What Are You Doing Next Saturday?

6th Annual Conference on Applied Ethics:

Technology and Ethics

April 4-5 2014 at SUNY Broome Community College

What are the ethics of data mining, genetic screening and hydrofracking?
What is the significance and future of neuroethics?
Can there be ethical guidelines for the production and use of chimeras?
Is there a right to technological connectivity?

Keynote speaker for this year’s conference will be Dr. David Sloan Wilson, Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University. He is a prolific author and frequent speaker at conferences around the world. His address on Friday, April 4th at 7pm will be on, “Ethics, Technology and Evolution.”

[Opinion] I Am the One Who Knocks on Bad Water

We here at HSCT are fans of the AMC show Breaking Bad.

We are currently binging on the last few episodes of the series on Netflix… a service of which we are also big fans.

One of the narrative elements of the show that coursed consistently through its five seasons was water:

Water in pools
Water used to clean up after a meth making accident
Water used to replace a chemical stolen from a train

And on and on.

In a crucial conversation, the pool of meaning is filled with “stuff”—emotions, ideas, thoughts, reactions and responses—that determine how the conversation will proceed.

Of course, if that crucial conversation is occurring around something that matters, then the pool of meaning can be filled with some brackish water.

On Breaking Bad, pools (and water) are used for cleansing and clarity. Or, sometimes, like in The Graduate, as a place to “just, sort of, float along peacefully.”

In a crucial conversation though, the pool can be filled with “shared” meaning—where each participant is being a careful steward to the reactions, emotions and responses of the other party.

Or it can be filled with “personal” meaning—where each participant jealousy guards their own reactions, emotions and responses and uses them as weapons against the other party.

We here at HSCT don’t condone violence, and Breaking Bad serves as an awesome commentary on the state of the contemporary American psyche, but wouldn’t it have gone better for Walter if he had operated on the principles of abundance and shared his pool of meaning sooner?

[Thanks to Breaking Bad & Philosophy for pointing out some of these things to me.]

We would love to see you there!

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com/

“Opt-In” Networking

From banner ads that boast a .01% click-through rate to YouTube videos that offer the opportunity to “Skip This Ad” in 5…4…3…2…1…, interruptive marketing is becoming more and more desperate to get eyeballs onto content that isn’t interesting, engaging or intriguing.

How does that fact tie in with stalled job searches in a country with a labor force participation rate at around 60% and 92 million people not working?

Well, the bad news is that employers have HR departments made up of people and even they are becoming wiser to the interruptive tricks of the job search trade.

So, networking becomes more about developing relationships and seemingly menial work done well, rather than about being interruptive with a resume, cover letter and references.

How do you develop relationships with employers before they want to hire you?

You don’t.

You develop yourself first.

You volunteer at the local soup kitchen.

You shovel the old lady’s driveway next door.

You get up off the couch and start a blog, a Twitter account or a really interesting YouTube channel.

You take the part-time job that is “below you,” for minimum wage and perform at it like it’s the greatest full-time work you’ve ever had.

In a world where the hidden “opt-out” is becoming increasingly the “norm,” allowing others—particularly others with jobs, cash and referrals to throw around—to “opt-in” to you, by showcasing what you do, is the only way to go to get to where you want to be.

Otherwise, your resume is going in the HR trash bin faster than you can click on the “Skip Ad” now button on the bottom right hand side of your favorite YouTube video.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Opinion] Would You Like a Side of Mediation with That?

Mediation and sales have several things in common:

They both involve establishing trust right away.
They both involve starting from a referral from one or more of the parties.
They both involve establishing a relationship between the two parties and the mediator/s.

The key place where sales and mediation differ is that a sale is usually closed: Either the salesperson gets the order and gets paid, or the prospect gets the salesperson to go away.

Mediation relies on both parties having the autonomy to walk away. Sales involves parties being pressured (whether lightly or heavily) into making a decision to “buy” or “walk-away.”

The big takeaway form all of this is that if your career is in mediation, learning where to put pressure on versus where to ensure autonomy will ensure that each participant has a satisfactory outcome.

And that you get paid.

Active listening is a huge driver for both sales and mediation.

If you aren’t listing to what your customer is saying that they want—or the parties in the dispute are saying that they want—you’ll wind up going home.

Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Changing Lanes

Survival is not often talked about by people in society.

The dictionary defines it as “the state or fact of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal, or difficult circumstances.”

Eminem recently wrote a song about it.

Biology runs on the fuel of it.

So does most of the programming on PBS, National Geographic, the Discovery Channel and most “reality shows.”

Economic systems since bartering have operated by its brutal rules.

Check that.

People in society talk about survival all the time.

Well, HSCT has survived it’s freshman year.

