John is a Co-founder and Strategic Director of mediate.com and Resourceful Internet Solutions. He also is a Founder of www.OnlineResolution.com.
In 1989 he founded and began facilitation of ConflictNet, a global community of conflict resolution professionals. Several years before the popularization of the Internet; ConflictNet began the work of facilitating dialogue and sharing information to provide alternatives to litigation. As a network of the Institute for Global Communications (IGC) and it's International affiliate The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) ConflictNet became a home for discussion groups and a proving-ground for ideas and proposals across the range of disciplines within the conflict resolution field, and a major force in improving the methodology and practice of resolving disputes.
As a virtual organization, The APC was my first introduction to working in a virtual team and holding meetings primarily online. John continues to work in a Virtual mode with the mediate.com team. In 1994 he worked with the former Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) on a Re-Inventing Government project that provided network access to information and dialogue about dispute resolution. He spoke to state and federal agencies about the advantages of using structured, facilitated electronic forums for Regulatory Negotiation, and proposed a pre-Internet interactive online environment; a restricted access multi-layered information and dialogue space; with process management tools. As a result of those proposals, in 1995-96 John participated in the design and use of RuleNet , a Web system for Regulatory Negotiation. RuleNet was designed by the Lawrence Livermore Labs for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I described a consensus evaluation tool that was created and used. His role as facilitator of the first Reg/Neg RuleNet process gave him an opportunity to use this as well as many other powerful online process management tools.
He is a former Fellow at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution. The Center has recognized that cyberspace is a rapidly growing and increasingly active space, where relationships form easily and problems, conflicts and disputes arise often. CITDR is a theory center for Online Conflict Resolution.
