Far be it from me, a mediator, to encourage conflict, but this sounds like good, clean, wacky fun.

On Saturday, March 22, people will be gathering in cities all around the world (including my own, Boston, in Copley Square) to take part in a pillow fight in honor of International Pillow Fight Day. Instructions and rules of engagement are available for starting your own public pillow fight.

What are the benefits? According to the Pillow Fight Day web site,

people will make new friends, re-unite with old ones, meet future lovers, and revel in the blissful one-ness of a free, fun, social gathering.

And who knows? If this a sign of things to come, perhaps in the not-too-distant future there’ll be an International Food Fight Day. In anticipation, you can order yourself one of these spring-loaded catapult spoons.

(Photo credit: Gabriella Fabbri.)

(Hat tip to the Atlantic Review.)

In June 2006, I launched The World Directory of ADR Blogs at www.adrblogs.com as part of my ongoing effort to track and catalog the slowly growing number of blogs discussing dispute resolution, negotiation, and innovations in law and justice.

It’s a project that has put me in touch with dispute resolution professionals, scholars, and students around the globe and has shown me the many faces of negotiation and ADR across time zones and cultures.

Despite the fact that I created the World Directory to showcase ADR blogs and podcasts, oddly enough ADRblogs.com was not a blog itself but a regular web site. That was a shortcoming that I have at last remedied.

The World Directory of ADR Blogs is now at last a blog all its own, which has made for some much-needed improvements. It’s made it easier for me to update the site and manage all the categories that the listings are organized around. It also means that you can subscribe to its RSS feed or receive email notifications whenever a new site gets added.

The site now includes a search feature on all pages so that visitors can easily locate a listing, as well as a Google Translate My Page tool to make the site friendlier for visitors who speak languages other than English. In the left sidebar you’ll find a list of categories and countries, while in the right sidebar is a list of the 8 most recent additions.

Among those new additions are three blogs well worth reading — the memorably titled mediation meditations by New York attorney and commercial mediator Christian Herzeca, Civil Negotiation and Mediation (a blog that puts the “civil” back in “civil litigation), published by attorney and mediator Nancy Hudgins of California, and the excellent Negotiation Guru, by Jens Thang.

If you publish or know of a blog that should be added to the World Directory, please let me know. It’s a commercial-free site, and there is no cost to be listed. The Directory has information on submitting your blog and some simple submission guidelines.

I hope you’ll stop by the World Directory of ADR Blogs and take a look for yourself. You’ll find a popular feature I kept from the old site — the Reading Room where you can scan the headlines or read the content of the blogs listed at ADRblogs.com.

Enjoy!

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 best part of being webmaster of the World Directory of ADR Blogs has got to be the emails I get from people around the world contacting me to tell me about their web sites and the work that they do.

Here are some of the sites that I’ve been introduced to within the last few days.

The Peace and Collaborative Development Networking site was created by Dr. Craig Zelizer, a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Masters in Conflict Resolution within the Department of Government at Georgetown University. Craig describes this site as “a free professional networking site to encourage interaction between individuals and organizations worldwide involved in development, ADR, conflict resolution and related fields. Members are encouraged to dialogue and share resources. The site has blogs, forums, resources and much more.”

You’ll find three new blogs at the World Directory of ADR Blogs–along with a newly added country–Switzerland. They are:

CKA Mediation and Arbitration Services Blog. Recovering litigator Christopher Annunziata opines about all aspects of alternative dispute resolution, mediation, arbitration and recent developments in Georgia law and beyond. Expect to find topics to enlighten the practicing attorney and non-lawyer alike, as well as the occasional humorous story. (I’ve told Chris in a recent email exchange how friendly the ADR blogosphere is, so please be sure to visit Chris and say hi.)

The Peacebuilding Blog. A Geneva, Switzerland based electronic resource to support the work of the UN Peacebuilding Commission, showcasing relevant research and policy materials, news, critical analysis, events and employment related to peacebuilding, conflict management and resolution, worldwide.

The Geneva Peacebuilding Platform Blog. According to its web site, the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform’s “overarching objective is to contribute to international peace and security by building partnerships among and between governments, international organisations and NGOs on disarmament and arms control issues of common concern.” Its web site includes this blog.

