Ian Macduff

This blog entry arises not so much from any mediation, but from one aspect of regular social encounters that is all too normal a part of negotiation and mediation. As the title suggests, it’s about…

Oz, left to himself, smiled to think of his success in giving the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion exactly what they thought they wanted. “How can I help being a humbug," he said, "when all…

In his 1956 text, The Queen’s Courts, Sir Peter Archer suggested that the development of the Courts was more organic than by design, and - though he doesn’t say as much - more pragmatic than…

“Instructions for living a life.  Pay attention.  Be astonished.  Tell about it.”  Mary Oliver, American poet “Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind in clear and…

Some 20 years ago, as part of a nostalgia trip (for me) and introductory trip (for my wife) to my childhood haunts in Malaysia, we visited the coastal town of Lumut and the offshore island, Pangkor…

This brief comment arises from genuine curiosity and contains a question for my co-authors and anyone else who happens to read this blog. The situation is this: I’ve recently finished reading the…

In their article, “The Collaboration Imperative” [Harvard Business Review, April 2014, p. 77], authors Nidumolu, Ellison, Whalen and Billman note that “business collaboration is the great oxymoron of…

This blog entry will take a more personal tone than have earlier ones - though it’s in the nature of blogs and the more informal style that they have all said something of the experience of the…

The title of this blog is not as harsh and heartless as it might seem at first sight. True, mediation proceeds largely on assumptions of disputant autonomy and participation; and the expectation is…