Welcome to the sophomore year of the grand experiment.

Where are we going next?

Well, we here at HSCT love the process of process.

We also love content and content generation.

And 2014 will bring more content, more process and more survival.

Let’s go deeper, build a deeper relationship and bring Church to the wild.

Part of going deeper (and moving from surviving to thriving) here at Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT) means well, us charging something to give more to you.

Take two hours this month to develop the leader within you, through relevant exercises and pertinent, specific, targeted advice.

Map your leadership style this month by signing up for the February 19^th HSCT Seminar, Developing the Leader Within, held at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Broome County for only $89.99!

Follow the link here http://bit.ly/1fht5Nq for more information and to register!

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

HSCT’s website: http://hsconsultingandtrain.wix.com/hsct

Take Me to the Other Side

Much ink has been spilled about the impact of Martin Luther King’s life and legacy.

As a conflict engagement specialist, though, I think of something else today.

Nonviolent resistance is the best way to expose the hypocrisy and unjustness of legalized policies and has been used from Jesus to Ghandi to MLK to Nelson Mandela to affect change in societies and cultures.

But what about those folks on the other side of the confrontation?

What about those folks in power in the American South who had instituted systems of privilege and power that oppressed people?

What about the British government in India or the Roman government in Judea?

What about the white minority population and government in South Africa?

Why didn’t they look at the resistance, stop what they were doing, lay down their arms, put away their power, and work collaboratively to come to a just and equitable resolution?

In conflicts and mediation situations, I often observe parties who are incapable of changing their patterns of behavior, their ingrained responses and their knee jerk reactions to external stimuli coming in the form of difficulty, confrontation and conflict.

If people as individuals cannot look at the resistance, stop what they are doing, lay down their (metaphorical) arms, put away their power, and work collaboratively to come to a just and equitable resolution in a personal or family conflict, then what hope do countries, cultures and peoples have?

The issue at that point becomes one of decisions, choices and the will to follow through on them.

Jesus and Ghandi had the will.

So did MLK and Mandela.

The will on the other side was weaker, the ability to “save face” was not as strong and the capacity for change was not as developed.

Mediators are the only ones with the training, expertise and desire to get all the parties to the table to even begin the talking process.

Yet, we still have volunteer mediators in this country.

Yet, we still think that mediation, collaboration and compromise are for the faint of heart.

Something to think about, today on January 20, 2014.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] The 1%

Already acquired wealth generates abundance, right?

It follows then, that from wealth a person, organization–or, even an invention or an idea–can spread more quickly, and the people promoting it can decide to be generous or greedy, based upon market forces, government regulation and personal preference.

Right?

But, what if everybody (or, let’s say 60%) of “average people” (those who haven’t acquired wealth) had access to the same tools to disrupt the market, and create abundance, as the people who built the market in the first place?

What percentage of that 60% would use those tools to dream—not just big, but gigantically—to build something world hacking and world changing?

15%?

10%?

5%?

We had a discussion the other day about this very topic—and the conflicts and tensions that such a question raises—and the point was made that if people are unemployed in, or left out of, an economic system that has shifted toward sharing and abundance, rather than staying in the stagnant model of scarcity and parceled out wealth, then those unemployed won’t get a new job…

…they won’t participate in a new economy…

…they won’t play the game.

And the enterprising few who do parlay the access and tools in the abundance economy will be the ones who will make up the upper 1% of a society.With the unemployed generating no revenue, because the jobs they have don’t exist anymore and the industries that they used to work in changed radically.

Ultimately, the unemployed will be left behind in an abundance economy.

This perspective and argument is representative of a “stuff” based mentality that operates on a scarcity principle.

The people who will be unemployed by the disruption of generosity have nothing to worry about.

Neither, as a matter of fact, do the people who will advocate for them, try to pass laws to protect them, or develop charities to feed and clothe them.

We think that the number of those who will be enterprising (or entrepreneurial) enough to take advantage of the tools of a disruptive, abundant economy will remain where they have always been (somewhere around 1%-5% of the overall population) for quite some time, because of one factor that overrides paying bills, feeding a family, paying for college or getting ahead.

Fear.

-Peace Be With You All-

Santa’s Accountability Problem

Trust during the holiday season is freely given. It must be something about the charitable feeling and spirit around the month between the day after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas.

Whatever the psychological, theological or emotional motive this feeling of trust springs from, the public is sure to hear stories in the news about organizations (the Salvation Army), corporations (any retail giant) and governments (yes, I’m looking at YOU Healthcare.gov) abusing this trust for nefarious means.

It kind of puts in perspective what was said here and here this week; but bear our indulgence on this point for just a moment:

Trust requires that the giver and the receiver engage in a dance of vulnerability and responsibility.

