I will continue this blog post as time permits.... but I just wanted to report how much insight and pleasure I am getting from reading Bernie Mayer's "Beyond Neutrality". Besides being fascinating, it is also frightening, enlightening, and reassuring because I am an original thinker and I was starting to think that we would all have to go the route of the Neutral Third Party Zombie style of Conflict Engagement. (Note the correction from Conflict Resolution to Conflict Engagement.)

I…

JAMS Foundation Awards Nearly $125,000 in New Grants

November 16, 2011

Irvine, Calif. – The nonprofit JAMS Foundation announced that it approved eight new grants to organizations using innovative ways to promote and advance conflict prevention and dispute resolution. The foundation will distribute the money in the form of Foundation Grants, which provide financial support up to $50,000 for ADR initiatives with national impact, and Opportunity…

Folks, enjoy my very first guest blogger, mediation visionary Raymond Shonholtz, founder of Partners for Democratic Change and Community Boards.  Ray based this post on…

Book Notes…

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(Originally posted at Absolution Mediation)

That's right, you have the necessary skills to deal with all the conflict in your life.  Sure there are new skills that you can acquire, you can always build on your foundational skills.  In order to deal with the majority of conflict in your life however, you have the skills to deal with it.  That's not saying that…

Episode #28

Cinnie Noble & Conflict Management Coaching

Join host Jeff Thompson and Cinnie Noble, professional conflict coach and author as she discusses her new book …

Below is my newest article on semiotics and nonverbal communication.  Of course the 'spin' from the mediation and the conflict resolution perspective is, in order to be effective at helping and guiding parties who are involved in conflicts and disputes, we must be cognitive of all the elements that exist.  

Using, for example the wheel (or circle) of conflict helps you as the…

I just returned from San Diego, where I spent most of last week at the annual convention of the Association for Dispute Resolution (ACR), a leading international group of arbitrators, mediators (commercial, family, community, etc), and peacemakers of all stripes. During the convention, I attended the Advanced Commercial Mediation Institute (ACMI), which was co-chaired by Jerome Allan Landau and Lee Jay Berman, two nationally renowned mediators who've…

As I enter September, I feel as though a series of enormous weights has finally been lifted from my back; I hope that I've come to the end of my annus horribilus.  

My sorry tale began in late January of this year when I developed my customary winter cough.  I say customary, since, being asthmatic, I seem to contract a bone shaking cough almost every winter.  Past experience had taught me that my doctor would, at best, give me an antibiotic, and, in truth, the cough would just…

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Crucial Conversations exist when the stakes are high, opinions vary, and when emotions run strong and it is in these conversations where our greatest potential lies, we will discuss ways to handle these conversations in a healthy and productive way. Crucial Conversations creates a new language around communications and how they can best be handled. It approaches the issue in a very human way that stimulates our…

I recently joined the board of trustees of the envisioned New York City Peace Museum, alongside amazing folks such as UN Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury.  New York can be a tough town, but we know from peace.  We have to, what with literally living on top of each other, our insanely…

Free Online Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Simulation

Put your students into the muddy shoes of an OWS member, or the polished wingtips of a Banker, or those President Obama, or any one of the other various players, and let them negotiate out a solution to the problems that the United States faces.

For more information on this, please visit our…

IOA has announced its first-ever webinar series. The four-part program will focus on bullying in the workplace and builds on a recent edition of the Journal of IOA that focused on the topic of bullying. Expert speakers come from several disciplines and organizations, and each of the programs qualify for Certified Organizational Ombudsman Practitioner continuing education hours.…

More than 100 attendees at Cyberweek 2011 from Canada, China and the USA participated in a Smartsettle One competition in which they played either Buyer or Seller in a simulated negotiation of an item originally offered for $100. Most of the players qualified for scoring by successfully completing at least two…

JAMS, the largest private provider of mediation and arbitration services worldwide, today announced the addition of Hon. Lawrence R. Leavitt (Ret.) to its panel. Judge Leavitt will be based in the JAMS Las Vegas Resolution Center. He will serve as an arbitrator, mediator and special master for disputes in a variety of areas including Business/Commercial, Employment and Intellectual Property.

Judge Leavitt served nearly 25 years on the federal bench. He has vast experience…

Originally published in dialogicmediation.com on October 31, 2011:

John Peter Weldon is a Quebec-based Certified Transformative Mediator™, lawyer, and trainer for the Continuing Legal Education Service of the Quebec Bar (Le Barreau du Québec).  He recently announced the creation of the Réseau pour une approche…