Spending a break from ComicCons at professional conferences

It’s been a busy month! We were still coming down from the high of appearing at MegaCon Orlando and following up on all the connections we made there when March hit with a number of non-con appearances at professional negotiation and conflict resolution conferences.

Didn’t mean to mimic Darth Vader’s body language, but strong is the power of the dark side

At the Texas Association of Mediators annual conference, we delivered a keynote talk on Aggressive Negotiations and Diplomatic Solutions. Every conference should have one of those, right? The crowd was mainly (though not exclusively) original trilogy fans so the title required explanation but on the other hand, they got deeply engaged with all the Cloud City scenes we discussed and taught us a thing or two along the way. Sometimes, you have to let your counterpart know you’re willing to throw yourself down an endless shaft rather than accept their deal; they’ll never take you for granted again.

One highlight of this show was meeting our first book’s biggest fan (We think! So far!). Clay Francell, a Texas-based expert in mediation and leadership, has not only read the book cover-to-cover several times, but has thoroughly highlighted, cross-referenced, and Post-It note—ed it, winning prizes for diligence and aesthetics. Let us know what you’ve done with your own copy, or tell us what reading the book has led you to do!

Are you willing to fight for someone you don't know?

Another highlight was spending time with Josefina Rendon, past-president of the Texas Association of Mediators and fierce advocate for Wookiee rights. Check out her chapter in our upcoming book Star Wars and Conflict Resolution II: My Negotiations Will Not Fail, addressing the question that has disturbed you all since 10 minutes ABY: Where was Chewie’s medal? Judge Rendon’s chapter discusses the different forms of bias at play in that scene and throughout the trilogy and explains how these biases impact conflicts in our own lives.

Popcorn and soda included!

Next came the International Ombuds Association’s annual conference.

Ombuds are organizational conflict troubleshooters, working in government agencies, private corporations, universities and beyond to help their organizations anticipate, address, manage, and resolve internal conflict. They also work to teach skills and language for good conversations and constructive conflict resolution to as many people in their organization as they can reach, which is exactly what we’re trying to do with our Star Wars and Conflict Resolution books (on a galactic scale). We were invited to give a keynote at the IOA conference and they were delighted when we suggested transforming that into a keynote Movie Night - an after-hours event where we got together, watched lots of Star Wars, discussed conflict elements as they cropped up in the movie and overall, did some good nostalgic time-travelling.

Those guys must really be desperate.

If you’re wondering which movie we watched, we actually saw a new movie, created for the event: The Han Solo Cut of the Original Trilogy, which is what the original series would have looked like if the story was being told from Han Solo’s perspective. So, instead of the movie opening with long scenes of droids kvetching their way across the sandy dunes of Tatooine, it starts with Han Solo sliding into a booth in a dark Mos Eisley cantina, and facing the two strangers that his first mate had lined up as their next passengers. See the difference? Working with conflict parties is all about working with different sides of the same story, or hearing new tellings of stories you think you already knew. Watching this new twist on the narrative opened up new conflict discussions and new takes on familiar discussions.

Coming up? Well, we’ll be attending the American Bar Association Section on Dispute Resolution’s annual conference in San Diego. We’re not presenting there this year (although at last year’s conference we had a roomful of conflict resolution folks fighting each other with lightsabers) but our publisher, DRI Press, will be there and have our book on display. Also, we might have some good news to share; if you’re there, stop by and ask us!