Shop Closed

It's been a blast folks but too much blogging and not enough Christmas prep has me in trouble.

So it's over and out... and off to China for our latest family expedition

[Merry Christmas]

The Mediation vBlog Project: a mediator's marketing dream

The smart money is on using the Mediation vBlog video site as a marketing tool.

Hey! If Her Majesty, The Queen of England can podcast her traditional Christmas Day message to her subjects, you can post a vBlog clip!

So far, posting a clip at the vBlog has proved to be the best excuse I know of to spend an hour interviewing a good client, as if to say; 'you are important enough for me to want to show you off to my global mediation community'

The downside?

It adds at least 4 or 5 years and 6 or 7 kilo's to anyone over 40.

Check out the last 2006 additions...

Susan Freeman-Greene, Chief Mediator at NZ's Human Rights Commission as she describes what it's like to mediate between an airline and a Islamic religious leader who was identified as an inflight security threat over NZ as he completed his religious ablutions in the toilet at the back of the plane...

Her Honour Judge Jill Moss, a leading judge of NZ's specialist Family Court and advocate of mediation for family matters within the Court. The Judge shares her thoughts on mediation, child involvement and the skills needed for such high emotion work...

Rehearsing in poetry, but practising in prose

- the anatomy of a manly mediation -

As arranged, the cast gathered at 9.30am for yesterday's production in the sort of law offices where, if you want a coffee, you need to say whether it's a latte, macchiato, cappuccino or espresso with soy/trim/creamer...

The wardrobe department had done a good job;

>the man in the thousand acre tweed jacket representing the syndicate of horse owners was there;

>as was the trainer in a cloth cap who had engaged the
transport;

>the driver of the horse truck and his boss turned up;

>the roading contractor and his clerk of works in steel
cap boots were rehearsing their lines;

>horse valuers and equine veterinarians of all
persuasions gathered;

>and the repeat players - the insurers, the lawyers and of course the mediator made up the chorus...

...all sitting 26 floors above the streets of the city on a blustery day as an unseasonal old man southerly rolled in off the Tasman Sea.

Someone volunteered to paint an admirably neutral picture of an old, but well kept, horse truck coming around a bend in the road on a wet day, packed full of pure racing machines on their way to the track.

As it came upon the resealing works at Coultree Bend it ran out of hard road and skidded on the mud left by the diggers loading clay spoil into 18 wheel earth movers. The truck careened ("proceeded in a southeast direction") into a nearby culvert on the lefthand side, known in plaintiffs' accident report as 'culvert 3'.

That much was not in dispute and an elegant line drawing of the crash site on the whiteboard got a general nod of approval from the cast.

So far, so good. But...

>the extent of mud on the road;

>it's exact location;

>whether someone had tried to tidy it up before the law
arrived; and

>who did what about the horses trapped screaming as
they kicked themselves to death in the back of the prone truck...

...were all matters to be picked over during the day and which would go on to generate a lot of heat in the room as the drama wore on.

This was an earthy mediation... almost no one came with pen or paper.

My own experience of teaching mediators is that we rehearse in poetry, but we practise in prose - it's not all linear and purposeful, with openings/issue identification/joint, caucus and negotiation phases/agreement/close....it's more, well... messy I guess.

Yesterday was all loud and confused with lots of talking over each other and out of turn, most of the time finishing others' sentences to give them a meaning that was not intended.

As if they couldn't bear to hear what was.

Wonderfully colourful language from the track and an over optimistic sense of belonging to a community of horsemen that 'buy and sell million dollar animals on a handshake'.

Lots of the obligatory words like 'vigorous defence, credible witness, robust, without merit' came out.

You know? It's not poetry. What it's really all about is;

>inappropriate horse jokes at the expense of wives back on the farm;

>garlic pizza arriving at the wrong time, just as we get to the money shot around 10pm;

>forgetting what it must have been like in the last moments of life in that overturned truck and talking about $$ instead;

>big men with working hands tugging at ill fitting collars;

>stressed, hard working parties throwing off at 'this bullshit with bloodsucking lawyers who don't know the arse end of a horse from their own elbow...' even though the bloodsuckers paid for the pizza;

>flatulence following the pizza;

>body odour when the after-hours air con does not kick in;

>men knowing they have a 4 hour drive back home and a 5am start at the track...

Tag Clouds of my last three posts. The point? None

achieve aka anyone around arrived asked asymmetrical beam bean being best beyond blog bluetooth boat bone boomerang breaking bridge bullet chairs coming conference convex cool cycles desired despite diversity dog donut door driving earpiece earthy elliptical employment enough enterprise events field fright frown full furniture geoff gets grass guy happy head heartland hex himself honest hotel humanity humped ideas include includes indoors interesting interviewed john jumped knows language laptops laughs layout least lies looking love magnificent manager mason maybe mediation meet merits mobile nonsense octagon once order oval parties pentagon people phone photo phrase plant please posted project pynchon racetrack really reception rectangle regular relative research rightdoing rings room rumi rural scotty seeing sense serpentine shape shapes sheepish site soft something sorts soul spuds square start started stefan stuck suddenly sunglasses table talking tech teleprompters trapezoid triangle vblog vickie wearing web week weekend works world worry wrongdoing yesterday

created at TagCrowd.com

Hat tip Robert Ambrogi's LawSites and TagCrowd

OK, enough

So far on this blog I have posted on all sorts of nonsense, like... large people breaking my chairs, cool people wearing sunglasses indoors, happy people with laughs earthy enough to plant spuds in, tech people using laptops as teleprompters.

