The professional association for Organizational Ombuds has announced the details of its 2013 writing competition.  Anyone who has not worked as an Ombuds is eligible to enter and topics may anything relevant to the Organizational Ombuds profession. The author of the winning article will receive a cash prize of $1,500 and will be invited to the IOA Annual Conference in April 2014 to receive the award. The winning article may also be published in the Journal of the IOA.



The format has…

Some research on the expression “mending fences” indicates that the derivation is from the proverb “Good fences make good neighbours”. It is apparently listed by the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations as a mid-17th century idiom. My source states that Robert Frost gave the proverb a boost in his 1914 poem “Mending Walls” when he used the above expression to essentially mean rebuilding previously good relationships. There was a slight…

Virtual Mediation Lab (VML) helps mediators practice their craft.  I recently had the pleasure of conducting a mediation by Skype with the help of Giuseppe Leone and his VML.   You can read about it and see the video here.

This piece started out as a Facebook status, trying to explain the Israeli elections to interested folks-at-a-distance. There is a "you had to be there" quality to really understanding the outcomes of the election - as there usually is;  Israeli politics might seem to be one thing on the outside, but rarely deliver those goods in practice.

Given that I've already blogged on that point before (…

The Texas Conflict Coach® Blog Talk Radio program announces “Your Brain on Conflict” Series starting in the month of February, held every Tuesday night from 7:00-7:30 pm CST/8:00-8:30 pm EST.

To participate, either go to the designated link for each program or call-in

live at 347-324-3591.

February 5th:   Your Brain on Conflict: “Resistance is Fertile”

                          Guest:  Scott Rogers…

 Playing to learn?

Noam Ebner- Simulation-games? Not as simple as you thought. If you teach mediation, negotiation or other related topics, you’re going to want to read this.…

It was very interesting to see Edinburgh, Scotland is trying to market itself as the global location for people to visit to resolve their conflicts.  Sure, one might think of New York City, Paris, or Geneva, but why not?

from the article:

KEY players from opposing sides in conflicts around the world would be brought together in Edinburgh under a plan to make the Capital a location of choice for peace talks.

The Arizona Winter Ombudsman Conference is slated for Thursday, January 31, 2013, from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.  Salt River Project (SRP) Consumer Affairs is hosting the conference, which will be held at SRP Headquarters in Tempe.  Lunch will be provided by SRP and an agenda will follow.  The featured topic is, “Tips for dealing with people in crisis who are behaving irrationally.”

The metaphor of an iceberg has commonly been used as a metaphor about conflict. This is on the basis that there are things above the surface that show themselves and then, there is all that is going on underneath. Compared to conflict, some things are obvious to the disputants (and often others) that reflect the dynamic between them, the issues in dispute, and other aspects of the existing dissension. These are above the water ‘line’.

Below the water line is much more. There are…

 Simulation-games? Not as simple as you thought. If you teach mediation, negotiation or other related topics, you’re going to want to read this.

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Sometimes, conducting research leads you to…

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Creativity, culture and collaboration are themes that run through Michelle LeBaron's work. She is an internationally renowned scholar/practitioner, currently serving as a professor of law and Director of Dispute Resolution at the University of British Columbia. Previously, she was a tenured professor of conflict analysis and resolution and women's…

I smile when I hear the expression “Don’t get your panties in a knot” and another variation like “Don’t get your knickers in a knot”. My brief research to discover the meaning yielded only that it originated from “some silliness” on The Basil Brush Show – a British television program in the 60’s. The general meaning appears to be about telling people to not get excited or upset by something. It is common when some people are in…

Often times religion has been cited as a cause of violence. More and more scholars are exploring religion's potential for peace. In her new book, Civil Society in Malerkotla, Punjab: Fostering Resilience through Religion, Bhangoo looks at a diverse…

How can we assess with any accuracy whether someone is lying to us through online communication media? And - what can we do to prevent it? This article spotlights an issue that anybody practicing ODR needs to consider.

The concept of interparty trust has often been raised with regards to ODR. This topic has been a central discussion forum in Cyberweek for the past several years, and is the topic of many articles on ODR.

The perspective taken has usually…

Guest blogger, John Peter Weldon, describes efforts in Canada to change the approach that employers use to deal with workplace bullying.  Interest is growing in the idea of offering parties the opportunity to experience transformative mediation, rather than the less effective, traditional, adversarial approach.  You can read the article here.

The phrase “nip it in the bud” is apparently derived from the de-budding of plants. The earlier form of the phrase was “nip in the bloome [sic]” and was cited in a romantic piece by Henry Chettle in 1595. It seems a sad origin, thinking of a flowering romance being nipped and prevented from blossoming. On the other hand, nipping of flower buds can facilitate repeat growth.

If we apply this notion of nipping it in the bud to conflict and consider firstly that it is a good thing to let…

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All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights," this is the first statement of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since this declaration's adoption in 1948, political rights have been foregrounded. Now the time has come for humankind to give dignity sustainable attention. Human rights are embedded in dignity, but dignity has a larger…