Cyber Space –the next generation of mediation

Presentation to Mediation UK’s Board of Trustees (25th July 2006)

“Friends, mediators, fellow digital immigrants, lend me your ears.”

If I were to talk today about the work of Mediation UK’s long-standing Mediation and Reparation Committee, I would be talking about the annual Restorative Practitioners Network Day in London –this year it is again in Mediation Week – on Thursday 12th October (www.restorativejustice.pbwiki.com ) I would also be expanding on the other priorities of the committee as outlined in a January paper to the Board. Top of these priorities was www.ApologyPlus.org.uk, which was launched to mediators and nonviolent communication practitioners at the 21st May Mediation UK event attended by 380 people –Getting to the heart in resolving conflict –a day with Marshall Rosenberg (www.marshallrosenbergfaq.blogspot.com )

In talking today, building on a previous presentation to a Ealing Mediation Service’s Annual General Meeting 10 days ago, I am aware that many people are suspicious of the internet or doubtful of the role of the internet in relation to mediation work. I hope to address these concerns. Since becoming both a client of mediation service and a mediator, my commitment is to enabling mediators mediate. More widely I want to build respect for, and access to conflict resolution work. Some of my ideas in relation to the web are controversial, no doubt. I will be taking questions at the end and asking for your input at two points in the presentation. I hope you are able to sift through the ideas I present with an ear to which are definitely valuable either to you or to the wider development of mediation, which are worthy of further investigation and which you have a principled objection to, being clear what the principle is. How important for example is it to increase access to mediation across the whole of the UK? What can be provided to the whole UK in one swoop? Referrals, Funding, and Quality of Mediation Delivery are three primary concerns for us all.

Where I want to take you today, in imagination at least, is to:

Cyber Space –the next generation of mediation

How many ears does a community mediation service have? Three. The left ear is the telephone ear; office staff use this ear in particular to hear the grievances of the parties. If the left ear is the availability of a mediation service via a phone call; the right ear could be seen as the availability of mediators in the same room as the parties to listen to the issues. And the other ear of the mediation service? Cyber-space, the final front ear. A place where we have an ear-out listening for those seeking conflict resolution.

Let’s examine this final front ear; is it well-tuned to hearing the voices of conflict out there and is it boldly going out there to offer conflict resolution services?

Having this year launched a couple of websites on behalf of Mediation UK, one called ApologyPlus.org.uk one called CommunicatingNeeds.org.uk, I am developing ideas and experience in how a UK-wide organisation, such as Mediation UK, can use the web to increase the number of individuals in conflict referred onto local mediation services.

The reality is that most people in conflict are unlikely to choose the word "conflict" as the description of their situation and even less likely to be seeking "mediation". If people do not search on these words what words or phrases that people Google will bring them to a local Mediation Service’s website?

Will people Google to find support when they are in conflict? What are the words that people will Google to find support when they are in conflict? I wish I knew. This information would help greatly(I haven’t yet submitted to Google the keywords by which to attract people to ApologyPlus and to CommunicatingNeeds) It is a question I put out to you before I talk further. Can people suggest what words or phrases someone in conflict is likely to put into Google? (http://www.resolveconflict.blogspot.com )

(I haven’t yet submitted to Google the keywords by which to attract people to ApologyPlus and to CommunicatingNeeds, yet here are the first phrases that people beyond the mediation and NVC communities typed into Google to find the sites: workplace apology, communicating pain, someone to help -UK) .

Google Analytics is the name of a service that enables some website administrators find out how people are coming to their website and how they are navigating their way through the site. I’m a novice at using Google Analytics.

ApologyPlus is designed as a site that is supposed to attract people in who would like an apology, or who might be willing to exchange or give apologies.

From “ApologyPlus” the enquirer is encouraged to explore their underlying needs on the CommunicatingNeeds website and offered the opportunity to refer themselves onto any of the Mediation UK member mediation services; they can search in a number of ways: by type of mediation e.g. workplace mediation and then geographically.

Apology is a theme of great interest to me and I would suggest links to much energy in the world over who should or should not apologise.

I’ve been kicking myself since I witnessed that headbutt by Zinadine Zidane; what a marketing opportunity for mediation services and restorative justice. After a TV audience of 1.5billion (and many more via news programmes), in the following week, Zidane was the most popular search term on the web. As soon as seeing the incident, I really wish I’d added to the Apology News blog an article (properly tagged) –‘Zidane’, ‘Headbutt’, ‘Apology’

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2006/5169342.stm

attracted in those interested in Zidane’s potential apology/explanation/non-apology apology. The next step would be to encourage them on www.apologyplus.blogspot.com towards either www.ApologyPlus.org.uk or www.CommunicatingNeeds.org.uk encouraging web-surfers to look at their own interpersonal issues for which there is a personal tension over whether or not to apologise, and how to have a difficult conversation about past actions.

ApologyPlus as an attempt to link to people who have ‘apology issues’. ApologyPlus is what I would call a feeder website; looking at an issue, referring to some of the contexts in which the issue occurs e.g. workplace and encouraging people towards mediation. I would like to facilitate people building a range of feeder sites designed to appeal to people with particular issues or in particular contexts.

A new context has been added to the list of contexts seeking text before going online. The previous list was as follows: Business, Civil Law, Criminal Law, Health Service, Neighbours, School, Workplace. Last month in Manchester I met up with Ray from the CommunicatingNeeds yahoo group (who is also on Mediation UK’s Mediation & Reparation Committee). Ray was most interested to learn about the literature on church-dispute mediation. I’m helping him set up a ‘blog’ (or web-log) on this theme and that I am hopeful will lead to more mediation service referrals from churches.

Meanwhile, the current list of issues seeking text before going online is as follows:

Accusations, Addiction, Anger, Avoiding Litigation, Regret, Separation.

Does anyone want support in setting up a blog on one of these (or other) themes?

If more cases are attracted in via the web; do we want the web-sites to do anything else? Perhaps we want them to filter out some of the possible cases.

Each mediation UK meber service can define on the Mediation Enquiry Server which types of cases they accept for free, which they accept if someone specifically pays, and which they do not take.

Perhaps the filtering of cases is not so much about the type of case as about the approach people are willing to bring to their dispute. I’d love to know which cases you’d filter out if you could? Would you, for example, filter out those cases where mediation is being engaged with as if it were a legal process or a stage before a legal process?

More time would allow more discussion about how websites can be used to filter the referrals to that discrete body of cases for which mediation is more likely to be successful. To do this is to use the web as more than a listening ear to bring in cases. It gives voice to mediation. Another way that more voice can be given to mediation in cyber-space is to offer on-line ways for parties to prepare more fully for mediation. When the mediation service office answerphone is on, parties can be referred to a website that helps parties look at their positions, interests and needs. The CommunicatingNeeds website attempts to do that, using ideas from Nonviolent Communication and mediation.

New services can be provided on the web; free teleconferencing and web-cam conferencing provides new opportunities to provide mediation services on line without travel, creating a nation-wide mediation service from the pool of local mediators working by teleconference and of course by email as well. What I’m doing today is sharing a vision that space can be created on the web and other communication technologies that helps people work on their conflicts where they are.

I’ve been working with the developer of software called interMediate (which I use as a case management tool for the Bristol Mediation Resolve and Repair project). This software is already developed so that it works securely over the web for:

Editing of mediation meeting reports from mediator’s home computers;

Enquiry referral to services directly from the Mediation UK website;

Statistical reporting to a Mediation UK database.

New secure web services (beyond the scope of this project) may include:

Off-site back up copying of case management databases via the Internet;

On-line access to case activity summaries by referring agencies;

On-line access to case status information by the parties to a case;

On-line access to activity statistics by funding partners.

…..

I’ve been presenting the web as a way to :

Attract cases (nationwide and redistribute locally)

Filter cases (what criteria to keep working –commitment?

Provide new services (covering the gaps in national coverage)

Enable parties to prepare to resolve their conflicts.

The CommunicatingNeeds website already provides all these functions and is getting more user-friendly every month.

(It is even a usable free resource for Mediation training –just sit people down with role plays to work-on on-line)

What is there to be developed next is the potential for mediators to provide telephone, web-cam and email mediation options, fully aware of what is lost and what is being gained through mediation via these technologies.

I find working on web-services is a way to systematise my thinking about what we do, who we offer it to, how and with what quality assurance. Much more could be said about this.

I hope that you will after today explore the web anew as if you were someone in conflict seeking help. You might consider building a blog –Google offer free blogs –Blogger is the trade name- and they only take minutes for someone to set up without any need to learn programming.

At the very least, I hope you will in the next month, imagine yourself to have an inter-personal problem in your life and go onto to the site www.communicatingneeds.org.uk to see to what extent it helps you work it through. I would be very greatful if having done this you used the feedback and suggestions section of the site, anonymously or with your contact details attached.

If you haven’t grown up interacting with computers since the beginning of primary school, then you are in the same boat as me, you are not a digital native. Someone called Paretsky has defined us as digital immigrants and we have a more difficult task in adapting to certain technologies that others take for granted. The next generation will expect even more of computer technology. The future of mediation services will be stronger if mediation services respect, understand and possibly influence people’s use of technology.

Thank you for your time, I hope you’ve found it stimulating.

(The end)