Anyone who trains mediators is always on the lookout for good videos for training or teaching purposes. They’re tough to come by. Finding free videos is even harder.

Thanks to the efforts of Professor James Coben of Hamline University School of Law Dispute Resolution Institute, 20 videos depicting mediation in litigation contexts are available for downloading, all at no cost. (Some of you may remember that Professor Coben is also the author of one of my favorite articles on mediation, in part because of its great title, “Gollum, Meet Sméagol: A Schizophrenic Rumination on Mediator Values Beyond Self Determination and Neutrality” (PDF), discussed here in a post from last year.)

All that Professor Coben, who produced these videos, asks in return is that you notify him if you’re using the videos and let him know the context, and of course to provide proper attribution before showing them. A very small price to pay indeed.

Some of the videos are better than others, and downloading should definitely not be attempted without a high-speed internet connection. What makes some of these vignettes especially fun are the deliberate mistakes here and there you’ll see the actor-mediators make–lots of food for thought and discussion here.

Thanks to my colleague and friend, Melinda Gehris, for the link.

Grasping the devastating impact of violent conflict can be difficult, particularly for Americans who have not experienced ongoing full-out war on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor. It is hard as well to imagine the land where missiles and mortar fly or to understand the distances between the cities and towns named in this morning’s headlines.

One blogger, Andy Carvin, determined to map out the geography of conflict between Israel and Lebanon and to measure it against the contours of more familiar terrains, has created a short video which overlaps a map of the Middle East with a map of New England to understand better the scale of the distances between the regions. Andy observes,

For Americans who are used to countries being thousands of miles wide, it’s quite astonishing to realize what a compact area of land is affected by the fighting. For example, the distance between Haifa and Beirut isn’t much difference than the distance between Providence, Rhode Island and Lowell, Massachusetts.

You can view Andy’s video at his blog.

Technorati tag: conflict resolution

This post is the first in a series of essays on blogging for alternative dispute resolution professionals that will unfold over the course of the summer.

Blogging, after all, is an ideal medium for sharing ideas, transmitting knowledge, engaging in dialogue, and connecting with others in our field. My hope is that blogging will fire the imagination of conflict resolvers to the degree it has for other professions and endeavors.

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One of the benefits of membership in the Association for Conflict Resolution is the subscription to its quarterly magazine, ACResolution. I had eagerly awaited the Spring 2006 issue since its theme was “Marketing Your ADR Practice: How to Make Conflict Resolution Your Day Job.” I figured that somewhere in there there’d definitely be something on blogging, maybe even an entire article devoted to blogs.As it turned out, I was wrong. There wasn’t a single mention of the word “blog” anywhere in the entire issue.

Not even, to my utter amazement, in an article on “Marketing Your Mediation Practice on the Internet”. How could a national publication with a sizeable circulation fail to include blogs in a whole issue devoted to marketing? And how could blogs have been omitted entirely from an article specifically on marketing on the internet?

This seemed symptomatic to me of blogging’s overall invisibility to the ADR community–something I am determined to change.

The influence of blogging cannot be denied: blogs have shaped our political processes, transformed the way we conduct and market our businesses, revolutionized the dissemination of knowledge and information, and redefined journalism.

For ADR practitioners and scholars to understand the significance of blogs, it may be helpful to consider its impact on an allied field: the law.

Students, scholars, and practitioners of law have seized upon blogging as a medium for debating, transmitting, and developing ideas and theories about law and its practice. Law blogs (known as “blawgs”) have radically changed dialogue and scholarship on legal issues, leading Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor of Slate, to recently observe:

The most compelling, cutting-edge, honest legal writing being produced in this country today is happening on the Internet, and the crop improves daily. From the fistful of judges (including Richard Posner) who maintain regular blogs, to the vast and growing number of law professors and law students who find the time to post daily, it’s clear that the real bones and guts and sinew of the national conversation is happening online, and not in print.

Law blogs have become such an integral and influential part of the legal landscape that no less a bastion of legal scholarship than Harvard Law School recently held a symposium on “Bloggership: How Blogs are Transforming Legal Scholarship” at its Berkman Center for Internet & Society. (Papers presented at this symposium may be downloaded at the Social Science Research Network.)

Although law blogs emerged only as recently as 2002, today there are over 1,500, according to “Blog 2.0: The Next Stage of Lawyer Blogging“, a recent article published on the American Bar Association web site by influential law blogger Tom Mighell. Law blogs, which launched a revolution in communication for the legal community, have gained such momentum that they are now rapidly moving toward a “next stage” as the title of Mighell’s article reflects.

It seems surprising then that the popularity and success of law blogging have not been duplicated among ADR practitioners and scholars, given how many parallels lie between our field and the law.

Alternative dispute resolution, like the law, has produced dazzling scholarship, influential texts, and numerous symposia, conferences, and initiatives. Despite its relatively short history as a modern movement, it enjoys a rich tradition of intellectual endeavor and advancement, produced through collaboration and communication among its adherents. It is a field by virtue of its very nature that promotes and pursues the exchange of philosophies, beliefs, and ideas. It is all about conversation.

So, too, is blogging which provides an ideal medium for mutual discovery, exchange of knowledge, and fostering connection. And all you need is a computer, an Internet connection, and an idea to share.

Despite the slow initial growth of ADR blogs, both momentum and awareness are building.

The National Institute for Advanced Conflict Resolution (NIACR) recently made history in announcing the winners of its first Annual Mediation Blog Roundup. This award, the very first of its kind, goes far to legitimize and gain recognition for blogging in the conflict resolution field. My deepest appreciation to NIACR for raising the public profile of conflict resolution bloggers.

In addition, the editors at ACResolution contacted me in the spring to ask me to write a 500-word article on blogging which will appear in the Summer 2006 issue. That’s exciting, too, since this is the first time (to the best of my knowledge) that ACResolution has ever published a piece on blogging. The issue comes out this month (although unfortunately it won’t be available online).

Meanwhile, the number of ADR bloggers is growing. Since I launched the World Directory of ADR Blogs just a few weeks ago, I’ve already added more than a dozen new titles, and others will be coming soon.

Interested? There are ways that you can contribute to the conversation:

• Begin to read ADR blogs–see my blogroll (over on the right or here at Bloglines.com) for a list of ones I regularly follow, or visit the World Directory of ADR Blogs to find more. Some of the best include: Mediator Blah…Blah…, Mediator Tech, Campus ADR, ICT for Peacebuilding, Mediation Mensch, and Negotiating Tip of the Week.
• Post comments on ADR blogs as a way to get a feel for the medium (something you can do even if you don’t blog) and to take part in blogging discourse.
• Start an ADR blog (click here for information and resources on blogging).
• Support other ADR bloggers by linking to them or posting about them in your blog.
• Introduce yourself to established bloggers–send them an email and say hello. And if a blogger emails you, be sure to write back–it’s a great way to build your online network.
• Introduce yourself to new bloggers and make them welcome.
• Contact me to get your ADR or ADR-friendly blog added to the World Directory of Alternative Dispute Resolution Blogs.

If you need help or have questions about blogging, count on me as your resource. Get in touch with me or the other ADR bloggers who are out there. And please check back here at Online Guide to Mediation for more articles in this series on blogging as I share with you the benefits that publishing a blog can bring.

Technorati tags: alternative dispute resolution, blogging, mediation, mediation blogs

The University of Minnesota has produced an online guide designed to assist families prevent and address disputes over estates. Who Gets Grandma’s Yellow Pie Plate offers information and resources to aid families in making tough, emotionally fraught decisions over the inheritance of personal property.

There are free articles available as well on this site, along with some quizzes to assess your estate planning preparedness.

Mediators, however, will come away disappointed. Although this excellent site offers useful material and resources, mediation was somehow omitted from a web site created to assist families prevent, reduce, and address conflicts over estate-related issues.

(Thanks to Joel Schoenmeyer, author of the Death and Taxes Blog, for the link.)

Those of you who are on the alert for depictions of attorneys in popular culture should take a look at this pizza ad campaign for Donatos Pizza, which hilariously lampoons ambulance-chaser web sites.

(Via the Duct Tape Marketing Blog.)

Technorati tags: Culture and Society, Lawyers

Here’s a reminder to long-time subscribers and news for first-time visitors to this blog.

If you have a blog or a web site devoted to alternative dispute resolution, mediation, conflict management, negotiation, or if you publish a blog that regularly features posts about mediation or ADR, please sign yourself up to be listed at any or all of the following web sites:

Directory of Alternative Dispute Resolution Blogs

Currently this directory, a mediation blog work in progress which I launched just last month, lists 30 alternative dispute resolution and negotiation blogs, together with blogs that are mediation-friendly, across eight different categories. If you’d like your blog listed here, let me know. My hope is to do for ADR blogs what Blawg.org did for law blogs–a madcap scheme, I know, but, hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?

Alternative Dispute Resolution Web Ring

Anyone who owns a piece of Internet real estate–a blog, a web site, a wiki, a directory, an online community–devoted to ADR, mediation, conflict resolution, negotiation, you name it—can request a listing here. You can even upload a small image to appear next to your listing when you sign up.

For more details, you can visit the ADR Web Ring Portal, or go straight to the web ring itself.

Map of the Alternative Dispute Resolution World

Put yourself on the Map of the Alternative Dispute Resolution World, where you can post a message and add a link back to your web site or blog. (It’s also fun to see where around the globe your fellow mediators hang out.) This guestmap is not as populated as I’d like to see it–my goal is to have all continents (yes, including Antarctica) represented.

Listing on all of these sites is free of course–just a link back is all I ask.

Technorati tags: Blogging, mediation blogs, mediation, mediators, online guide to mediation, Internet

Ian Best, the law student I told readers about who is blogging for credit at Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, has at last completed his taxonomy of law blogs.

Hunting through Best’s categories is rewarding for anyone whose work is grounded in or shaped by the practice or study of law. Explore at random to sample law blogging in all its seemingly infinite variety. Best’s categories break blogs down in numerous ways, including by state (my home state, Massachusetts, has two) and by specialty.

There’s something for everyone here, mediators included, since Best has included a category for alternative dispute resolution blogs. Visit Best’s blog, 3L Epiphany, to see for yourself. (And congratulations to you, Ian, on a job well done.)

Business travelers, human resources professionals, mediators, and anyone else who actively seeks to develop their global awareness should visit Culturosity, a web site created to advance multicultural learning and support diversity. According to founder Kate Berardo,

Culturosity.com is committed to helping individuals find the resources, experiences, and opportunities that will open their minds and broaden their perspectives. We help people understand global realities and empower them to live and work effectively in a multicultural world.

Culturosity includes a learning center where visitors can download articles on cross-cultural communication, diversity, and cultural awareness (challenge yourself with the Diversity Test), learn about opportunities to travel or study abroad, build their capacity for greater cultural awareness, gain insights into diversity, or explore specific cultures in greater depth. Culturosity links to many useful web sites, including Executive Planet, where international road warriors can download to their Palm handhelds a guide to business culture and etiquette in 45 countries, Diversity Central which focuses upon workplace diversity, and the Alliance for Conflict Transformation, just to name a few.

Culturosity even offers downloadable Pop Culturosity Guides which uses pop culture as a means of transforming day-to-day activities “into intercultural learning opportunities”. There’s plenty here to help all of us connect more meaningfully with the world we inhabit.

As anyone knows who has tried to get through to customer service by phone, probably nothing is more frustrating than being trapped in phone menu hell.

The Boston Globe reports this morning that Paul English, of Arlington, Mass., has come to the rescue. Today marks the launch of English’s online campaign, gethuman.com, a web site aimed at helping stressed-out consumers beat automated voice response systems to get through to an actual human being.

gethuman.com features a handy list of “gethuman cheats” arranged alphabetically by company, as well as some all-purpose tips to help you avoid spending eternity on hold.

To learn how you can join Paul’s cause and rage against the machine, click here.

For some time now my friend (and encouraging mentor) Colin Rule has been a contributing blogger at ODR News Blog, part of the web site for the Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Recently Colin began publishing a blog of his own hosted at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. Colin’s blog offers perspective and commentary on conflict resolution, civil discourse, politics, international relations, and, yes, technology and the Internet. You can join Colin’s conversation by clicking here.

Speaking of conversation, conflict resolution of course is all about promoting dialogue. One of Colin’s recent posts led me to a happy discovery: ChangeThis, a web site born of a radical and hopeful idealism: to virally transmit ideas through a culture medium of community, respect, and dialogue.

Recognizing that “the best discussions in science, medicine, business and politics have always been the civil ones”, ChangeThis publishes what it calls manifestos—proposals for change which serve as “a reasoned, rational call to action, supported by logic and facts”. The goal is to provide a forum for “the rational and thoughtful arguments that help people change their minds to a more productive point of view.” In the egalitarian spirit with which ChangeThis was founded, anyone is welcome to submit ideas for a manifesto.

Among the manifestos you will find at ChangeThis are “The Life Cycle of the Creative Soul“, “How to speak a teen’s language, even if you’re not one“, “Community Greens: Green Infrastructure and Community Revitalization“, and “Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas“. And bloggers who are having trouble finding meaning in what they do should read “Going Home“, a manifesto which envisions bloggers as part of something revolutionary and global–as mediators of Internet conversation and connection:

At the center of conversation is the blog. At the heart of the blog is the authentic voice…Our voice is so strong that it can be heard around the entire globe. We are amazed to find others far away who can hear us and who have the same tone…Community begins to form…

(Looking for more connection through the medium of the web? Visit this post of mine from earlier this year.)

Observers of human behavior are intrigued by the ways in which people respond to interpersonal challenges or moral dilemmas—those times when we are in conflict with others or with ourselves. The choices we make reveal much about who we are.

Researchers have developed instruments to help us survey our inner landscapes and to make sense of the contours and borders of the moral and social self. Let us consider two such instruments—one that illuminates conflict styles and another that measures moral intuition.

Many basic mediation trainings begin with a discussion of the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)—a self-administered test used to assess and make sense of the different styles that each of us has in handling conflict. Participants score their test responses to identify their dominant conflict style among five different modes—competing, avoiding, compromising, accommodating, and collaborating—to gain understanding of the impact those styles may have on personal and group interactions.

Although the test is available online for anyone who’d like insight into their own conflict style, it is, alas, not free (although affordable). There is, however, a conflict style test which can be completed online for no cost. Test yourself with the Adult Personal Conflict Style Inventory at the web site for the Peace and Justice Support Network of Mennonite Church USA (a great web site for those interested in learning more about faith-based peacemaking initiatives).

A very different test—one that gauges our moral intuition—is the Moral Sense Test, part of a research study sponsored by the Primate Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Harvard University which seeks to achieve the following purpose:

Nothing captures human attention more than a moral dilemma. Whether we are soap opera fanatics or not, we can’t help sticking our noses in other people’s affairs, pronouncing our views on right and wrong, permissible and impermissible, justified or not. For hundreds of years, scholars have argued that our moral judgments arise from rational, conscious, voluntary, reflective deliberations about what ought to be. This perspective has generated the further belief that our moral psychology is a slowly developing capacity, founded entirely on experience and education, and subject to considerable variation across cultures. With the exception of a few trivial examples, one culture’s right is another’s wrong. We believe this hyper rational, culturally-specific view is no longer tenable. The MST has been designed to show why and offer an alternative…The MST has been designed for all humans who are curious about that puzzling little word “ought” — about the principles that make one action right and another wrong, and why we feel elated about the former and guilty about the latter.

Click here to participate in the test and to see how well calibrated your own moral compass may be.

Games and game theory crop up frequently as topics in conflict resolution literature. Games, after all, are a great tool for teaching conflict resolution theories and skills, and game theory, which utilizes mathematical formulas to predict and understand complex human behaviors, can help shed light on conflict and collaboration.

I have several links to share with you for game and game theory enthusiasts. First games, then game theory.

Bill Warters, the author of Campus-ADR Tech Blog, has an enviable knack for discovering great web sites. Case in point: Bill recently blogged about the Distributive Justice Interactive Web Site, a fascinating project which examines notions of justice and fairness with respect to the distribution of goods and resources. It includes a game in which players can create their own distribution model. (Click on “enter” at the main page and place your cursor over the image of the gear.) You can also complete a survey, read about theories of distributive justice, or subscribe to the project’s newsletter.

There are some interesting insights into gaming in an essay by Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, which challenges the commonly held belief that video games are vehicles for promoting violence, and describes ways in which games instead are used to teach empathy or build understanding of other cultures.

This essay includes a link to Water Cooler Games, a forum for video games designed for purposes other than entertainment, which in turn leads you down the rabbit’s hole of gaming sites and other articles. This led me to The Better Business Game, in which players wrestle with social and environmental issues in the context of running a business; and the United Nation’s World Food Programme’s Food Force, in which players participate in 6 missions to address hunger in troubled regions.

Let’s turn now to game theory. Although game theory has been used to analyze human behavior in activities that include conflict and cooperation, it has also been utilized to weigh issues of grave consequence in today’s world: terrorism and counterterrorism. Several articles are available online that examine the use of game theory in examining these issues. Among these are:

A recently published article by Ronald D. Fricker, Jr., of the Naval Postgraduate School, asks the question “Game Theory in an Age of Terrorism: How Can Statisticians Contribute?” (Click here for either HTML or PDF format.)

There is also an article by Todd Sandler, “Counterterrorism: A Game-Theoretic Analysis,” which appeared in the April 2005 issue of Journal of Conflict Resolution, which can be downloaded in PDF format by clicking here.

The premise of Numb3rs, CBS’s hot new TV police drama, is that crimes can be cracked through the use of mathematics. In each episode viewers get to see math whiz Charlie Eppes (played by actor David Krumholtz) assist his FBI agent big brother Don (Rob Morrow) bring bad guys to justice through the creation of mathematical formulas and algorithms.

Improbable, you say? Whether algorithms have real-life applications in crime busting is a question that some other blogger will have to answer. However, as it turns out algorithms very much have a place in conflict busting.

One of the challenges that people in conflict often face is how to divide things up so that afterwards no one feels envious of the share the other person ended up with (as anyone knows who has ever tried splitting a slice of cake for two six-year-olds). Mathemetician Francis Edward Su, determined to create a way to help people achieve fair divisions, has invented the Fair Division Calculator, “a java applet for interactive decision making” which uses algorithms “to find envy-free divisions of goods, burdens, or rent”. The Fair Division Calculator may ultimately be used as a part of a web-based system for group negotiation and decision-making. Be sure to try out the Fair Division Calculator to divide up a cake, split household chores, or allocate rent among roommates.

One organization which has developed a commercially successful Internet-based system for resolving disputes is SmartSettle, which uses “patented optimization algorithms to achieve fair and efficient solutions that are truly Beyond Win-Win®.” According to the web site, SmartSettle’s applications are far-reaching, capable of handling virtually every kind of dispute, including family, workplace, business mergers and acquisitions, community, government and international, and beyond.

If you’re interested in experiencing SmartSettle first hand, SmartSettle has extended an invitation to those attending Cyberweek 2005 to participate in an International eNegotiation Tournament which will utilize the SmartSettle system. Registration for the competition will be open until April 9, 2005. For more information, click here.

Do a Google search on the word “mediation” and you’ll turn up with some 8,460,000 hits. That’s a lot of web sites to comb through if you’re looking for information about the mediation field.

To save you some time, I’ve compiled a short list of some of the most useful conflict resolution and mediation-related web sites I’ve encountered in my travels through the Internet. This is not intended to be a comprehensive list by any means—just a place for you to start your own journey.

I’ve tried to steer clear of web sites that have an overly commercial feel to them, or whose useful content is overpowered by ads and sponsored links. I’ve also made an effort to stick with web sites that contain up-to-date information and have links that work. And, since I’m a big believer that web content should be free, I’ve only included links for sites that cost nothing to use.

In no particular order Online Guide to Mediation’s web picks are:

Conflict Resolution Information Source
http://crinfo.org/

The Conflict Resolution Information Source (CRInfo) is, its own words, “a free, online clearinghouse, indexing more than 25,000 peace- and conflict resolution-related Web pages, books, articles, audiovisual materials, organizational profiles, events, and current news articles.” A comprehensive source for ADR-related information, CRInfo offers separate pages for practitioners, educators, students, researchers, and anyone who has a conflict to enable them to easily locate resources targeted for their respective needs.

Mediate.com
http://www.mediate.com

Mediate.com describes itself as the Internet’s most frequently visited ADR web site. I can well believe it. It’s a great resource for the mediation practitioner or the general public, offering a searchable, on-line library where over 800 articles on a wide variety of mediation and dispute resolution topics may be accessed. At the web site you can also subscribe to Mediate.com’s newsletter and receive regular updates on new articles. As I’ve discovered, they also welcome article submissions from practitioners, so Mediate.com can be an effective way to get your message out to the ADR community.

Guide to ADR Links
http://www.adr.af.mil./general/guideadr.doc

Guide to ADR Links was compiled by Deborah S. Laufer, an attorney and Executive Director of the Federal ADR Network. One of the best and most complete sources of information available online about dispute resolution, it offers a comprehensive compilation of dispute resolution links.

National Association for Community Mediation
http://www.nafcm.org/pg23.cfm

The web site for the National Association for Community Mediation includes a page devoted to links to articles, organizations, and “hot topics” of interest not just to community mediators but to other ADR practitioners as well.

Katsuey’s Legal Gateway
http://www.katsuey.com/index.cfm

Providing access to information on a number of legal practice areas and topics, Katsuey’s Legal Gateway includes an Arbitration/Mediation Legal Directory. This directory provides links that include the usual suspects (Association for Conflict Resolution, the American Arbitration Association) but also more exotic offerings such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center, and the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy Database.

Campus Conflict Resolution Resources Project (Campus-adr.org)
http://www.campus-adr.org/

Listed last but certainly not least, Campus-adr.org has quickly become one of my favorite places to visit on the web. Although created to promote the use of conflict management in higher education, there is plenty here for anyone who is interested in conflict resolution and mediation in other contexts. Check out the section entitled Conflict Resolution Training Tools, where plenty of resources are available for trainers (and for some fun while you’re at it, don’t miss the links for the Handling Difficult Workers simulation game and Know Your Legal Terms Bingo).

For some years now here in the U.S. a debate has raged regarding depictions of violence and conflict in the media. Some would argue that the media glorify violence, positing it as the most effective and direct means of resolving conflict. And that in depictions of conflict by the media, conflict itself becomes the sole focus, with little meaningful analysis of the forces giving rise to conflict, no understanding of the underlying interests at its heart, and no chance to understand the different perspectives that exist among the parties to the conflict. Whether this is accurate or not I’ll leave for others to debate.

What I can say with certainty, however, is that while conflict no doubt sells newspapers and fills seats at the multiplex, conflict resolution just doesn’t seem to have the same panache. Let’s face it, no one makes movies about mediation. And no one has ever made an animated cartoon about mediation.

But that’s all changed, thanks to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The DVA has produced a cartoon short, The Three Little Pigs Go to Mediation. Don’t miss seeing the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf work out their differences with the help of the Wise Old Owl, an experienced mediator who uses the facilitative model.

Since January 2003, NPR station KUNM, 89.9 FM in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has been airing the radio series Peace Talks, which “investigates how people can make peace and pursue non-violent solutions to conflict—within themselves, their families and communities, and the world.”

Peace Talks airs on the last Friday of each month at 8:00 a.m. (MT). Its next program, Martin Luther King Junior’s Path to Nonviolence, the second part of a two-part program, will be airing on February 25, 2005.

This series has addressed topics and issues ranging from “Seeking Civility in Political Discourse” to “Preventing Bullying in Our Schools” to “Mediating Conflict in the Workplace”. A national series is currently in the development and fund-raising stage.

For information on upcoming programs, and for Real Audio links to previously aired programs, visit the Peace Talks web site.