Archives for April 2013

Geek Girls: The Next Dispute Resolution Superheroes?

Fifty years ago there was only a few different communication channels.  If you wanted to have a conversation with someone, you had two basic options; meet in-person or call them on the telephone.  Today, thanks (or no thanks, as the case may be) to technology, your options have increased, a lot… add to the above: email, text, internet […]

Place-based Conflict Management

In our global village world, we are more likely to buy into ideas and approaches developed somewhere else, in a different place.  This is certainly true in the conflict management arena; whether its interest-based negotiation, more prisons, or Online Dispute Resolution (ODR).  No matter if good or bad, these other ways can distract us from […]

Collaboration insights gained through improv training with Dave Morris

Since early March I’ve been attending a basic improvisation class, led by Dave Morris, here in Victoria.  It just wrapped up.  I’ve spent a lot of my life relying on my left brain.  Spending 2 hours a week with 15 others, largely in right brain mode, was something I figured I could handle!  Plus, intuitively I […]

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 […]