Gini Nelson’s Engaging Conflicts

Please don’t forget about Cyberweek at http://www.odr.info/cyberweek2007. This is the annual online conflict resolution conference. It is quite impressive.As an example of the Cyberweek offerings, Jeff Aresty, President of The Internet Bar, and Jim Melamed, CEO of Mediate.com, will be offering a FREE 90 minute online webinar Tuesday October 16 at 1 pm ET; 10 am Pacific. The direct link for the free seminar is: https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/721282799. Just go there a few minutes before the scheduled session.This will be a practical conversation about the ODR tools and opportunities available today and where the field of Online Dispute Resolution is heading.Thanks for your consideration. We hope that you will consider Cyberweek generally and this valuable webinar session especially.

Here’s the [UPDATED] final schedule for the panels that Denver attorney John DeBruyn is shepherding — remember, all programs are online, and free!:

TUESDAY, October 16, 2 PM Pacific – Online Mediation Role Play Workshop: 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.

WEDNESDAY, October 17, noon Pacific – 40 ADR web sites in 60 minutes: Panel presentation with Geoff Sharp, Diane Levin, Robert Ambrogi, Colm Brannigan, Gini Nelson and John DeBruyn utilizing audio conferencing, desktop sharing, and a browser tour of the 40 sites.

THURSDAY, October 18, 1 PM Pacific – Mediation Excellence in Cyberspace HighSpeed audio conference/web visual interaction with Colin Rule, Ethan Katsh, Graham Ross, Colm Brannigan, Diane Levin, Gini Nelson and John DeBruyn. Objectives: (1) supporting Mediation Excellence in online dispute resolution; and (2) using the internet for education, mentoring, networking and cooperation between mediators and mediation organizations in the quest for Mediation Excellence generally. This program will also celebrate International Conflict Resolution Day which is October 18.

FRIDAY, October 19, 1 PM Pacific – Taking Peacemaking Public: All negotiation is built on trust. Trust is built on expecting and concluding that you are being listened to. We know that—-the public doesn’t. Why aren’t people beating down the doors of peacemakers, whether mediators, facilitators or negotiators? Does how we speak help lead them to conclude that they are not being listened to? How should we speak to them? How can the internet engage people online in ways that facilitate and promote peacemaking? Panel conflict specialists Gini Nelson, Vickie Pynchon, Colm Brannigan and Diane Levin will interact with the following guest panelists who regularly reach the public directly and effectively:

Michael Skoler, Executive Director, Center for Innovation in Journalism, Minnesota Public Radio at American Public Media. MPR’s Public Insight Journalism (PIJ) model features online simulations and collaborative tools, a public source network of over 30,000 people, a contact database that tracks expertise and interactions, and knowledge management software.

Sandra Blakeslee, a regular contributor to The New York Times who specializes in the brain sciences. Sandra will talk particularly about the need to tell stories to reach people, especially when explaining complex and subtle subject matter in science. Her newest book (cowritten with her son, also a science writer), just released within the past few weeks, is The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better.

Ben Stokes, Program Officer in the Digital Learning and Media area at The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, previously a co-founder of Games For Change, a spin-off from the Serious Games Initiative that concentrates on advancing the use of digital games for positive societal change. Prior to this, he was the e-learning architect for Student Activist Community and a program manager overseeing digital learning projects at NetAid under the umbrella of Education for Global Citizenship.

Here’s an earlier post with registration information.

“I actually have a bunch of heroes. They’re not the big iconic names in the field… Instead my heroes are the people in the trenches–the individuals I know who are using cyberspace to talk to the world about the conflict resolution field…” — Diane Levin

Diane is interviewed in today’s issue of Engaging Conflicts Today. Diane publishes the award-winning blog, Online Guide to Mediation, which explores conflict resolution, negotiation, and the law, together with the social and cultural influences that shape them. It also regularly features articles on mediation, in particular the training and credentialing of mediators, and examines the intersection of law, justice, and ADR. OGM has been designated a “Featured Blog” at Mediate.com and attracts regular readers from throughout the world. Diane also founded the groundbreaking World Directory of Alternative Dispute Resolution Blogs, the first online directory ever created to globally track and catalogue citizen media relating to ADR. If you would like a copy of her 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 Diane Levin in the subject line and I’ll email it to you.

