Happy Halloween! Spooky? Mysterious? Time to explore things that go bump in the night? Play?
Seth Godin defines Halloween as Secular Christmas + Creativity, and launched a special site — Squidboo! — with pages that include Hairspray Halloween Costumes, Infant Baby Snail Halloween Costume - Perfect Outfit for a Boy or Girl!, Clowns: the freakiest things on earth, Television Witches Over The Years, Bad Halloween Candy, The Best Zombie Movies Ever, and Halloween Tarot, among many more.

Here are some more Halloween features at sites around the internet: Read more »

            

Here are my notes for the presentation I made Saturday in the ACR neurobiology series — it’s just notes; you’ll have to go to the links for more information.
October 2007 ACR/Phoenix
Science, Ethics, and Spirit In a High Conflict Practice HIGHLIGHTS
Gini Nelson, MA, JD
www.EngagingConflicts.com

Workshop emphasizes importance of responsible self-education, of gaining literacy in the areas of science, ethics, and spirit. What follows generally are some ideas, examples, and resources to assist.

Science matters, as does psychology:

• http://www.engagingconflicts.com/ (Gini Nelson’s Engaging Conflicts blog)
• http://engagingconflicts.com/index.php/archives/183 (science literacy and science writing)
• http://engagingconflicts.com/index.php/archives/137 (the difference between psychology and neuroscience and why we need psychology)
• http://engagingconflicts.com/index.php/archives/128 (example: “bad” popular science that perpetuates gender stereotypes)

Developments in science, ethics, and spirit can’t easily be presented as black and white, 1s, 2s, and 3s, especially in the context of a quick workshop. These areas are so complex that we should expect a multidisciplinary approach that is “blurry, interesting, useful, and always in beta”: Read more »

            

This chapter in The Negotiator’s Fieldbook is by Wayne Brazil. Here’s the annotation from the book’s Table of Contents:

A settlement judge is in the unique position of observing lots of high-stakes negotiating every day. Here, one of the US federal courts’ most highly regarded settlement judges discusses not only his reactions as a professional to the negotiators who come before him, but the kinds of errors they tend to make. Judges are not the only powerful figures who end up mediating our disputes, so if you expect to be negotiating any kind of case before any kind of powerful player, this chapter is important reading.

I’ve been an attorney representing a party at court-ordered settlement conferences (including one where the settlement facilitator mistook it for a mediation); a party at a settlement conference (regrettably–it’s never fun to be involved in a lawsuit); a settlement facilitator for parties represented by attorneys; and, for a short period of time, I was even an administrative hearing officer for a NM state administrative agency. This article is a masterful statement of things to consider when approaching these proceedings. It details how a busy judge who has hosted over 1500 settlement conferences “thinks” in this kind of negotiating setting. He is charmingly humble in his insights (”There is more than a little hubris in writing an essay that purports to identify errors that other people make.”). Read more »

            

“We do violence to ourselves and to our mission if we cut process
corners or dissemble or leave sleeping dogs concealed in order to
increase the odds of getting a deal.”
– Wayne Brazil

Wayne is interviewed in today’s issue of Engaging Conflicts Today. Wayne Brazil has been a United States Magistrate Judge in northern California since 1984. Before joining the court, Judge Brazil was a law professor and a civil litigator. As a magistrate judge, he has handled a wide range of assignments in civil and criminal cases. He has hosted some 1500 settlement conferences. He helped design his
court’s ADR program and supervises the professional staff that runs it. He has published a number of articles about court sponsorship of ADR programs and two books about judicially hosted settlementprocesses. If you would like a copy of his interview, and are not signed up for the newsletter (which you can do in the sidebar on the right!), email me this week at gn@gnconflictmanagement.com with Wayne Brazil in the subject line and I’ll email it to you.

            

Sorry! This is a note that I am delayed in posting about Wayne Brazil’s article! I’ll get it out to post Wed. morning, Oct. 24!

Gini

            

There’s alot of talk about Web TV this past week… I counted two stories at The New York Times that talked about it and Joost.

Close to 16 percent of American households now reportedly watch some TV programs online, according to a joint report issued by TNS and the Conference Board.

If you want to try it, cheap and easy, try Joost. As it say at its site:

What’s Joost?

It’s video – more than 15,000 shows, with more added daily.

It’s online – all you need is a broadband internet connection.

And it’s free. So what are you waiting for?

It gives your Mac or PC on-demand access to more than 150,000 episodes of TV shows and Web videos. While its video quality is not great yet, and there is of course junk there, some good stuff also is there.

            

Cyberweek 2007 was lots of fun, well-attended, stimulating,supportive — well, as tech-ADR shaker and mover John DeBruyn said, Cyberweek is itself one way of making and celebrating community among conflict specialists.

Among all its activities, Cyberweek hosted four online programs in its Mediation Excellence series put on by John DeBruyn. Tuesday’s Online Mediation Role Play Workshop featured a live role play demonstration utilizing audio conferencing, desktop sharing, and a collaborative web platform to deliver an interactive presentation to demonstrate online mediation and mediator training. Parties to the mediation viewed the mediator’s “flipchart” on their own Read more »

            

Today is International Conflict Resolution Day, and the International Coalition of Concerned Mediators (ICCM) has annouced its re-launched new and improved website with a host of new functions and exciting opportunities. The new website is at the same URL: www.concernedmediators.org.

The ICCM now has over 1000 signatures from 41 countries on its Call to Action first presented in October 2006 in Keystone, Colorado at the Consolidating Our Collective Wisdom Conference sponsored by The Keystone Center and Mediate.com. I’m honored to have been one of the original signers. Please visit the site, and while you are there, please consider signing the Call to Action.

Indeed, Bill Lincoln, asks us to do more, and he says it well… Read more »

            

Here’s what’s posted for tomorrow’s Cyberweek panel– call in to the phone bridge for the call. Phone 1-605-475-8590 and when prompted, enter the conference room ID number 5650382, with a pound sign added to the end. If you are calling using Skype, the number is +990008275650382.

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We are talking ODR during Cyberweek, Online Dispute Resolution, people using the internet directly to get better at resolving disputes. This program is extends the discussion to focus more about directly giving the public tools and insights via the internet, not merely through institutions or individuals that they may find using the internet. And how can we use the internet better to give the public those tools and insights? Read more »