The internet always astounds me for the richness and diversity of the resources it makes available to anyone with the time and the curiosity to discover them.

Consider my latest web find: Social Innovation Conversations. Its motto proclaims its mission: “reinventing the world together one conversation at a time”.

Described as “an open and collaborative online platform for cross-sector and multidisciplinary learning for social change”, Social Innovation Conversations was launched to achieve an ambitious and inspiring goal:

From the pandemic of AIDS, to challenges posed by climate change, to substance abuse and global poverty, our world is faced with increasingly complex and pressing social and environmental challenges. While knowledge, tools, and technologies to develop innovative solutions exist, channels are still needed to reach the people who could use and apply them to social problems.

Social Innovation Conversations’ mission is to expand the reach of important and valuable knowledge to people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to it by recording and sharing the spoken words of thought leaders in all sectors and disciplines and offering listeners a multi-stakeholder perspective on the world grand challenges and social issues.

Teachers and students of negotiation will want to tune in to a recent podcast: “Myths and Truths About Negotiation“, a lecture by Margaret Neale, Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. The five negotiation myths that are in for busting are:

1. Making the first offer is risky
2. Perceptions about dividing the pie
3. Honesty is the best policy
4. Emotions at the negotiation table are your enemy
5. I had no choice so I said yes

There is other knowledge worth exploring at Social Innovation Conversations — as you will discover for yourself.

Dear friends,

Last night the unthinkable happened: someone hacked my blog, vandalizing my database. Needless to say, this has been very upsetting. I feel sad, and yes, really, really pissed off that someone would target my blog this way, particularly when my work — conflict resolution — is involved in trying to make the world a nicer place to be.

I had thought I had taken the appropriate precautions, but it turns out that the newest version of Wordpress I upgraded to over the weekend may have a vulnerability that someone was able to exploit. Please take care, fellow bloggers.

In the meantime, please bear with me as I try to recover the site and all my hard work over three years.

Help and moral support would be gratefully accepted.

Thanks, friends,

Diane

Welcome to MediationChannel.com — the new home and the new name for Online Guide to Mediation.

I’m still in the process of unpacking, so expect to see the look of this blog change over the next several weeks as I make the transition from Blogger to Wordpress. I was able to import all of my posts from Online Guide to Mediation’s old home, and I’m in the process of organizing those posts into new categories, which will make it easier for readers like you to find what you’re looking for.  Look for other improvements as well.

While I settle in, posting of course will continue, beginning with my series for the first week of January, “New Year (Dispute) Resolutions”.

Thanks for stopping by, and happy New Year!

Here’s a list of the blogs I’m currently reading:

I’d be happy to hear from you. Here are some ways to get in touch with me:

email: mail@mediationchannel.com

phone:
781.631.3990 (International Country Code 1)

skype:
dianejlevin

snail mail:
MediationChannel.com, P.O. Box 421, Marblehead, MA 01945-0421, USA

The tireless editor of Blawg Review, the weekly review of legal blogging, is hosting both Blawg Review #120 and the 3rd Carnival of Trust.

The Carnival of Trust is a monthly blog carnival featuring ten posts related to trust–a subject near and dear to the hearts of lawyers and mediators alike. Among the posts featured in the 3rd Carnival of Trust are “Creating a Foundation of Trust” and the sobering “Workplace Violence: Be Careful Out There“.

You don’t want to miss either of these special editions of Blawg Review–trust me on that.

Thank you to those of you who either posted comments or emailed me following “Requiem for a friend“, in which I wrote about loss, friendship, and the importance of staying connected with the people who touch our lives. This post evidently touched a responsive chord in many of you.

I am so grateful to you for reaching out.

Best wishes to you all–with deepest appreciation–
Diane

Legendary film star Marlene Dietrich once said, “It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.”

Phil was that kind of friend.