Do you have a blog you’d like to tell my readers about? If you publish or know of a blog that should be added to the World Directory, please let me know. It’s a commercial-free site, and there is no cost to be listed. The Directory has information on submitting your blog and submission guidelines.

The Boston Globe reports today on the launch of wis.dm, one more in a long line of social networking web sites.

Wis.dm (tagline: “Question everything”) describes itself as “an online community where you ask questions to the wis.dm crowd and get back useful answers. It is for people who are looking for something more meaningful than they get from ‘popularity’ based social networks. It’s a place to engage around asking, sharing, growing and learning.”

And that’s the premise behind wis.dm. Members are invited to post questions intended to “Get answers. Inspire a discussion. Raise a debate.”

Which sounds fine in principle until you realize that members can only pose questions that can be answered by either yes or no.

Here’s my question: In a complex world filled with complex problems, are yes/no questions the kind of question we really want to be asking?

If the idea is to inspire a discussion, it’s not clear how far “yes” or “no” will get you. There’s no room for explanation, for nuance, for subtlety, for all the many shades of gray that life’s questions call for.

“Yes” or “no” produces no understanding. It’s the “Yes because…” or the “No, but…” that is so much more compelling.

I am continually astonished and delighted by the capacity of the Internet for creating conversations.

Another experiment in building community and conversation online is underway at Virtual Chautauqua, a web site offering an interactive community learning experience.

What is Virtual Chautauqua? This description from the web site explains:

Before Monday Night Football, before talk radio, before web surfing and chat rooms, there was Chautauqua.

At the turn of the century, there were more than 10,000 Chautauqua venues in small towns and rural areas across the United States. People gathered to enjoy the famous authors of the day, the best musical ensembles, and art exhibits usually available only in major cities. After a stimulating presentation, participants wandered back to their porches and living rooms to discuss, debate, and reflect on what they had experienced together. The Chautauqua movement was all about learning in community.

Today, there are only a handful of Chautauqua sites left to provide this unique opportunity to share a rich menu of cultural and educational activities. We can never replace the pleasure of sitting together on the grass and talking long into a summer night. But we can make a time and place for learning in community - even in lives lived on Internet time.

In The Virtual Chautauqua we’re bringing some of the best of this learning tradition online.

July’s program features Carol Metzker, author of Appreciative Intelligence: Seeing the Mighty Oak in the Acorn. Appreciative Intelligence, discussed on this blog back in May, is the ability to see the potential hidden inside of challenges and to reframe problems into possibilities.

To participate in this Chautaqua, which begins on July 15 and runs until the end of this month, you can register for free online. I’m planning on attending as much of the conversation as my schedule will permit, so I hope to see some of you there. For more information on how Virtual Chautauqua works, please visit the Virtual Chautauqua web site.

One of the best of the new conflict resolution blogs that have emerged this year is ICT for Peacebuilding, a blog based in Sri Lanka “exploring the use of technology for conflict transformation”.

Dispute resolution professionals eager to gain a glimpse into the future of the conflict resolution movement will want to follow this cutting-edge blog, particularly those seeking a global perspective.

Its author, Sanjana Hattotuwa, shares with his readers news of an extraordinary project: dropping knowledge, an international initiative for social change using the medium of the web to bring people around the globe together for what may be the world’s largest public conversation about important issues. From the dropping knowledge overview:

dropping knowledge is a global initiative to turn apathy into activity. By hosting an open conversation on the most pressing issues of our times, we will foster a worldwide exchange of viewpoints, ideas and people-powered solutions. However knowledge is defined, by dropping it freely to others, we all gain wisdom…

dropping knowledge is a way of asking and answering questions that respects other viewpoints and leads to a meaningful exchange. When you ask in order to understand, when you answer in order to share, you are already practicing dropping knowledge.

The dropping knowledge project includes a Table of Free Voices scheduled on September 9, 2006, in Berlin, for what will be a gathering of “scientists, social entrepreneurs, philosophers, writers, artists and activists from around the world…, renowned for their lasting creative, social or humanistic contribution” who will respond to 100 questions from the global public.

You can post your own question for these experts to answer or find other ways to support this large-scale public conversation project by visiting the dropping knowledge web site.

