Let me start off by saying I’m not a huge fan of _______ for Dummies. Never have been. So when Victoria Pynchon asked me to review a copy(yes...I didn’t pay for it and am not being paid for this review) of Success as a Mediator for Dummies I was a little skeptical as to how good…

Ever wonder why there are different views of what happened in every experience?

I get to see this almost daily.  I sit down with people who have very opposing stories and differing views on both of them witnessing the same event.  You have your version of the story.  They have their version of the story.  I piece together my own version of the story.  Then there is the actual story of what happened.

Below,…

“The thing I love about social networks is I can be anyone I choose to be!”

This statement is the basis for a lot of conversations for me lately.  There seems to be two schools of thought around this in the conversations that I’m having.

1) Mistrust

There are a lot of creepers out there and social media allows them to hide their creepiness.  How…

The other day I came home after a long day of work and put my bag down and said hi to my wife and son. I took off my shoes and my coat and draped it over my bag in the kitchen. The second my coat and shoes were off my wife asked me to take something outside to the garbage.

“What?? Can’t you see I just literally took my shoes and coat off? You couldn’t ask me that 2 seconds earlier?” was my response.

I reacted. I’m sure you can think of times where that has happened. How do you…

What would it be like if you went out for coffee with someone, tried to carry on a conversation with them (respond to what they are saying, ask questions, etc.) and they never stopped talking the entire time?  What if you asked them a question clarifying what they were talking about and they didn’t take the time to answer? What would you do? I know that I would get up and leave….and try to stick…

I typically deal with conflict after it’s happened. A family breaks up, someone else got your promotion, you just gave a performance review and it didn’t go well. This is when people come to me...it’s a reaction. It’s after-the-fact, it happens after you have went through an event that caused you some pain, hurt, discomfort….it is a reaction.  This doesn't just happen with individuals, but also with organizations.

So what do these reactions mean for your brand, your…

(Originally posted at SocialMedi8r.com)

Let me guess, you run your own company, you do the books, the marketing, the administrative work, and you have to actually do your job on top of that.  You have your social life, your home life, and you're in charge of walking the dog.  You think to yourself regularly, "Man...I wish…

There are a lot of resolutions going around at this time of year, there is also a lot of reflection and learning happening as well.  This year has been an awesome (and I don't use that word lightly!) and many, many things have happened. Some extremely joyful, others extremely sad...either way they have stretched me, taught me new things, and made me a better person. Here is a quick snapshot (in no specific order): My son turned 1, grew a business, quit my day-job, wife returned to work, my…

(Originally posted at Social Medi8r.com)

This week I had the privilege of interviewing John Morgan, the author of the book, "Brand Against the Machine".  There is so much…

Ah yes...the conflict resolution professional. Years of training in reframing, paraphrasing, asking questions, rephrasing, and so much more.  Learning communication skills, how to listen to folks, build rapport, and so much more.  

Here's the thing...you know more about marketing and social media then the regular person.  You have that training, you have experience (a lot or a little)...you know how to communicate with people.  

Marketing for you could be easy, it could be…

(Originally posted at Absolution Mediation)

That's right, you have the necessary skills to deal with all the conflict in your life.  Sure there are new skills that you can acquire, you can always build on your foundational skills.  In order to deal with the majority of conflict in your life however, you have the skills to deal with it.  That's not saying that…

(Originally posted at Absolution Mediation)

How do you respond to conflict? This conflict could be personal, work-related, in your community, or even online. One thing we all have in common is that we all have conflict in our lives, we all know what it is like to go through conflict, and we can probably all tell a story about how conflict has changed our life. Here's the thing that I've…

(Originally posted at Absolution Mediation) 

Ok...you got me, the saying is actually "Rome wasn't built in a day" so I changed it to something more relevant; "Rapport wasn't built in a day."  Right? Well, here's the thing...I don't really believe that either... Rapport can be built with someone within the first 5 minutes (Not a scientific fact...but something that I know). So I…

So you signed up for a Twitter account and you're just getting your head around tweeting, mentions, Direct Messaging (DM's), how to reply to people, retweeting, and hashtags (#).  It's a lot to take in!  So I'm going to make this simple for you. 

On August 31st Jeff Thompson and I are hosting a Twitter chat which is going to be running…

(Originally posted at Absolution Mediation)

Remember when your mom used to say, "If you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all"? I do...I used to get it a lot!  Here's the thing that I don't like about that saying..."Don't say anything at all."



There were always 1 of 2 things happening when my mother used to tell me that saying 1: I was…

(Originally posted at Absolution Mediation)

Where did you come from?  Where are you now? Where are you heading?



This weekend I had the privilege to read over the story of my great-grandparents journey as they lived in the Netherlands and later moved to Canada.  Amazing people!  Such courage and determination they showed!







Then I read about my Opa (who is one of the role…

(Originally posted at Absolution Mediation)

This past week I had the pleasure of being a speaker at Tweetstock in Brantford, Ontario where we talked about the Art of Community.  There I talked about how to engage with conflict, both online and offline.  I'll get more into what I talked about possibly in the next few weeks, but one thing I did talk about is Intent.…

(Originally posted at Absolution Medation)

The C-word is something that we are scared of. Many people even avoid saying the word for fear that it will happen to them. At the first sign of it they run, or fight, or freeze. We try to avoid it, we try to hide it, we walk on egg-shells around it. The word that I’m talking about of course is…