Comments on: A round-up of must-read articles for professional mediators

By: Diane Levin

Diane Levin — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:08:03 +0000

Clayton, thanks for the perspective from the ombud’s chair. I’m delighted you took the time to read and to comment. Thanks for raising the point about secure technology and confidentiality of data with respect to the work of the ombuds.

By: Clayton Gilman

Clayton Gilman — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 13:19:21 +0000

Hi Diane,
I’m with you on “keeping the notes”. For us, another reason it is “acceptable” is the true independence and separate physical facilities from all parties that may be involved. To contrast this it has become increasingly questionable to hold any case related documentation with corporate ombuds offices embedded with executive corporate offices at the same physical location or even on the same “global enterprise IT network” and the ability of an IT person to “hack in” to e-mail and Intranet systems to access data. When I’m invited onto a companies IT network for a project I let them create my workspace, but my sensitive data is always kept on my notebook with separate wireless Internet access and firewall. This was an insightful post, glad I got to it today. Cheers.

By: Diane Levin

Diane Levin — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:04:43 +0000

John, I must thank you. Your posts consistently make important contributions to understanding about negotiation, mediation, and settlement. I look forward to the continuation of this outstanding series.

By: John DeGroote

John DeGroote — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 03:19:50 +0000

Diane–

Thank you for your kind words — your generosity knows no bounds. I plan to add another post or two to the Decision Tree Analysis series soon; once I do, I’ll circle back and let you know. Thanks again for including Settlement Perspectives in your post–