Any time of the day or night, he’d be there. He was there during life’s bleakest moments — through devastating illness, the end of my first marriage. And he shared the joy of important milestones–two weddings, the birth of my son, law school graduation, the launch of a new business. He was generous, dependable, and unfailingly kind. He was also a tough pragmatist who wasn’t afraid to give honest advice. And he was one of the funniest people I’ve ever met, a skilled storyteller whose jokes would leave me doubled over with helpless laughter, slapping my knees and gasping for breath.

Somehow, over the last few years, we got together less frequently. Work and family bring their own demands, and friendship went on hold. And his own life took a dark detour, leading him to places that those who loved him could not follow.

But almost three decades of friendship exert a powerful pull. Over the last few months I thought of him often and resolved to call him–always tomorrow, always tomorrow.

But I waited too long.

Last Friday I got the call. Three words changed everything: “Phil is dead.”

So please don’t wait until tomorrow to say, “I’m sorry”.

Or “Thanks for everything.”

Or “I love you.”

Unless you want to say those words, as I did last night, in a eulogy for the dead.

Raising criticisms or concerns can often be a heroic act, even within a group whose members know each other well (a reality familiar to anyone who has tried to offer constructive feedback to a sensitive family member or friend.) Pity then the group’s newcomer, who can expect even brilliant suggestions to meet harsh resistance.

So how to counter that resistance? What’s a newcomer to do to gain greater influence in a group?

The Situationist reports on a newly published study that has some recommendations for newcomers seeking to gain acceptance of ideas:

When they criticized their current group, newcomers who distanced themselves from their previous group won over more agreement for their criticisms than did newcomers who embraced their previous group. This effect emerged regardless of how long participants themselves had been members of the group. Consistent with predictions, where there was a positive effect of distancing from the old group, it came about because the distancing strategy was successful in increasing perceptions that the critic was psychologically attached to his or her current group identity.

The report can be downloaded for a brief time only in PDF. Link good at time of posting.

Canadian psychologists have found that when people are primed with religious concepts they behave in more altruistic ways.

Secular humanists need not fear–the same results were produced when participants were instead primed with concepts relating to civic responsibility. Researchers used word games to surreptitiously introduce these concepts to their subjects. Interestingly enough, exit interviews revealed that participants were unaware that they had been primed.

What I find fascinating about the study is the extent to which human behavior can be so readily influenced. And it certainly raises intriguing possibilities for the mediator’s opening statement, already important for the extent to which it can shape the negotiations to follow, as attorney-mediator Christopher Annunziata discussed recently at CKA Mediation & Arbitration Blog. All the more reason for mediators to carefully consider the words they choose to frame the conversation.

(Via Boing Boing.)

They say that honesty is the best policy.

But given the lengths to which people will go to avoid confrontation or tough conversations, honesty may be the first casualty in human interaction.

Besides, is lying really always wrong? What if it serves noble ends? Isn’t deception just a social lubricant, allowing us to get along? Shouldn’t we lie to prevent harm to another? If lying is always wrong, then are studies in human behavior ethically indefensible? What about undercover police work? Or the bluffing, puffery, and lowballing that can characterize negotiations? (And let’s not even get started on deception in mediation.) Despite what we tell our children about lies, deception may be indispensable.

But a movement known as Radical Honesty proposes instead that the truth will set us free: it calls for no-holds-barred, “direct, open and honest conversation” as the best way to build meaningful relationships.

Journalist A.J. Jacobs recently took up the challenge. In “I Think You’re Fat“, an article from the July issue of Esquire, he describes his experiment in Radical Honesty and its impact on his work and personal life. Jacobs discovers one upside: “One of the best parts of Radical Honesty is that I’m saving a whole lot of time. It’s a cut-to-the-chase way to live.” The downside? Radical Honesty can be downright cruel. An acquaintance recovering from a recent tragic loss seeks Jacobs’ professional advice on poetry he’s written. Jacobs cannot bring himself to tell the truth: the poetry stinks. When faced with a choice between honesty or compassion, Jacobs opts for compassion.

Read Jacobs’ essay and ask yourself what choices you might make yourself. It’ll leave you thinking–and that’s no lie.

