by Diane Levin on October 30, 2006
in Seasonal
Despite the efforts of retail giants to commercialize Halloween, October 31 remains my favorite holiday. What’s not to like about a day that encourages chocolate consumption?
To kick off the festivities, I propose three ways that mediators can get in on the celebration:
1. Consider a daring new practice area.
A business in Indonesia advertises itself as “the last resort for professional ghost removal and mediation services” (emphasis mine). In addition to serving as mediators in your disputes with the damned, they are also available to assist as negotiators on your behalf to rid your home of pesky poltergeists. They seem to rely upon an integrative, interest-based negotiation framework, according to their web site:
…some entities have a demand since they have a ‘territory’ to respect. Sometimes we need to know their intention and demand before we remove them.
Evidently, successful negotiations with the dead, much as with the living, depend upon a thorough exploration of mutual interests. (One can only imagine the discussion about BATNA.)
2. Sign up for a course in intergalactic conflict resolution.
Mediators eager to explore new frontiers may wish to consider one of the courses taught at the Exopolitics Institute (featured here before on this blog): either Exopolitics 102: Citizen Diplomacy with Extraterrestrials, which includes a module on conflict resolution and mediation for the resolution of interplanetary disputes, or Multidimensional Ambassadors – Peace Building with ETs, Angels and Dolphins. (While there’s time, don’t forget to sign up for the Extraterrestrial Civilizations and World Peace Conference in May 2007.)
3. Do some seasonal reading to get into the holiday spirit.
May I suggest this post of mine from last Halloween: “High spirits: legal issues can arise on sale of haunted houses“, which concludes with discussion of an unsuccessful effort to bring a lawsuit against Satan.
Happy Halloween, everybody.
There’s a little mediation history in the making going on right now in cyberspace.
My friend Geoff Sharp, the Wellington, New Zealand, attorney and mediator who publishes the witty and irreverent weblog Mediator Blah…Blah…, has launched the world’s very first mediation video blog, the Mediation vBlog Project.
Geoff has extended an open invitation to mediators around the world to participate in this first-of-its-kind forum:
I started on this project because I have always been a little uneasy about the way we mediators work behind closed doors, without much sunlight in the room …so time to change that with the video blog project.
My hope is that we’re going to be the first, the very first, to track our practice by video blog – a kind of mediation genome project by video blog.
The idea is to take advantage of recent video sharing technology to post short video clips of mediators everywhere at work, the more live the better. The growth of video social networking is amazing with 60,000 new videos uploaded every day and over 100 million viewed every day, as more people explore this type of online medium.
So the aim is ambitious. The object of the vBlog Project is to provide a platform for mediators from all over the world to share our images by video. It may take some getting used to but think of the possibilities for exchange when you see colleagues in Germany, UK and Boston debriefing a mediation or giving us a glimpse of themselves as they go about their professional life. One things for sure, unless you contribute the project won’t take off, so how about giving it a go?
Geoff asked me to record the first video clip to welcome him and, of course, you. You can see for yourself at the Mediation vBlog Project.
(And don’t forget the popcorn.)
The Internet is a place of continuous discovery. At once marketplace, library, and public square, its wealth of voices, viewpoints, and ideas never ceases to delight and enlighten me.
Although the pleasures of new discoveries are great, there are places on the web that I find myself returning to often, just as any of us do in the real world we inhabit. One of these for me is the blog Idealawg, published by Stephanie West Allen. With an original voice, this blog explores and reveals the art within the practice of law. It skillfully traverses ground as well that mediators will feel at home in–idea productivity, restorative justice, conflict resolution, client relations, and, of course, mediation.
This fall Stephanie introduced a new feature, Legal Highlights–interviews with members of the legal profession aimed at putting the focus on what’s right and what’s working with the legal profession and justice. As Stephanie explains:
One of my goals with Legal Highlights is to balance out, perhaps round out, all that we read and hear about what’s wrong with the legal profession and system. With the Highlights, let’s focus on the uplifting, the affirmative, the effective, the professional, the gratified, the decent, the good.
Stephanie honored me recently by inviting me to participate in a Legal Highlights interview–the fourth one in this series. You can read it here.
(Thank you, Stephanie–and congratulations on creating such a fine resource for dispute resolution professionals.)
