scare the beegeebees out of you?  Do you consider everything other than in-person conversations a waste of time?  Self-awareness is always a good starting point.
2. Expand what you can do, conversation-wise, on your smartphone/mobile device.  With a smartphone you can have a conversation  anywhere, anytime, on pretty much an channel, in any context… and this offers definite hybrid opportunities.  Half or more of the world lives from their mobile phone, big time!   It’s a no-brainer that a lot of future dispute resolution innovation will incorporate mobile technology.  Best to stay tuned!
3. Map out your next big conversation; mediation, facilitation, event…on the preferred communications channels front. What steps will you go through, before, during, and after?  What communication channel might lead to the best outcome, at each step?  What tools can you use to make it happen?

Serving others and the future

Bottom line is we want to serve others, better.  And, when we can do that, through our communications fluency, we also help ourselves.  We show our adaptability. To adapt is to survive!  Welcome to the world of the hybrid mediator.

The future of mediation, facilitation… and conversational mediums is wide open.  Of all the future possibilities, what’s got you most excited?

The post The Hybrid Mediator: Choreographing conversations across communications channels appeared first on Collaborative Journeys.

Image credit: Life of Pi… harcourtbooks.com

T-shaped skills

Other people have expertise that spans disciplines.  They understand their expertise in relation to context.  These people have “T-shaped” skills, combining depth and breadth.  Vertical + horizontal = more attachment points, more connections.  T-shaped skills are a hallmark of great collaboration and leading innovation.

Sometimes, I see my skills as T-shaped.  I’ve applied my information management expertise, to varying degrees of success, across many different disciplines; health, finance, justice, natural resources…  in public, private and nonprofit contexts.  Similarly, I’ve used my conflict management skills in many different contexts.   Recently though, I latched onto something which I feel better conceptualizes my skillset, “Pi-shaped”.

Pi-shaped skills

I first came across the reference to PI-shaped in this post by Ross Dawson.  Pi-shaped skills combine breadth with not one but two separate domains of deep expertise, creating a shape similar to the symbol for Pi.  In online dispute resolution (ODR), the two domains are technology and conflict management.  Perfect for me!

We know the benefits of having and applying domain expertise. One can bankroll a career on that. We also know how valuable T-shaped skills are, in a global marketplace.

Pi-shaped skills are valuable too. When our domain of expertise wears thin because of new developments (think of the impact of technological change), we can adapt, leverage, our other domain of expertise.  And in our complex and interconnected world, Pi-shaped skills contribute value beyond what a specialist offers.

Beyond Pi

So, why stop at two domains, at Pi?  Well, you don’t have to.  Add as many domains of expertise as you want.   Turn Pi- into “comb-shaped”.   Of course, you can’t be all things.  ”Expertise” likely becomes  relative, as the number of domains increase.  Each of us has to find our breadth vs. depth balance.  We should be able to do that, though.  After all, we’re all mediators, in one form or another?

How do you conceptualize your skills expertise?

PS.  The Life of Pi is an awesome read.  The movie is apparently pretty good, too!

The post My Life of Pi appeared first on Collaborative Journeys.

On the stroll

Here’s what a neighbourhood stroll does for me:

• Its physical.  Goodness knows, like most of us, I can use more physicality in my life.
• It’s a mind/body happening.  Ask any good speaker, mediator, facilitator, parent…  about the connection between mind and body.
• It’s something different.  We all know that insight often arrives, after we’ve rested on our “great idea”… the ‘spacing effect’.
• Sometimes I use it as a time to meditate. That’s right, meditate.  Most of us are wrestling with distributive attention, I’ve found doing nothing other than walking and listening (and hey, what’s more important than listening?), to all the sounds around me, even if only for ten Zen seconds, helps calm my monkey brain.
• It’s’ connective. With so much of our life spent online, its easy to lose touch with those other worlds – a midday stroll reinforces my bigger connection; between my inner and outer worlds; to neighbours, to nature…

Make the most of your neighbourhood stroll habit

Similar to any habit you are nurturing:

1. Do it regularly.
2. Do it with intention; e.g., as a natural transition between activities, as meditative exercise, …
3. Then let go, and be present, to yourself and all that’s around you.

Anywhere, anyhow

Of course, you can do the stroll anywhere.  You don’t have to be in a postcard-like neighbourhood setting.  Downtown can work.  A stroll works anywhere, where you’re feeling safe enough to relax your mind.  At other times, a companion stroller is great. I enjoy ‘walking meetings’.

How about you? Do you routinely take a midday, or morning or evening…, stroll?  What additional practice/benefit does it provide you?

Bonus

If you are in the Victoria area, Lorne Daniel  of Rethink Urban (@RethinkUrban) is leading a series of walks, starting this Saturday,  exploring walkability in the Greater Victoria region.  I’ll be at the one this Saturday, expressing my neighbourhood stroll habit, collaboratively learning, and in good company.

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