Gini Nelson's Engaging Conflicts

Rajesh Setty is an entrepreneur and investor based in Silicon Valley who also maintains a popular blog called Life Beyond Code. I visit it periodically to catch up on ideas I consider helpful for developing professional and business success (just as I periodically visit Guy Kawasaki’s How to Change the World blog). Rajesh writes directly for technology professionals but the principles apply for all professionals. I came across his article Making the Most of Your Time: Going Beyond To-Do Lists at ChangeThis recently. As he says in his introduction:

Everyone knows that time is the great equalizer in this world. Everyone has a flat twenty-four hours in a day–nothing more and nothing less. Everyone also knows that successful people get a lot more out of those twenty-four hours than average people.

Time management is hard, and it’s a flawed concept. You really can’t manage time. It is finite. What we all know and talk about really is how we can mange ourselves better. So, really, if you want to manage your time better, you have no choice but learn to manage yourself better.

He identifies and discusses 9 things to consider in a short, clearly written article, which I list here (but his article is worth downloading and reading): Read more »

My apologies for not posting recently. I’ve been working on a new project related to a third party’s social community website that has not gone public yet. As soon as it is public, I’ll share my involvement with the project and ask your suggestions and help for its success. One of my goals, as some of you know, is to popularize conflict management, by which I mean facilitating the novice public to think more about and handle better the daily conflicts that, well, we have to engage in daily life. Again, I thank Bernie Mayer for stating the question and issue so clearly in his 2004 book Beyond Neutrality: Confronting the Crisis in Conflict Resolution. As he asks there, why aren’t the public beating down the doors of mediators (hmmm, is public singular or plural?), and how can we present the benefits of better conflict management to the public, so that they will?

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Cognitive Daily over at ScienceBlogs has several fine posts relating to science literacy. They are associated with both the desire and/or need for the general public to understand science better, and a debate over whether or how scientists should be “framing” their research in communicating with the public in order for the general audience to understand its relevance. I believe the points are directly relevant for Engaging Conflicts readers for at least two reasons. First, science and claims of scientific validity are used increasingly in training seminars and in our practical explanations of how and why we and our clients act as we do. We need science literacy to better evaluate these claims. Second, if we want the general audience to better understand the goals, values and methods of engaging conflicts (I go back to one of Bernie Mayer’s points that very few mediators have clients beating down their doors for their services, and that most successful mediators get the bulk of their casework through court-ordered programs), we need to communicate in the way the general public understands.

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In 2007, Engaging Conflicts will continue to center on issues identified by Bernie Mayer’s Beyond Neutrality: Confronting the Crisis in Conflict Resolution, Chris Honeyman’s Theory to Practice work (focusing on his new book, The Negotiator’s Fieldbook: the Desk Reference for the Experienced Negotiator, co-edited with Andrea Kupfer Schneider), and the October 2006 Keystone Consolidating Our Collective Wisdom conference; as well as my Wikis and Podcasts and Blogs, Oh My! program – use of the new social media on the internet for professional, personal and business development. I’ll provide Tips, Treats, and Tools, and talk about Health, Conflict and Stress, on occasion, too.

Some Guest Bloggers In 2007

Planned guest bloggers for 2007 include Kristine Paranica, J.D., Administrative Director and Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation (ISCT) on transformative mediation and practice; and John Lande, J.D., Director of the Master of Laws Program In Dispute Resolution at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, on cooperative law, as distinguished from collaborative law.

In Engaging Conflicts Today, the newsletter (subscribe by clicking in the sidebar!), I’ve planned interviews with Bernie Mayer, John Paul Lederach, Robert Benjamin, Chris Honeyman, Janis Magnuson (of Janis Publications), Diane Levin (of the Online Guide To Mediation blog), Jack Cooley, John Stephens, Ann Gosline, and Howard Gadlin, among others. And, as I said, The Negotiator’s Fieldbook, Chris Honeyman’s and Andrea Kupfer Schneider’s new book, will also be highlighted in 2007 (in both the newsletter and in the blog), with reviews, summaries and interviews.

Here at the blog’s new home, you’ll see the administrative categories tabbed across the topbar (Welcome, Contact, Why Engaging Conflicts?, Guest Bloggers, RSS FAQ). The first box at the top of the right sidebar lets you search the blog using keywords. You can then bookmark the blog at Technorati (use the green icon); subscribe to the blog for free at FeedBurner (use the orange icon); and then subscribe to Engaging Conflicts Today by clicking on the blue hyperlinked “Free Engaging Conflicts Newsletter!” I have fewer categories. Also, each post now allows linking with 13 different social content and social bookmarking websites, e.g., del.icio.us, digg and smarking. (If you don’t know what any of these terms and options are, spend some time in the Wikis and Podcasts and Blogs, Oh My! category!. Finally, I’ve disabled commenting, to help save the site from robotic spamming – write me privately, and I’ll respond, though.

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