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 way we were: Was it really that groovy?

[This is a guest post by Susanna Jani.   Susanna is highly respected in British Columbia (and beyond) for her contributions to the field of mediation.  Mediate BC named an award after her; the annual Susanna Jani Prize for Excellence in Mediation.   So well deserved!   Susanna's  commitment and generous spirit has won her many friends, including me. ] My conversation with a friend [...]

Managed Services: The evolution of legal services?

Virtual.  Managed Service.  Value-based.   These are things Axiom Law talk about and offer their clients.  It’s how they see themselves differentiated from the “traditional” law firm, as this schematic from their website shows: Futurist Ross Dawson (@rossdawson on Twitter) highlighted this profile of Axiom in Law Technology News on his weblog recently. Axiom Law is a global [...]

Ride the waves: How participation in a Twitter chat can benefit you and your community

If you are looking for some experiential social media learning, in a supportive environment, Twitter chats make a good bet. I particularly enjoy the ADRHub.com Twitter chats.  They are held the last Wednesday of each month.  Most of the folks who participate are mediators, and other professionals, who practice non-adversarial approaches to conflict resolution.  We’re [...]

If then else: The computer programmer’s approach to mediating conflict

How our brain works cannot easily be mapped into a computer.  Ironically, the workings of a computer can be applied to our daily thought and practice, and lead to re-wiring of our brains. One of my earlier careers was as computer programmer, coding IBM software applications.  If there was one programming technique I used more [...]