Educating, promoting and demonstrating conflict resolution
is a key component of any marketing strategy for those of us
who want to promote choice and the means by which to avoid costly and very time
consuming litigation. The model my colleagues and I have
chosen is to do so through is video. So, what are we doing
and how are we doing?
Our outlet is Hawaii Community Television. In Hawaii we are
fortunate enough to have access to production and equipment
facilities to produce our series so long as we are working
under the auspices of a non-profit. Fortunately we have our
local chapter of ACR and the Mediaiton Center of the
Pacific, Inc.  Our ability to produce would be impossible
without volunteers, who although they have day jobs also
find the time to participate in our episodes. Our format is
a vignette, a story, with volunteer actors playing the roles
of people finding themsleves in conflict as well as the
professional mediators, facilitators, negotiators acting as
third party intermediaries. Scripts are submitted and
suplemented with a bit of drama and entertainment augmented
by the improvisation of the actors themsleves. Our panel
consist of professionals in their field- attorneys,
mediators, facilitators, human resource personnel. The
enthusiasm of the volunteers is contagious and keeps me as
the producer and panel moderator going.  Most of the video
filming and editing is night work and the learning curve is
fairly steep.  In addition we’re working on a web page to
provide supplemental information on what we’re doing and
to give due recognition to our volunteers as we can’t do
very much of that in the videos.
We all learn from each episode and each other. One thing you
find out is to be patient and perseverant.  The inspiration
comes from the  potential audience which can be reached
through this outreach mechanism. We don’t do a how to but
we do touch upon a lot of issues thorugh the opinions
provided by the panel members which are of course, strictly
their own. We hope we can sustain this effort by being on at
the same time each week.  We run one episode each month. In
November the episode deals with voluntary mediation using a
teen conflict as the basis. In December Olelo will run
mandatory mediation and competitive or distributive
negotiation in small claims court. In January facilitation
is highlighted through a story about a facilitation on a
communjity issue. In Fevbruary we turn to the corporate
enviornment and launch a discussion about a workplace team
finding itself in chaotic conflict and we start a
disscussion about resolution.  We are producing an episode
about a disability claim in mediation and more scripts are
in the works for later next year.
We always welcome feedback so if you have ideas or want
to share what is available to inform, promote, and
demonstrate choice in dealing with conlfict please don’t
hesitate to send us your inputs. Mahalo and aloha from
paradise