The giver must be willing to put down cynicism and suspicion and the receiver must be accountable and responsible.

The charities and organizations that are doing best—both now and in previous holiday seasons—are those that focus on the intersection between quality, accountability, transparency and relationship.

When trust happens between the giver and the receiver, a relationship is built up over time that neutralizes deceit, suspicion, obfuscation and irresponsibility.

And that’s a process that’s even more scalable than the industrial based processes that got us to where we are now.

Remember, it took us 100 years to get to this point…it will take at least that long to get us back to sanity.

Are you, and what you are building, up to the challenge?

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Towards A More Thankful Union

We here at the HSCT Communication Blog are all thankful this day for many things:
The country where we live,
The family that we have,
The connections we are about to make,
The business that we are growing,
The tools that we have to explore the world,
The intellect and science behind them,
The religiousity that allowed people to develop ideas,
The advancements in the world that feed more people well,
The times that are a changin’,
The peace we have an opportunity to build,
The relationships we have had a chance to build,
The connections that we have made,
The critics, naysayers and disbelievers that we have,
The “no’s,”
The “yes’s,”
The “maybe laters,”
The incredulity,
The pain
…and the promise…

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Creativity Flows

6:30 am: The alarm goes off announcing the beginning of a new day. I roll over and hit “dismiss” and try to gain a few more winks. But I’m winking in vain.

Chinese Proverb

6:45 am: The legs swing off the bed and I wrap myself in a blanket and head to my prayer closet for an hour. Get The One perspective on the day before putting in any other perspectives.

7:30 am: The wife rolls over and wakes up. We talk for fifteen minutes about the day ahead, how much we love each other and then she jumps up to put the kid on the bus.

7:45 am: The shower is hot, the shaving razor’s cold and it stings. This is the time when the Android begins to shake, vibrate and blip at me with incoming messages. The world is waking up.

8:15 am: Go downstairs and start coffee. Have an apple while passing through the office to boot up the computer.

8:30 am: The coffee starts to make me vibrate as the email, texting, Tweeting, Facebooking, LinkedIn connecting and other nonsense starts in earnest on my end. I also begin my “to-do” list for the day.

9:45 am: Content creation, workshop preparation and research, speech writing begins. This will go in fits and starts, intermittently with checking email and responding to LinkedIn posts and comments, throughout the day.

11:45 am: Go to the radio and hit the POWER button. Start the talk radio going. It makes the day pass by and I get all these different perspectives from what I’m intermittently reading on Drudgereport.

1:45 pm: Lunch. And keep working on projects. Phone calls begin now. Always call in the afternoon because I hate to be bothered in the morning as a business owner and I project my neuroses on others. Monday and Wednesday, cold calling; Tuesday and Thursday, warm calling; Friday no calling.

3:45 pm: Kids start walking in the door. Whole day now enters “Swiss Cheese” mode, pockmarked by homework requests, TV requests, videogame requests, food/snack requests, wife requests, calls back from potential clients (if I’m lucky) or more work on content creation for the next day.

5:45 pm: Time to think about fixing dinner.

6:30 pm: Fix dinner because the two people under four feet tall are about to eat each other and the taller peoples above four feet tall are about to eat each other.

7:15 pm: Dinner hour. Welcome to the goat rodeo: The one time of the day where I’m a conflict consultant, mediator, father, disciplinarian, husband, Tweeter, and cook’s helper (or, depending on the day, the cook) all at the same time. And at the dinner table.

8:00 pm: Bedtime for those under four feet tall. Let the wrangling into showers, pull-ups, pajamas, beds and cribs begin.

9:15 pm: Go to the gym on Mondays, Wednesdays and maybe Fridays. Or, start to catch up on what was missed during the last two hours on social media, answer late emails, create content for tomorrow and talk to my wife as she sits next to me editing.

11:30 pm: Hit the sack. Set the alarm to do it all again tomorrow.

This is a summary of a day as a conflict consultant.

The days are also randomly broken up when there are meetings to go to, clients to meet, trainings, workshops or speaking engagements to run, deadlines to follow, or crises to address.

Backing up my wife and kids becomes the most important thing above everything and sometimes this leads to nights that stretch into 1am.

Also, if there is a class, outside employment or another factor to be addressed during the day (for instance, I have to go to work at a retail store as an employee for 4, 6, or 8 hours of the day) then everything shifts back or up.

No day is the “same.”

No day is “normal.”

No day is “average.”

Creativity flows when there is no routine, but no routine.

As the principal conflict consultant here at Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT) I believe in picking yourself as a conflict professional first before a client picks you.

That way you can decide the best client to fit into your routine. Not the other way around.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining page on Facebook

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/