I love the diversity of humanity that cycles through the mediation room, honest...

...but what really, really gets me is the guy with the phone stuck to his head, ALL day, even when he went to the John - aka bluetooth mobile phone earpiece.

For a start I keep seeing us all on the bridge of the S.S.

Enterprise, and Scotty being asked to beam us all up to who knows where.

Then, I got a fright when he suddenly jumped up and started talking to himself as he headed for the door.

At least when a regular phone it rings, I frown, they look sheepish and then they head for the door.

Eureka, I've found it!

Last week, employment mediator Stefan Mason was interviewed by Vickie Pynchon over at the Mediation vBlog Project.

Stefan includes an interesting line at his web site ....

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there ...
Rumi

Well, driving through New Zealand's magnificent rural heartland this weekend, I found it!

...When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

There really is conflict in Second Life

Second Life

Virtual Worlds Collide With Real Laws is a glimpse of where our field may go in the future ...

(hat tip ODR Info)

Our own matriarch of the mediation blogosphere out and about in London

Spotted here for lunch

Table Shapes

When the 'conference and events manager' didn't show up yesterday - despite my call to reception - I once again humped the hotel furniture around the room before the parties arrived in order to achieve my desired room layout.

If there is anyone out there looking for a research project, would you please be good enough to include in it something on the relative merits of mediation table shapes.

What works best... round, square, bean, dog bone, trapezoid, soft square asymmetrical, serpentine, pentagon, octagon, elliptical oval,donut, rectangle, boomerang, hex, bullet, boat shape, racetrack oval, convex, donut, soft triangle...?

Or maybe this is what I need when the parties say 'Don't worry Geoff, it's just us coming on Thursday'...then 15 turn up!




via BoingBoing - a directory of wonderful things

Vanishing Trials vs Legal Precedent

Diane Levin's wonderfully provocative post on Monday You say trials are vanishing like it's a bad thing raised the whole issue of vanishing court hearings.

I know what she means...when I go to a dinner party with other lawyers present, that's exactly the challenge I get - 'hey mate! what the heck are'ya doing with all our hearings?'... and as the red wine flows, the challenge (and the answer) is reframed...

But I guess my take on it is slightly different from Diane's.

I admit to being passionate about mediation. Ask anyone who knows me - it's almost get a life territory. You think this blog is for you? Sorry, its a pressure pot/steam thing.

So when I visited Washington DC last year and signed up for a tour of the Supreme Court I surprised myself.

When it was over and our little group dispersed, I sat down on those cold timeless steps upon which so much history has been made and, for the first time - the very first time, I had doubts.

The majesty of the law came upon me and mediation, for just a moment there on those steps, seemed unprincipled, backroom-ish and even a little dirty.

It was a small lapse that passed as I wandered off down to the Lincoln Memorial repeating a mantra that included words like peacemaker, healer, problem solver, conflict guide etc.

But you know what I think?

The people who count do get the big picture; they do understand the value of precedent over compromise where it's appropriate...

Take law blogger, Denise Howell's post that points to a NY Times article We're Google, So Sue Us that looked at this issue a while back. She reports that Michael Kwun, senior litigation counsel at Google, says that establishing a body of precedent is a priority for Google, especially as legal interpretations continue to evolve.

"If we don’t at least litigate to the point where we get rulings on the issues that matter to us, we're left with less clarity in the law"

...which is the important point when many of us look through a mediation lens at every problem - you know - have hammer therefore see nails...

For the latest in the continuing 'Vanishing Trial' conversation take a look at Prof. John Lande's recent 2006 article How Much Justice Can We Afford?: Defining the Courts' Roles and Deciding the Appropriate Number of Trials, Settlement Signals, and Other Elements Needed to Administer Justice

It's part of a Vanishing Trial Symposium (this is a great resource on this issue)


Related:

1 Shifting the Focus From the Myth of “The Vanishing Trial” to Complex Conflict Management Systems, or I Learned Almost Everything I Need to Know About Conflict Resolution From Marc Galanter
2 Replace 'The Vanishing Trial' with More Helpful Myths

Alternatives to the high cost of CPR's newsletter

If you're like me, you have wanted for ever to take a peak inside New York based CPR's business mediation orientated newsletter, Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation but jibbed at the high cost of the newsletter at $190 or the 'rest of the world' price tag of $256!

Ditto with CPR's website that looks good but most of its behind bars in the members only section with membership rates ranging from $3,000 - $10,000/year for a corporation depending on your size and individual membership is $1,500/year, no matter what size you are.

