e-Training Conflict Management skills: How to keep it interactive and experiential?

I got much of my classroom-based conflict management training through the Justice Institute of BC (JIBC), over a decade ago.  I really enjoyed it.  It was immediate, face-to-face, conversational, with lots of role-playing and discussion.  Interactive and experiential.  Since then, I, and many others, have wrestled with how to generate a similarly satisfying experience, online. [...]

The Hybrid Mediator: Choreographing conversations across communications channels

Facilitating difficult conversations is hard.  And, what’s making it even harder is that it can be difficult to know which communications channel is most appropriate, for the situation-at-hand.  The options seem endless; chat, text, email, phone, video, face-to-face…  Using the wrong channel, at the wrong time, in the wrong way… is, well, not a good [...]

8 Key differences between online and face-2-face facilitation

So much work seems to take place online these days, and that goes for the practice of facilitation, too.  And, each time I facilitate a meeting or mediation online,  I further clue into the truth that online and face-2-face facilitation are different beasts.  It’s easy to get into trouble when we attempt to port what [...]

Community Facilitators: Want to help someone? Shut up and listen!

The title said, “Want to help someone? Shut up and listen!”.  The title got my attention.  It comes from a recent TEDx presentation delivered by Ernesto Sirolli, in New Zealand.  The title drew me in.  The content kept me. Sirolli has worked for 40 years in the field of economic and community development.  His orientation [...]

This Week in Virtual Tools, Collaboration and Learning

Living the virtual life, large?  Spending hours a day online can be more than watching the latest Gangnam Style video (though fun!).  Over the past week, my online work has been a fortunate mix of client activities, virtual learning, monitoring the networks, participating in a community event, and more. Diverse participation in the virtual ecosystem [...]