Arbitration & Mediation

Productive Hurricane Reading from the She Negotiates ForbesWoman Blog

By Victoria Pynchon

How often does New York City roll up the City streets and the subway system. Unprecedented. And it's not the only City battened down as the eastern seaboard awaits Hurricane Irene. If you tire of Boggle and Scrabble, have already cleaned out your underwear drawer and have thrown aside the week's New Yorker, here's a little additional light reading for negotiators.

The Father Factor is the name of our August 26th post and the name of a new blog we discovered last week talking about work-family balance for fathers. The Father Factor picked up guest blogger Lauren Stiller Rikleen's post Dad-in-Chief about lessons to be learned from Obama's vacation (not the political ones, the family ones). If you're one of the dads who's experiencing increasing work-family imbalance, check out both of these great posts while waiting for Hurricane Irene to hit your personal landfall.

Brain-Storm Warning

There's new research out confirming what mediators already know - if you believe your bargaining partner is flexible and capable of compromise, you'll be far more willing to put in the effort yourself to brainstorm your way to resolution. Check out our post Could Gaza-Israel True Lead to Negotiated Peace for more on that study.

If you've held the same view of Justice Thomas for the last twenty years, a recent New Yorker article begs to illuminate you. Check out Would Justice Thomas Strike Down DOMA?  exploring the Court's rightward tilt in the exercise of predicting Thomasprudence on marriage equality.

Himmacane Perry

Dems are being asked to take Rick Perry's presidential campaign more seriously than any other candidate who believes God created the world in seven days. But what's Perry snuggling up to Susan B. Anthony for? See our post on Rick Perry's Susan B. Anthony Pledge and Women's Rights which earns Perry a big HUH???? from us. When Democrats start signing pledges we'll know that government as we know it will grind to a complete halt as negotiation and compromise becomes a thing of the past and America's infrastructure begins to resemble a science fiction dystopia.

For the Brainiacs

Lisa Gates is She Negotiates academic wing this week adding Could Biomimicry Be the Key to Negotiating Your Start Ups Success? Here's a tantilizing snippet:

According to AskNature.com, a free, open-source project for the biomimicry community, nature is the 'model, measure and mentor…for consciously emulating nature's genius by studying nature's forms, processes, systems and strategies to solve human problems sustainably.' This model 'introduces an era based on not what we can extract from the natural world, but what we can learn from it…and uses an ecological standard to justify the sustainability of our innovations.

Our typical way of looking at a business problem 'is like that bar scene from Star Wars,' Sammons says. 'You have all these unique creatures speaking different languages, and the information is siloed. Biomimicry is about distilling the conversation so that we're all talking about function first.'

According to AskNature.com, a free, open-source project for the biomimicry community, nature is the 'model, measure and mentor…for consciously emulating nature's genius by studying nature's forms, processes, systems and strategies to solve human problems sustainably.' This model 'introduces an era based on not what we can extract from the natural world, but what we can learn from it…and uses an ecological standard to justify the sustainability of our innovations. After 3.8 billion years of evolution nature has learned what works and what lasts. Our typical way of looking at a business problem 'is like that bar scene from Star Wars,' Sammons says. 'You have all these unique creatures speaking different languages, and the information is siloed. Biomimicry is about distilling the conversation so that we're all talking about function first.'

Check out the full article at the link.

Finally, in The Right to Remain Married May Be Key To Resolution of Same-Gender Marriage Debate, we cover a new theory from the law school prof crowd about re-focusing the Constitutional argument on the right to remain married rather than the right to marry. A big difference and a Constitutionally significant one. It changed my thinking like any good re-framing of an old intractable issue does.

Good luck East Coast! Our thoughts are with you.

Full post as published by Settle It Now Negotiation Blog on August 27, 2011 (boomark / email).