The notion of "conflict resolution" is one of those things that is tempting to assume we all understand as well as or as much as we need to. We all have conflict in our lives, and we all make decisions every day about how we're going to deal with it: avoid it, engage it head on, active passive-aggressively about it, pretend to smooth it over but not really deal with it, commit an act of violence, and so on. But most of the time, no matter what course of action we choose, dealing with conflict is hard. It's stressful. It can be draining and debilitating, at a personal level but also for an organization or business or family as a whole. And even though we may have learned a lot about how to deal with it by now, that doesn't mean we don't need help sometimes. Thank goodness for the existence of the Conflict Resolution Center, located right here in Richmond. They're a non-profit providing affordable, accessible mediation services to our community, and they educate us about non-violent resolution of conflicts of all types.
Continue reading "Got conflict? Want to work it out?"
Category: personal
Last weekend I had the opportunity to head to Crawfordsville for the first session of the Indiana Energy Conference, a series of film showings, discussions, and presentations designed to help us explore our culture's relationship with energy. The conference was organized by my friend Frank Cicela, who has been a long time participant in the IshCon conferences I've been involved in putting on since 1999, and he and I have collaborated on a few other projects as well. The IEC comes out of our trip to the Peak Oil conference last fall, and so much of the content of this new event is derived from the excellent presentations and materials that we encountered back then. Frank did an excellent job putting it all together at the local community theatre, and we had at least 60 people from around the region show up ready to learn and discuss. I was running around doing lights and sound and greeting and popping popcorn so I didn't get to do a whole lot of networking myself, but I could tell there were some good conversations happening. You can see some photos from the event, as well as the amazing press coverage Frank has generated, on the success story page of the conference site. The conference continues throughout the month; make sure to stop in if you're in the area!
Today is the first day of the course I'm co-teaching at Earlham this semester, CS345: Software Engineering. I'm excited to be back in a classroom again and thinking in new ways and on different levels about a topic that's very much a part of what I do every day for Summersault (and why Summersault exists at all). Like the last course I taught at Earlham, this is sure to be a challenge and a joy. Wish me luck! I'll hopefully have some time to post general thoughts about teaching software engineering here, but the course website will be my main tool for collecting and sharing information and resources related to the class.
It's been a while since I've posted here - I've had a couple dozen half-finished entries that just didn't seem worth bothering to finish, a barrier I've certainly encountered before. It's also been a busy month and life's been full of some great joys (cooking, consuming, community service, conflict resolving, cat transport, Co-op-ing, colluding in concomitance, celebrating the solstice, cultivating connections, etc.) and concerns that take place away from the world of my keyboard, so things are just quiet around here. Thanks for reading, check back soon. May the peace of the season be with you.
Coming up this Thursday, I'll be presenting a TechTalk seminar in Richmond on "A Newcomer's Guide to Blogging." I thought those of you who read here, especially other bloggers, may be interested in attending and contributing - please come if you are!
Related, I think it's important to note that NBC Nightly News has enabled comments on their weblog that chronicles the production of their nightly network newscast. I didn't really consider it a blog until they did that, and even though the comments are moderated, they've really taken what I would consider to be an important (and somewhat risky) step in bringing the culture of blogging to mainstream media. Today's series of posts on Brian Williams` travels with President Bush were particularly unique. Next in line: during commercials, instant messaging with the anchor about the segment that just aired? Hmmm.
My weblog has gotten a lot of traffic in the last week...but you wouldn't know it from the lack of comments on the posts drawing attention (mostly the ones related to the recent EDC controversy). It makes me wonder what's keeping folks from sharing their two cents, especially since blogs are such a great tool for such things. I know at least some are constrained by their own organizational/business affiliations such that making a public comment of even the most innocuous sort could backfire. (Maybe I should follow their lead more...hmmm. 🙂 ). Others who have contacted me directly seem wary of or inexperienced with the medium of a blog as a place to have a discussion, and I can certainly understand that. Still others seem content to observe without participating just because, which I have to admit is usually my preferred role on the other blogs I read unless circumstances merit otherwise. But certainly if there's anything about the way this site is set up that anyone would like to comment upon -- content, tone, posting tools, or otherwise -- I'm certainly eager to make any improvements that I can. In the meantime, here's a big shout out to all you folks just joining us...thanks for reading!
In response to my post about the Pal-Item's reporting on the controversy surrounding the EDC president, Don Holbrook has posted a lengthy explanation addressing some of the issues brought up in those stories. I believe it's the first publicly available statement from him since the Pal-Item's series on Sunday. Holbrook also commented on my account of the IU Business Outlook panel, and his thoughts on what it will take to move our community's economy forward.
One: Dave Pollard has posted a really interesting (and quite long) series of essays, studies, and narratives about how to build the ideal collaborative team and the collaboration process in general. Though I haven't grokked all of the implications yet, I generally find their primary conclusion, that attitude is more important than experience or specific knowledge in collaborative work, to be quite true in my own experience. Two: I've posted a list of my personal and professional affiliations. As the traffic on my blog increases and I get some more feedback about some of the more "controversial" posts, I want to make sure I fully disclose what kinds of organizations and projects I'm involved with and have allegiances to - noting just as emphatically that none of them necessarily endorse or agree with what I write here. Three: As reported by Slashdot, the Federal Election Commission has issued a draft advisory opinion essentially finding that bloggers can qualify as journalists for the purpose of the 'press exemption' in federal campaign finance laws. As a blogger, I don't really consider myself a journalist, but I know plenty who do and it's interesting to see this conversation evolve about what protections and privileges bloggers should have.
A few quick notes: 1) As promised, I've completed the transition to having all my photos hosted at my Flickr account, so feel free to browse around there. 2) I've posted a short little poem I wrote some time ago, but felt compelled to add to the site now. 3) I believe it's safe to say that The Review of Indiana Blogs has suffered and possibly expired at the hands of its own (perhaps unanticipated) scope - no real substantive entries since mid-October, a few links breaking, and no word from the maintainer. 4) I can't really talk, though - I've been working on several posts but none of them have made it out the door yet, and that developed into a more intentional hiatus from blog posting (if you can call two weeks a hiatus). But I'll be back soon with all sorts of self-indulgent musings. Until then, check out my favorite website after which Summersault models all its work, Zombo dot com. And as the recently spray-painted words of wisdom in the alley behind our office say, "fall in love, not in line."
Back when the Internet was small enough to fit on my current 80GB hard drive, there were no other Chris Hardies in the world. I was it, and I was certainly the only one with any sort of online presence. Even though I come from a long line of Farquharsons, if you looked for my name in search engines, you could find all sorts of stuff about me, but ONLY me. I was special, a beautiful unique snowflake.
These days, I am apparently part of the same decaying organic matter as everything else. I have some company from other Chris Hardies out there, some of them surprisingly close to me in either geographical, occupational or metaphysical location. Here's a survey:
Continue reading "The other Chris Hardies out there"