AI and Mediation: Working with the Fourth Party

AI is changing how professional mediators can do business. A pre-recorded presentation by Clare Fowler and Colin Rule (both with Mediate.com), for next week’s Association of Conflict Resolution conference gives a terrific snapshot of what’s possible for today’s dispute resolution professional; e.g. mediator. Click on the image below for the full presentation: The Fourth Party […]

Adversarial Collaboration

Does making more than US$75,000 make you happier? Psychologist Matthew Killingsworth from Wharton Business School’s did research and his data showed that it did. Celebrated Nobel Prize winning professor, and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman’s research said that it didn’t. Kahneman proposed the two adversaries collaborate and discover the truth together. Killingsworth […]

Qatar: The world’s go-to mediator

Qatar is at the centre of efforts to mediate the Hamas-Israel conflict. How does a country of less than 3 million people, Qatar, become the worlds’ go-to mediator? This week’s Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Rear Vision podcast provides an explainer, and then some: Qatar has become the world’s go-to mediator, but what’s in it for them? […]

The Existentialist Mediator

I was reading Sarah Blakewell’s At The Existentialist Cafe on the weekend. It’s an engaging window on the key proponents of modern existentialism; Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Marting Heidegger… and others. Blakewell’s book weaves biography and thought, and “takes us to the heart of a philosophy about life that also changed lives, and […]

Reflecting on my experiences in the BC Court Mediation Program

Between 2002 and 2015, I worked as a court-based mediator, usually a couple of days a month, in the BC Court Mediation Program (CMP). The program was administered by Mediate BC and funded by the province of British Columbia.  As per this recent Mediate BC tweet, the CMP is closing its’ doors. (In the picture are Lee Turnbull, […]