And, if I haven’t said it yet, I share in Victoria Pynchon’s tribute to Diane here (Nobody Does It Better).

Here’s the latest [UPDATED] on the Cyberweek 2007, Friday, Oct. 19 panel. This earlier post gives the registration information for the entire week’s free programs.

• Michael Skoler, Executive Director, Center for Innovation in Journalism, Minnesota Public Radio at American Public Media. MPR’s Public Insight Journalism (PIJ) model features online simulations and collaborative tools, a public source network of over 30,000 people, a contact database that tracks expertise and interactions, and knowledge management software.
• Sandra Blakeslee, a regular contributor to The New York Times who specializes in the brain sciences. Sandra will talk particularly about the need to tell stories to reach people, especially when explaining complex and subtle subject matter in science. Her newest book, just released within the past few weeks, is The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better.
• Ben Stokes, Program Officer in the Digital Learning and Media area at The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, previously a co-founder of Games For Change, a spin-off from the Serious Games Initiative that concentrates on advancing the use of digital games for positive societal change. Prior to this, he was the e-learning architect for Student Activist Community and a program manager overseeing digital learning projects at NetAid under the umbrella of Education for Global Citizenship.

“The field is so internally diverse that an ethical issue that strongly affects one type of practitioner is all but nonsensical in another area. But one ethical issue that I think really does apply across the board is the temptation not to be straight with the parties and the public as to the embedded values of a number of different programs and kinds of intervention.” — Christopher Honeyman

Chris is interviewed in today’s issue of Engaging Conflicts Today. Chris is Managing Partner, CONVENOR Conflict Management, based in Madison, WI and Washington, DC. He has led a fifteen-year series of large-scale conflict management research and development projects funded by the Hewlett Foundation. Chris is co-editor of, and author or co-author of 8 chapters in the Fieldbook. 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 engagingconflicts@gmail.com with Chris Honeyman in the subject line and I’ll email it to you.

By the way, I intended to supplement today’s newsletter with a reprint of an earlier Engaging Conflicts post on the Fieldbook, Why Even The Best Get Stuck, which includes one of Chris’ articles, but I have revised the Fieldbook project. I’ll continue to review the Fieldbook (because it’s hot, hot, hot; the ABA calls it the foremost reference book in the field), but I won’t do supplements to the newsletter with the posts at this time. Maybe later. For now, I’ll focus on reading and reporting on the book– come back to the Engaging Conflicts blog for that!– and give subscribers to Engaging Conflicts Today the interviews with the authors. Did I say yet that I’m in the process of interviewing most (perhaps all) of the 80 authors to the Fieldbook? So kind of them to share their perspectives and experiences in this way!

The University of Massachusetts at Amhearst National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution (NCTDR) has announced Cyberweek 2007, a week-long, all online, free conference on all things online dispute resolution. Details and links for registration are at the end of this post.

I’m especially excited about a panel I’m setting up right now for John DeBruyn, the “go to guy” up in Denver, CO on spreading the word on innovative use of online tools for dispute resolution, and the 2007/2008 Chair of the Colorado Bar Association’s ADR Section. It’s called Taking Peacemaking Public, and will include as one panelist Michael Skoler, Executive Director, Center for Innovation in Journalism, Minnesota Public Radio at American Public Media. MPR’s Public Insight Journalism (PIJ) model features online simulations and collaborative tools, a public source network of over 30,000 people, a contact database that tracks expertise and interactions, and knowledge management software.

For more information on Cyberweek 2007: