If you’re interested in the subject of diversity (and I don’t know anyone in the dispute resolution field who isn’t), visit Law Firm Diversity: A Rational Discussion, a new blog which launched earlier this month.

According to its author, Mister Thorne, Law Firm Diversity

…is intended to promote a rational discussion about what’s called the business case for diversity: the creativity and problem-solving ability of a group is a function of diversity.

Thorne asks, “Is there any rational justification for the claim, or is it hyperbole? And if it’s hype, why does most every Am Law 200 firm make the claim? Who’s in the audience for it?”

This blog, in addition to the usual “About This Blog” and “About Me” pages, also features an “About You” page which urges readers to join the conversation:

What I do know is this — in order for this blog to achieve the goal of being The Place for a rational discussion of law firm diversity, you need to participate. You need to share your thoughts and ideas. Go ahead and discuss a delicate topic of interest.And if you’re uncomfortable with the idea of being too closely associated with your own thoughts, feel free to post your comments anonymously.

Intrigued? You can participate here.

(Thanks to Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites for the link.)

Via my friend Colin Rule comes news of a new conflict resolution blog published by Sanjana Hattotuwa, ICT for Peacebuilding, created as a medium for exploring “the use of Information Communications Technology (ICT) and its possible uses in conflict transformation and peacebuilding.”

Sanjana’s work breaks revolutionary new ground. As he puts it,

ICT is often associated with e-commerce or e-govenrment. A couple of years ago, when I first proposed possible linkages between ICT and peacebuilding, there weren’t many who took me seriously.

That’s changed with time.

ICT4Peace, though as yet embryonic, is soon gaining currency as an important field that’s distinct from other related domains of ICT, such as governance.

I helped setup InfoShare to pursue some of the possibilities of using ICT for peace in Sri Lanka in 2003. The on-the-ground experience of using technology in support of an on-going peace process is one that was without historical precedence or parallel.

Using this experience, I conducted my research in Australia on Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), ICT and Peacebuilding. Throught my research, I explored ideas to bring together these seemingly diverse fields of theory and practice into a new spheres of collaboration.

At around this time, I was also introdoced [sic] to Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) - another interesting use of technology to resolve commercial disputes. My growing interest in ODR led me to push the boundaries of its theory and application - introducing it to the complex domains of ethno-political conflict and strategically envisioning future scenarios for ODR…

This blog is an attempt to cover issues on a regular basis that are of interest to me and a visionary and practitioner of ICT4Peace.

To view more of Sanjana’s research, visit his website.

Technorati tags: Blogging, conflict resolution, mediation, mediation blogs, online dispute resolution, technology

The internet, with its endless capacity for facilitating community and collaboration, has increasingly become a place of complex social interactions, where real-world transactions are negotiated through the medium of cyberspace and where virtual worlds emerge complete with laws, social norms, currencies, political structures, and economies.

But virtual worlds are more than just mere entertainment. They can serve as effective teaching tools as well.

Socialstudygames.com reports that the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy has announced finalists in their “Reinventing Public Diplomacy Through Games” Awards. Finalists as reported on the USC web site are:

Exchanging Cultures, a diplomatic game built inside “Second Life,” was created to facilitate the creating virtual communities and relationships based on the exchange of cultural items like: dances, art crafts, food receipts, architectural models, clothing, cultural routes and images of real original places for travelers and explorers.LINK.

Global Kids Island: Fostering Public Diplomacy Through Second Life Global Kids, Inc. envisioned a Public Diplomacy program within Second Life where the youth in the after-school program will spend the month learning about a global issue, experience an interactive and experiential workshop designed to educate about the issue. Their demonstration will be shown at the awards ceremony. For more information on the organization: LINK

Hydro Hijinks is a class project designed to promote discussion about international water issues and to educate players from around the world about sources of international conflict over water rights. Watch the video tour of the game at: LINK

Peacemaker is a cross-cultural political video game simulation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which can be used to promote a peaceful resolution among Israelis, Palestinians and young adults worldwide. More information, please visit their website: LINK

Winners will be announced at a ceremony on May 8.

USC is currently involved itself in a Public Diplomacy and Virtual Worlds project designed to “explore how virtual worlds can be used as effective tools to bridge cultural gaps, to foster new ways to resolve conflict, and to learn and teach new skills in dealing with each other to build a better world.”

In addition to these projects, the gang at odr.info recently reported on the outstanding efforts of one inventive team of peer mediation educators, Jennifer Nieto and Peggy Ward, to utilize Second Life, a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (a virtual world in which numerous participants can interact simultaneously), as a tool for enabling high school students to role play in mediation simulations and practice mediation skills in a non-threatening virtual environment. (I was totally psyched to discover a link to Online Guide to Mediation on their site, for which I am most grateful.)

Technorati tags: peer mediation, virtual worlds, Culture and Society, Internet, online dispute resolution, conflict resolution

My alma mater, Suffolk University Law School in Boston, is hosting a group of visiting mediators and mediation program administrators from Bulgaria who are here on a twelve-day study tour under the sponsorship of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

This tour furthers the efforts of USAID’s Commercial Law Reform Program (CLRP) to promote access to and use of mediation to alleviate the strain on Bulgarian’s underfunded and overburdened judiciary (a problem which will have the ring of familiarity to American jurists). CLRP has worked closely with Bulgaria to help it develop its capacity to provide court-connected mediation services. A legal framework supporting mediation is in place, which includes a Mediation Act enacted in December 2004, comprehensive procedural and ethical rules of conduct for mediators, and mediation training standards.

In addition, last year the 110-year-old Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) with the support of USAID opened a Commercial Mediation Center in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, with the goal of promoting the use of mediation as a time- and cost-saving measure.

This study tour was developed by and is under the supervision of Gabrielle Gropman, a mediator with over two decades of experience, who served as the administrator of the Harvard Mediation Program at Harvard Law School for 20 years and who possesses substantial experience as a trainer in both the U.S. and Europe.

Chief trainer is my friend and colleague Ericka Gray, who, among her many achievements, served as the founding Executive Director of the Middlesex Multi-Door Courthouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and later as the Executive Director of the Academy of Family Mediators, one of the organizations which later became the Association for Conflict Resolution, before founding her dispute resolution firm DisputEd in 1998.

Participation in this study tour is designed to provide participants with advanced commercial mediation skills and techniques, strategies for the successful administration and financial operation of commercial mediation programs, techniques for training commercial mediators, and the opportunity to establish ties with mediators and mediation service providers here in the U.S.

For two days this week I was privileged to join the study tour as Ericka’s co-trainer teaching these distinguished visitors from Bulgaria advanced commercial mediation skills. Vastly knowledgeable about mediation, deeply committed to its precepts, and rooted squarely in its theory and practice, they had much to teach us as well.

The impression that has remained with me today as I reflect on my time with these extraordinary individuals is the degree to which mediation has become a universal language, an idiom that all of us who are mediators speak and share.

For more information on mediation in Bulgaria, visit the web site for the Mediation Center at the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Technorati tags: mediation, Culture and Society

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.

One of the greatest rewards of blogging has been the opportunity to meet alternative dispute resolution practitioners from all over the world. And it’s affirming to learn that no matter what latitude we inhabit, we all seem to share a common tongue–the lingua franca of conflict resolvers everywhere. And the differences of course only keep things interesting.

There is much we can all learn from each other with the internet as facilitator for our conversations together. I am therefore honored and pleased to be able to bring to you today a conversation with a respected leader in the mediation field–Ewan Malcolm, Director of the pioneering Scottish Mediation Network based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Ewan guides us through Scotland’s mediation landscape, offering those of us who live elsewhere in the world a unique and in-depth look into the heart and soul of mediation practice there.

Please click here to read my conversation with Ewan. (And with deepest gratitude to Ewan for his generosity and kindness in taking time to share his perspectives and experience with my readers.)

I’ve posted several times on the relevance of culture and cultural awareness to effective negotiation and conflict resolution (here and here), as well as, more recently, on the importance of both cultural and geographic literacy in an increasingly connected, economically interdependent world.

George Lenard, who founded and co-authors one of my favorite blogs and online employment law resources, George’s Employment Blawg, recently published a great post on “Another Aspect of Diversity: Cross-Cultural Awareness” with a link to a web site on international business etiquette with pointers to help the business traveler (and international negotiator) avoid social and communication blunders while abroad.

I really miss my friend Ashok Panikkar, who left Boston earlier this year to return to his native Bangalore to launch Meta-Culture, an ambitiously innovative and rapidly growing conflict resolution center.

Besides being a very dear friend, Ashok was for me a kind of 21st century de Tocqueville, a keen but affectionate observer of American political institutions and social mores.

One aspect of American culture that Ashok found especially curious (me, too, for that matter) is the schizophrenic way in which Americans construe the notion of privacy. On the one hand, we Americans insist that privacy is paramount, particularly in the home (which is, as everyone here knows, a man’s castle).

We place great value on our right to be free from governmental intrusion, and we insist that our medical histories, our video rental habits, our reproductive choices, and our handgun purchases are no one’s business but our own.

Yet we think nothing of using our cellphones to describe in the most intimate details—in public and at top volume in the presence of total strangers—our digestive ailments, in-law problems, and sexual escapades. We are also desperately eager to bare our souls and personal failings on reality television programs and talk shows. (I hasten to reassure my readers that I have personally not done any of those things. Yet.) The distinction between the private and public self has grown increasingly blurred.

“Public” versus “private” matters a lot to mediators: Those words can be said to define the line that separates alternative dispute resolution on the one hand from litigation on the other.

Litigation is a fully public activity—which to some measure is what makes it such effective leverage for settlement, particularly for swaying defendants who may be eager to avoid the embarrassing revelations discovery and trial could yield.

Mediation, on the other hand, by definition is confidential, a process unfolding privately behind closed doors. Privacy is what makes mediation eminently suitable for fruitful settlement discussions. Arbitration as well provides a private adjudication and resolution of issues.

One would suppose that privacy is a universal constant which all of us, regardless of which corner of the globe we occupy, value—and value similarly. It might therefore be easy to presume that all of us, particularly here in the West, recognize the concept of privacy as a means of honoring personal dignity and the inviolability of the integrity of the self.

As it turns out, defining privacy is not so easy—even among culturally similar societies: an enormous gulf in fact exists between American and European understandings of privacy. European traditions regarding privacy focus primarily upon the protection of personal dignity and honor; while Americans, on the other hand, often understand privacy to mean the sanctity of the home against intrusion by the state.

Yale Law School Professor James Q. Whitman illuminates and explores these differences, along with the legal, political and social traditions which explain and gave rise to them, in “The Two Western Cultures of Privacy: Dignity versus Liberty” (downloadable here in PDF).

Simultaneously serious scholarship and entertaining romp, this article takes readers from the public latrines of Ephesus (a phrase I never thought I’d ever find myself typing) to the scandals of the 19th century Parisian art scene to modern-day Washington and Monica Lewinsky. This is a fun and highly stimulating read.

It is now axiomatic that the world has become in many ways a smaller place. Technological advances, the Internet, the ease of intercontinental travel, the rapid dissemination of information and culture through media, and global economic interdependence have all worked to bind us more closely together.

Cultural awareness is critical—whether we are international negotiators or simply tourists. But it’s not just cultural literacy that matters in a multicultural world. To become responsible global citizens, we need to be geographically literate.

Geography is the starting point for our understanding of the world around us. Through geography we can make sense of the impact of current events that affect the international community. Geography, too, helps us map the landscape of conflict. Disputes over resources and borders, political instability, terrorism, climate change, natural disasters—these have international repercussions. Whether it’s violence in the Middle East or the latest outbreak of avian flu, geographic literacy matters.

Speaking of geography, there’s ample evidence that here in the U.S., Americans may be geographically challenged. There’s the infamous 2002 National Geographic survey revealing how lamentably little young Americans know of world geography: 11 percent of American responding to the survey couldn’t even place the U.S. on a world map, and fewer than 15 percent could locate Iraq or Israel.

(However, just to put this all in perspective, the survey revealed that geographic illiteracy is a worldwide phenomenon. Although Americans scored second from the bottom in final survey scores, respondents struggled overall with many of the survey questions.) To take the test yourself, click here.

Although Americans’ grasp of geography may be shaky, there’s always the chance for us to redeem ourselves by testing ourselves on our knowledge of U.S. geography. Click here for a drop-and-drag test on your knowledge of the geographical location of the 50 states on a map of the U.S. (Thanks to sharp-eyed Bob Kraft and his law blog P.I.S.S.D. [Personal Injury, Social Security Disability] for that link.)

Looking beyond to the world at large, visit NationMaster.com, an incredible resource for statistical comparisons of data compiled on the nations of the world. You can take a look at top statistics (which nations are the richest? most corrupt? most trigger-happy?) or search categories ranging from agriculture to energy to lifestyle to education.

You can also broaden your horizons with GeographyIQ.com, which provides facts and figures on every country on the planet through an interactive world map. It even has a currency converter for those of you making international travel plans.

Curious to know what time it is anywhere in the world? Before you pick up the phone in Vancouver to call your old college roommate in Nairobi, visit WorldTimeServer.com.

Finally, if you want to test your cultural literacy instead of your geographic literacy, try your hand at these cultural awareness tests (answers here—but no peeking). And Bill Warters at Campus-ADR Tech Blog has a cool link to this quiz on cross-cultural negotiation.

The ability to follow links is one of those things that make surfing the Internet so addictive. Links also bring you about as close as you can come to the experience of infinity. A friend sends you an email with a link to a blog. That blog has a link to a web site, which contains a link to yet another blog, which leads to another blog, which leads to another web site….and so on, ad infinitum. (At least in theory. In reality there are, alas, more important things that reclaim our attention—like working and earning money.)

It’s that connectedness that intrigues many of us about the Internet. The Internet of course creates connectedness not just among web sites but among people as well. Through its facilitation of communication and community, it knits us together. In that sense it is the ultimate mediator.

With the values of community and connectedness in mind, I offer you three web sites which promote those ends:

The World Citizen’s Guide was initiated by Businesses for Diplomatic Action, Inc. (”BDA”). Recognizing that world opinion of Americans has grown increasingly negative in recent years, BDA sought ways to stem this rising tide of anti-American sentiment. Each year some 170,000 American college students travel abroad. Seeing the possibility that each one of these students could in theory be an ambassador for America, with the potential of restoring good will towards the U.S. by countering harmful stereotypes, BDA set into motion the project that would ultimately produce the World Citizen’s Guide, a manual for students with tips and ideas on how to be good citizens of the world while traveling abroad. (For an interesting perspective, click on the tab on the web site marked “100 People” for a breakdown of what the world’s population would look like if the planet held only 100 human beings.) World Citizen’s Guide is available for downloading in PDF format.

Tolerance.org, an award-winning web project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, aims to fight bigotry, promote tolerance, and build communities in which diversity is valued. It offers resources and links to teachers, parents, kids, and teens. (You can test yourself for your own hidden biases by following the link on the Tolerance.org web site to Project Implicit, an instrument which measures unconscious bias.)

Finally, there’s Global Voices Online, a global citizens’ media project, with the motto “The world is talking. Are you ready to listen?” There are conversations going on around the world on grassroots levels as private citizens blog or podcast, or participate in wikis, or engage in synchronous or asynchronous online discussions. There are parts of the world, too, where these conversations never begin because of lack of access to technology. Sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, Global Voices Online seeks to build bridges that span technological, geographical and linguistic divides through the dissemination of open-source tools and technology that will enable individuals and conversations around the world to connect with each other. Bloggers of the world, unite.

Those of us in the ADR field here in North America are familiar with the story of the orange, which is used in probably hundreds of mediation trainings each year to illustrate the theory behind facilitative, interest-based negotiation and mediation. (For those of you not acquainted with this oft-told tale, please click here to learn more.)

Although the orange story is frankly getting a little dog-earred and shabby from the constant retelling, it remains a useful tool for helping students understand the theory behind interested-based negotiation and mediation. It’s a great way to get the point across, and it’s a story which even little kids can easily grasp.

Which leads me to my friend Ashok Panikkar. Ashok is a highly creative dispute resolution professional with an entrepreneurial flair who resided and worked here in the U.S. for ten years. He recently returned to his native India with plans to start a conflict resolution firm with an international focus.

Back in Bangalore, Ashok’s first project was to design and conduct a training session on conflict resolution skills for law enforcement officers as part of a human rights conference. Wanting to use the orange story but realizing that an orange would not have the same cultural resonance in India that it does here in the U.S., Ashok elected to tell the story by substituting a coconut for the orange—and in doing so succeeded in reaching his audience through a more culturally accessible metaphor.

In today’s world, you have to have that kind of flexibility and understanding. After all, with 20th and 21st century advances in transportation and technology, the widespread availability of Internet and telephone, and the instantaneous transmission of information and ideas through television and the Web, the world has diminished rapidly in size. I can call Ashok on his cellphone in Bangalore, email another pal in Sydney, and hop on a plane and be at my mother-in-law’s flat in Winchester, England, in seven hours—a journey that used to take many long and grueling months to complete.

And despite the fact that this planet of ours seems to be rapidly shrinking, the world remains wondrously and spectacularly diverse. We speak different languages, dress differently, observe different rules of etiquette, eat different foods, worship differently, have differently constituted political systems, engage in different courtship and marriage rituals, and are rabidly fanatical about different sports (if you don’t believe me, just ask a Briton, an Australian, and an American to each define “football”—and then ask whose version is better). It’s what makes international travel so much fun.

Multiculturalism and understanding of cultural differences are not only a source of fascination for world and armchair travelers alike, but they are a serious subject, too, for anyone who is interested in negotiating, mediating, or resolving conflict in international or multicultural settings. After all, the orange story may play well in Peoria, but it may not go over so well in Bangalore or Tashkent.

The following are some web sites and articles on the Internet which explore the relevance of multiculturalism and international perspectives to conflict resolution and negotiation.

The web sites are:

Interneg. The InterNeg site, based in Canada, describes itself as “a virtual organization bringing together people, studies, services, systems and information concerned with decision making and negotiations. It is also a source of, and repository for, negotiation-related resources comprehensively covering topics in negotiation and negotiation support in the international arena.”

The Culture of Peace News Network (CPNN). According to its web site, CPNN is a “global network of interactive Internet sites in many languages for information exchange on events and media productions that promote a culture of peace. It is a project of the United Nations International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for Children of the World coordinated by UNESCO.” Visitors can submit papers relating to the advancement of peace and participate in moderated discussions about other papers. There are also satellite CPNN sites located around the world, which CPNN provides links for.

WWW Virtual Library, in its section on Peace, Conflict Resolution, and International Security, contains numerous links to web sites focusing on international conflict resolution and related topics. (Just ignore the Itchy and Scratchy animation that appears at the top of the page.)

Some articles of interest are:

Culture-Based Negotiation Styles, by Michelle LeBaron from the BeyondIntractability.org web site. This well-written article by an important contributor to the dispute resolution field examines cultural approaches to and differences in negotiating.

How to Negotiate “Yes” Across Cultural Boundaries, by Professor James K. Sebenius, Harvard Business School, from the Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge electronic newsletter. This excerpted article examines the ways in which cultural influences can impact the outcome of a negotiation.

The Cultural Vacuum in Online Dispute Resolution by Sharanya Rao, Associate Director of Programs, Envision EMI Inc. This article “addresses the issue of the extent to which [online dispute resolution] sufficiently accommodates for and facilitates cultural issues between parties.”

Cultural Issues in Mediation: A Practical Guide to Individualist and Collective Paradigms, by Walter Wright of the Association of Attorney Mediators, looks at two distinctly different approaches to negotiation.

Finally, for a list of other web-based articles and resources dealing with culture and negotiation, be sure to visit CRInfo.org, which is always one of the best sources for information and materials on conflict resolution.

The Sri Lankan Daily News reports that the Legal Aid Commission in Sri Lanka has requested that a special mediation law be extended to cover all tsunami-related disputes that will inevitably rise in the aftermath of December’s disaster. The goal here is to ensure that indigent victims would have a speedy and affordable means of obtaining redress for their losses. Mediation is certainly an effective way to accomplish such a goal, particularly in light of the fact that there will undoubtedly be numerous claims and disputes resulting from the resettlement and reconstruction process.

Although mediation has exploded in popularity here in the U.S. over the last several decades, mediation itself possesses a history that is centuries old. It has been practiced since ancient times in China, Rome, Greece, and Africa and other places around the world. In the early days of this country native American traditions included mediation and conciliation to preserve relationships and promote harmony, and Puritans, and later on, the Quakers, utilized forms of mediation to address disputes within their communities.

Mediation is woven deeply into the traditions of many cultures. For an interesting example of mediation within a cultural context, read the article in a recent issue of The Green Bay Press-Gazette about the use of traditional methods of resolving disputes by the Hmong in Wisconsin.