The Association for Conflict Resolution's annual conference is next week. One of the sessions at the conference is titled, Harmony and Dissonance in the Conflict Field: A Facilitated Discussion on Professional Identity, Collaboration, and the Future of Our Field. If you are unable to atttend in person, the conversation will also be tweeted live. Please participate on twitter if you are available.

You can follow along on twitter by following #ADRFuture.

The session will be held Wednesday, October 8th from 8:45 - 12:00 Eastern time. 

The enterprise of helping people deal with conflict is essentially a collection of many different functions, professions, and professional organizations.  The diversity of our field of practice is a strength, but it also provides obstacles to forming a common vision and sense of identity.  We have not always been effective at collaborating on areas of common interest—or even having cross organizational dialogues about the challenges we face.  We are therefore organizing an open forum involving some leaders in our field from the past, the present, and the future to discuss:

• What we have learned about collaborating across our field—from both our mistakes and our successes
• What are the most important common challenges the conflict field faces and how can we address these
• What ongoing approaches to interorganizational and interdisciplinary cooperation would be useful and feasible
• What does all this say about our essential identity as a field

We plan this to be a focused, interactive, and useful discussion.  We hope you will join us.

Here is a preview of what will take place:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/acrprofessional/2014/07/24/acr-confere...