Don't ask me how - all I know is that this fell off the back of an expensive looking truck - take a look at this article from CPR's Alternatives; Mediating the Deal: How to Maximize Value by Enlisting A Neutral’s Help At and Around the Bargaining Table by Stephen Goldberg of Northwestern University, Evanston Ill.

While you are at CPR's site, take a peek at the latest Master Mediator piece, a periodic commentary by Pittsburgh mediator Bob Creo, the thinking mediator's friend.

In his latest offering I Mediate, Therefore I Am? Bob asks;

• Can we transcend the task before us of settling a case?
• Should we transcend the task before us of settling a case?
• Can, or should we, transform ourselves in the process of settling cases?

...Huh?

Second Life

This you gotta see!

Want to start again without life's accumulated baggage?

Try Second Life

If you haven't heard about it, you soon will. It's a parallel universe and these guys are serious.

I have been with my nose pressed up against the SL glass for a while now. Recently, I decided to pay a visit.

When I got there, there were 16,005 residents online out of a total SL population of 1.855 million, that's 1.855m real SL people! That's bigger than New Zealand's largest city!

And get this, in the last 24 hours they had spent US$655,107.00. Yeah, actually spent! Yeah, actual dollars!

Here's the thing, people are starting businesses in SL. Take a look here or here where this guy trades SL cars.

This guy sells SL apartments. So, let me get this, that means people pay money for land that doesn't exist?

One SL property magnate who makes about $150,000 a year in SL says "You've got to see it. Watch this video and after you take your chin off the floor, come on in."

So, here's the official line;

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents.

Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 1,855,135 people from around the globe.

From the moment you enter the World you'll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you've explored a bit, perhaps you'll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business.

You'll also be surrounded by the Creations of your fellow residents. Because residents retain the rights to their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other residents.

The Marketplace currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the in-world currency, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online currency exchanges.

I dare you, be the first to open a SL mediation practice... go on it'll be fun.

In fact, let's form a global firm, open an SL office and call it something corny like Second Life Solutions and all work there. This is the beach front in SL and there is office space for rent with a wonderful view!

If conflict is everywhere - why not in Second Life?

Live blogging from my PDA!

Well, it's getting late and I'm wandering around the corridor. There comes a time when it's up to them.

I'm bored.

Coming up to the ten hour mark, but we're almost there.

So here's the room;


And here's the remnants of afternoon tea;


And here's the fancy law firm I am wandering around;

Told you I was bored.

Friday Potpourri

A whole lot of stuff to read on a Friday... here's my top 10;

1. A handy roadmap for a weekend road trip of the best of the mediation blog posts this week over at Diane Levin's Online Guide to Mediation. Some wonderful posts this week.

2. The Keystone Conference Final Report from the Senior Mediators' "Consolidating Our Collective Wisdom Conference" held at Keystone, Colorado October 8-11, 2006.

Also see;
Rolling Record
Conference Participants
Favored Ideas
Keystone Conference Resources

3. Ken Cloke interviewed over at Idealawg Blog

4. Mediate.Com is offering a customised newsletter service for mediators. A newsletter with your photo etc. will be sent bi-monthly on your behalf to your provided list of clients. Mediation News is edited by Keith Seat, J.D (offer available to IAM members only up to 15 December, then open to all)

5. An extremely useful little thingy via Escape from Cubicle Nation if you spend a lot of time planning the best time to hook up with overseas colleagues via Skype.

6. A wonderful new addition to The World Directory of ADR Blogs. Visit the ADR Blog Reading Room, a fantastic resource.

7. A good read, if you have the time; Will This Case Settle? An Exploration of Mediators' Predictions

8. New video clips over at the Mediation vBlog Project (you can keep up with any new clips as a link to each new clip now appears in pink in the sidebar here at mediator blah...blah...). Thanks to these early adoptors;
Vickie Pynchon
Diane Levin
George Smith
Cassandra Lawrence
Paul Hutcheson and Jesse
Gini Nelson
Kristina Haymes
Colin and Tamuna McKenzie

9. A new d/r blog - IDR Mediation Blog Dispute Resolution Services - focusing exclusively on insurance coverage disputes - time this important mediation speciality got some attention.

10A. As I write this, really as I write this, there is trouble in paradise. Fiji's military will today launch their threatened operation to "clean-up" the government. Its a good old fashioned coup folks. It comes after both the head of the Army and Prime Minister flew to New Zealand for mediated talks yesterday.

Click here and go to the bottom of the page for the audio player to listen to the army boss' threats to the Fijian government..."I want all the demands met, today, in fact tomorrow (Friday), every one...everything that I demanded for must be met by midday tomorrow".

Man, talk about positional... a bit like Billy Connolly

10B. Fishbowl mediation via Gary Fitzpatrick, BC “when touchy feely isn’t enough" and when they won't move to interests, bite back!





...enjoy and see you at the end of the tunnel I'm about to go into...13 mediations on the trot starting Monday.

Ciao!