Here’s a cool optical illusion that purportedly determines whether your left brain or right brain is dominant.
For more optical illusion fun, visit this post from the Online Guide to Mediation archives, “When seeing isn’t believing: optical illusions offer insight into conflict and perception“.
(Thanks to Kottke.org.)
Posted in Mind and Cognition, Optical Illusions
Mediation has been struggling with an identity crisis for years now. It’s been confused with meditation. It’s often mistaken for arbitration. And more recently an Illinois governor characterized a state-funded gang mediation program as “pork” to be trimmed from an overbloated budget. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
In the grand scheme of things, these are harmless errors that should prod professional mediators to do a better job at marketing and packaging their services and educating the public about mediation’s advantages. Of far greater concern though to the field is the questionable use by a debt collection agency of the words “legal mediation” as part of the name of its business, reported today by Chris Annunziata at CKA Mediation & Arbitration Blog.
Chris observes, “As a libertarian, I am loathe to advocate governmental intervention, but shouldn’t the bar in these states regulate the use of the term ‘legal’ and ‘mediation’?”
While I agree with Chris that state bars should monitor the use of the word “legal” by businesses to describe their services, I am not sure that it’s any business of the bar to regulate the use of the word “mediation” — not when so many professional mediators are not attorneys and there is no requirement that mediators in private practice must also be members of the bar. Moreover, while it is true that a very few state courts do certify certain classes of mediators in court-connected programs, no U.S. state currently possesses the power to license mediators or to regulate the private practice of mediation.
This instance illustrates how urgent the need is for the mediation field here in the U.S. to move now to develop a formal system to qualify mediators and regulate the profession. The future of the field depends upon it; public confidence demands it. We can no longer argue that regulation will thwart innovation in a still developing field, that it is unnecessary or will be too costly, that it will discourage otherwise qualified individuals from entering the field, or that mediation itself resists definition.
We should act now, before others define mediation for us. It is, at last, time.
I’m pleased to share with you news about a new dispute resolution business I’ve launched with four colleagues. Here’s the official announcement that went out today:
Building on more than 75 combined years of experience in the field, five dispute resolution professionals – Moshe Cohen, Melinda Gehris, Ericka Gray, Bill Logue, and Diane Levin – have formally joined forces as OptionBridge LLC.
OptionBridge is a one-stop, full-service conflict management firm helping companies, organizations, and individuals prevent, manage, and recover from conflict. The conflict management experts at OptionBridge provide a broad range of services, including conflict audit and assessment, neutral investigation, dispute resolution system design, mediation, arbitration, training, consulting, coaching and more, in order to minimize the likelihood of destructive conflict, intervene swiftly and effectively when it does occur, and help restore relationships and build healthier organizations in its aftermath. OptionBridge also provides training, coaching, and consulting services to ADR professionals to help them build their businesses and take their skills to the next level.
From its headquarters in Concord, Hew Hampshire, and satellite offices in Connecticut and Massachusetts OptionBridge delivers services throughout the region, as well as nationally, internationally, and on the web. In addition to working together, the members of OptionBridge continue to maintain their own independent practices.
Please visit OptionBridge on the web at www.optionbridge.com or call us at 800-987-9078.
Posted in News about ADR
As an antidote to the superficiality of social networking sites, a new trend has emerged: the rise of antisocial utilities that lets users connect to the people they can’t stand. Based on the premise that “you keep your friends close but your enemies closer”, sites like Enemybook and Snubster allow users to name their nemeses and list their offenses.
You can read more about it in this article from today’s Boston Globe, “New apps put the hate in online networking.”
The ABA Journal honored Mediation Channel as one of the top 100 legal blogs for 2009. Readers, thanks for inspiring me!
