Southern California Arbitration Mediation and Conflict Resolution : Settle it Now Dispute Resolution Services : Serving Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Century City : Settle It Now Negotiation Blog

• Print
• Comments (5)
• Trackbacks

One year ago, on June 14, 2006, I ventured onto Google's Blogger, set up the Settle It Now Negotiation Blog, uploaded a photo of myself and posted my first short piece on Tough Bargaining.

To say I had no idea what I was getting into is an understatement.  If my husband had known, he would have found a way to block my access to blogger.  But we were blog innocents in those days.

Whatever blogging does for my ADR practice, it is nothing compared to the personal satisfactions of blogging -- having a ready avenue for creative self-expression and continued critical self-reflection on my own ADR practice has made me a happier, more fulfilled person and a much better practitioner than I otherwise be.  

Why the latter?  Some of it results from the discipline of recounting the actual process by which a case settled or failed to.  And a lot of it comes from the friends I have made and colleagues I have met around the world.

So for my first blog-birthday, I give you the following gratitude list for those who welcomed me and whose blog-words continue to enliven and inspire me.

First on the list is Massachusetts mediator and trainer Diane Levin, earth mother of ADR Blogging (Online Guide to Mediation' Negotiating Results Conflict Prevention and Resolution; and, The World Directory of ADR Blogs).  Diane is the first citizen of Web 2.0 who brought flowers and casseroles to my blog-door to introduce me to the neighborhood. 

She told me about the best schools for my children, the least expensive and best dry cleaner in town, the hours the local farmers' market was open and the activities available for someone like me.  She also taught me how to edit .html code at a time when it could just as easily have stood for "hoping to motivate lovers" as it stands for whatever the heck it actually means.  Thanks Diane!

New Zealand mediator Geoff Shape must be next.  His Mediator blah blah takes the gravity out of mediating without eliminating its profundity.  He went on vacation once, for at least two weeks, and I pined for his humor, his grace, his vitality, his enthusiasm and most of all his authenticity.  Geoff is also the founder of the Mediation Vblog Project, that sent me out to buy a webcam and invite all the people I loved over for coffee and an interview.  Mostly, Geoff cracks me up in that way brilliant comedians do who make you look at something in an entirely new light because that light is more true than any you've ever seen.  Thanks Geoff!

Third and fourth are Renaisance women Gini Nelson -- Engaging Conflicts -- and Stephanie West Allen --Idealawg and the new. neuroscience conflict resolution blog -- Brains on Purpose.  These women's interests and knowledge range so far, wide and deep that I leave their blogs a little slack-jawed with admiration and always stimulated to begin exploring new intellectual terrain.

My ADR practice building buddies include Dinah Lynch of the ADR Practice Builder, Tammy Lenski of Mediator Tech and I Can't Say That and Kristina Haymes'  Mediating Possibilities.

Though they're not technically bloggers, John Ford of Workplace Conflict Management Services and Jim Melamed of the Oregon Mediation Center -- both of Mediate Dot com - have taken ADR bloggers to heart by creating a page for us at www.mediate.com/blogs.  Thanks guys!

All of these people have been extremely generous to me and many others.  There aren't enough words available to thank them.  So I simply leave you with their blog links.

Thanks for This Year 

I count my years June to June because I began my mediation practice in June of 2004.  This year, I have again been blessed by scores of people in the ADR field to whom I owe this fabulous new career of mine. They include the following, wonderful and brilliant people in no particular order.

Tom Stipanowich, Peter Robinson, and Jack McCrory at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University School of Law.

Judges Alexander Williams, III and Victoria Chaney for whom I "clerked" as a superannuated extern while studying for my LL.M.

Var Fox, Alan Brutman, Rosemarie Chuisano and their unbelievably great staff at Judicate West, all of whom took me in and nurtured my practice at a time when I couldn't predict having a single additional case coming to me.   

My new IP ADR homies, Les Weinstein, Eric Van Ginkel and Mike Young.

And all of the fabulous women ADR neutrals who form a loving, supportive and professionally stimulating new group of "girl" friends:  Deborah Rothman, Jan Schau, Mickey Katz, Linda Bulmash,Lisa Klerman and, Laurel Kaufer just to name a very few.