When it comes to solving problems, the internet can be a sure-fire (and inexpensive) way to reach out and access the collective wisdom of the web-surfing multitudes. Since Sliced Bread is one such experiment in tapping into the wisdom of crowds. It describes itself as “a national call for fresh, common sense ideas. A call for ideas that will strengthen our economy and improve the day-to-day lives of working men and women and their families.”

To commemorate Earth Day, which is celebrated tomorrow, Since Sliced Bread is seeking help finding and tagging ideas to conserve energy and promote the environment.

(By the way, in honor of Earth Day, take this quiz to determine your ecological footprint, courtesy of the Earth Day Network web site. And maybe you want to think about trading in that Hummer while you’re at it.)

Technorati tags: creativity, problem solving

For several years now I’ve served as a trainer in a nationwide dispute management and conflict resolution training program at Coca-Cola Enterprises, Coca-Cola’s bottling business. This ambitious program will train over 40,000 managers and employees at all levels of the company in mediation and conflict resolution skills.

I was therefore fascinated to learn through Neville Hobson’s blog about the efforts of the Coca-Cola Company to use blogging as a medium for its employees to share their views and give feedback on Coke’s “Manifesto for Growth“–its vision and mission, together with its values. Employees around the world will be invited to join the conversation.

Meanwhile, high-level executives of other companies, large and small, should ask themselves what they could be doing to get the conversation going with their own employees. After all, getting people talking can get people motivated.

(Via Kevin O’Keefe at Real Lawyers Have Blogs.)

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.)

Idealism is a quality that many people who work for or volunteer with nonprofits possess in abundance. And nonprofits can always use the help and support of dedicated volunteers and staff.

This is certainly true in the conflict resolution field. Newly trained mediators and experienced practitioners look for opportunities to put their idealism and dedication to use, and nonprofit dispute resolution organizations and community mediation programs can benefit from the energy that new employees, interns, and volunteers can bring.

But sometimes people and nonprofits need help finding each other.

And that’s where a web site like Idealist.org comes in. Idealist.org helps match up individuals with nonprofit organizations.

According to its mission statement, Idealist.org

…connects people, organizations and resources to help build a world where all people can live free and dignified lives…Our work is guided by the common desire of our members and supporters to find practical solutions to social and environmental problems, in a spirit of generosity and mutual respect.

Individuals can sign up at no cost with “My Idealist” to receive emails about volunteer opportunities, job postings, internships, or upcoming events that match their interests. The web site is fully searchable, making it user-friendly for visitors to Idealist.org. I tested the search feature by entering the word “mediation” and turned up with a listing of 135 organizations, 23 volunteer opportunities, 19 job postings, and 5 internships.

Nonprofits and community organizations can sign up for free with Idealist.org to post information about upcoming programs, projects, events, initiatives, volunteer or internship opportunities. For a $50 fee, nonprofits can list a job posting on the web site as well.

Idealist.org also provides versions of its web site for speakers of French and Spanish.

Additional resources include Tools for Nonprofits to help nonprofits make the most of Idealist.org, and a special section for teachers interested in helping students initiate volunteer projects within their schools.

For more information or to register, visit Idealist.org.

[Update: Unfortunately this online project has since folded. However, I leave the post as is, simply because it serves as an example of the suitability of the web as a tool for collaboration.]

Collaborative problem-solving is based on the notion that the collective wisdom of the group can yield ingeniously creative solutions to challenging dilemmas that individuals on their own have difficulty resolving. Mediation of course is one way to enable individuals and groups to team up together to solve problems. But there are other, equally creative ways to tap into that energy, and one web site seeks to do just that.

Gratitude.net offers people the opportunity to harness the power of collaborative problem-solving by creating a kind of reserve or pool of experience, wisdom, and insight. In the words of founder Tory Gattis, a social systems architect, the goal of Gratitude.net is to become “the ‘eBay’ of kindness, wisdom, and goodwill” by “matching people’s life challenges and advice offerings”. As Gattis explains, Gratitude.net is based on the following premise: What if the best solutions to life’s challenges could be drawn out of a large networked community and made available to all? Could that help accelerate people up the hierarchy and lead to a better world?

For further information on how to become a member of Gratitude.net, please visit the web site.