The Cloud and Mobile are the Mediator’s future office
I mediated a trans-national business dispute last week. The mediation took place over several days, and was conducted online, over the Internet. There was zero physical paper exchanged. I worked from my laptop, from my home office. Essentially, all the software I used was based in the “Cloud”, and either free or low-cost. I’m grateful. [...]
CIIAN: Helping Nations build their conflict resolution capacity
I had a great long-distance conversation with Evan Hoffman this week. Based in Ottawa, he is Executive Director of the Canadian International Institute of Applied Negotiation (CIIAN), a Canadian NGO, as well as being a Faculty member with the School of Peace and Conflict Management at Royal Roads University. Initially connecting with Evan through Twitter [...]
Face To Face: New movie tackles workplace bullying with community conferencing
It’ s always nice when others take hold of concepts that one holds dear. Following on the restorative justice theme over the last week on this blog (and its not even restorative justice week yet!), a new movie was released in Australia last week, “Face To Face“. It is framed around a centerpiece of restorative [...]
Simplify your external world to Amplify your internal world + 5 books to help you
“Collaboration and connecting with others is a beautiful thing, but in the end, creation is done in solitude. All great art is done in isolation. All creative work must be done by shutting out the outside world, sitting down, and creating.” (Leo Babauta, Zen Habits) Nice idea. Yet, for most of us, immersed in the [...]
Getting ready for the future: Big Brother or Webmind?
Thinking of the future offers us a choice. Will it be a dystopian one, a la 1984, George Orwell and Big Brother, or will it be one of abundance, and positive potential? It can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. In his World Wide Web (WWW) trilogy (Wake , Watch , Wonder), science fiction author, par excellence, [...]
Wonder Café: Online conversations are changing The United Church of Canada
It’s challenging being a “mainstream” Christian church these days, in Canada. Declining membership, aging congregations, questions about ‘relevancy’, not to mention dealing with the Indian residential school legacy, witness Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Yet, paradoxically, there is opportunity. Opportunity to reach out, engage, dialogue, explore new possibilities… This is the approach The United Church [...]
4 Factors that are reshaping the world of conflict resolution
From my feeds (RSS, Twitter…), I’ve recently come across some interesting goings on in the world of conflict/dispute resolution. And as much of it jives with my own experience and take on resolving conflicts, I thought I’d summarize, with a few examples, what I see as key factors impacting the practice of conflict resolution, going [...]
Gift the “Open Source” spirit to your next collaboration
Open Source is both a way of working together and a state-of-mind. Typically associated with an approach to software development, it’s also a philosophy, and something I think aligns with a spirit of generosity and authentic collaboration, even if your project is not focused on software development. The Open Source spirit Brian Behlendorf is a [...]
Parameters to consider if your organization wants to resolve its’ disputes online
The more we interact online, the more disputes will happen in that medium. ODR (Online Dispute Resolution) is an extension of ADR (aka Alternative /Appropriate Dispute Resolution). ODR is becoming the defacto way to resolve cyberspace disputes. It only makes sense! There is some interesting things going on in the field of ODR. In late [...]
Peeping as Information Sharing – how much is a good thing?
On my recent assignment with CESO in the Philippines, I made it a priority to give people I worked with a voice; appreciatively inquiring into their stories. I posted articles, including pictures and videos, to this blog. All the while, in the back of my mind were questions like… Shouldn’t some of this stuff be [...]