Four blogs have now joined the steadily growing inventory of the World Directory of ADR Blogs. They are:

better than misery. Written by a student studying mediation and living in Jerusalem, this blog, a kind of virtual notebook reflecting the thoughts of a mediator-to-be, is the Directory’s first from Israel.

LIMAMARC.REVISTA. Published by the LIMAMARC Center for Conflict Resolution in Lima, Peru, this alternative dispute resolution blog discusses negotiation, mediation, conciliation, and arbitration.

Conflictologos. Published in Valparaiso, Chile, by attorney and dispute resolution professional Juan Enrique Egaña G., Conflictologos examines social and organizational conflict.

Brains on Purpose™. Published by my friend Stephanie West Allen, JD, who has already gained a reputation for blogging excellence with Idealawg, in collaboration with Jeffrey M. Schwartz, MD, Brains on Purpose™ covers the crossroads of neuroscience and conflict resolution.

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.

Today marks the first anniversary of the World Directory of Alternative Dispute Resolution Blogs, a directory that tracks and catalogues ADR blogs world-wide. It grew out of a project that I began during my first year of blogging in 2005, when I conducted my first census of ADR blogs and learned that there were only a few of us blogging about mediation, negotiation, or conflict resolution.

Today the World Directory lists 104 blogs from 17 different countries.

I continue to look for ways to add to my inventory. If you publish or know of a blog that should be added, please let me know. It’s a commercial-free site, and there is no cost to be listed.

I am especially interested in leads on ADR blogs outside the U.S. and Canada. If you know of any, I hope you’ll get in touch. The Directory has information on submitting your blog and submission guidelines.

Many thanks to the bloggers who got in touch with me from all over the world to tell me about their blogs and their work in the legal or ADR fields. And my gratitude to the friends who have supported this project, whose names are listed at the World Directory’s web site.

Two blogging attorneys, both inventive, smart, and insightful, have each announced the launch of new blogs:

Stephanie West Allen, best known for her work on Idealawg, a blog that reveals the artistry within the practice of law, has devised a new outlet for her creativity–Brains on Purpose, which will traverse the intersection between neuroscience and conflict resolution. She will be joined by research psychiatrist Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D. Knowing the thought-provoking content of Idealawg, I will look forward to discovering the fresh ideas that Stephanie and Jeffrey will be bringing their readers.

Meanwhile, Victoria Pynchon, who publishes Settle It Now Negotiation Blog, announces both a new blog and a new focus to her work as an ADR professional. She has joined forces with patent and antitrust arbitrator and mediator Les Weinstein; IP litigator and mediator, Michael Young; and international commercial and IP arbitrator and mediator, Eric Van Ginkel, to launch the IP ADR Blog, an intellectual property blog that examines the cutting edge of technological, commercial, and legal issues, from the perspective of seasoned dispute resolution professionals. This is a blog that likewise I will be following closely.

My best wishes to my friends Stephanie and Vickie–congratulations to you both!

Jeff Aresty, president of InternetBar.org, has asked me to pass along some important news. From Jeff’s press release:

The competition is designed to encourage ideas and interaction around the problem of creating a trusted online environment, which is one of the biggest issues in creating a useful online dispute resolution community. The contest is open to a wide range of students and recent graduates from a number of disciplines (this is NOT a law school-limited competition) and will run from now through July of this year. All of the particulars are included in the attached document.

The contest will run in three phases. The first is an online discussion open to all, wherein the contestants will engage in an online dialogue regarding trusted online communities. After the first round of discussions, the judges will select a smaller number of contestants to continue the discussion in a more focused manner, and then in early July the judges will pick up to 15 contestants to write a paper about the discussion and their notions of how to create a trusted online community. From the submitted papers, the judges will pick one as the grand prize winner, and that person will become the recorder for the December meeting of the International Online Dispute Resolution Group Forum in Hong Kong. All expenses to the conference will be paid for the grand prize winner.

For more information on the contest and to register, visit InternetBarContest.org. Registration for the discussion closes on May 15, 2007. And please help Jeff by passing this along!