August has been a busy month for learning and networking at conferences.  First the American Psychological Association’s annual conference in Washington DC, then the SALT conference in Reston, VA, and a few days later the Serious Play Conference in Redmond, WA.   There are so many innovative technologies emerging for organizational psychology involving virtual teams, simulations, serious gaming…  Back in New York now busy developing some of these ideas for Psychology21C.  Stay tuned.

Suzanne Roff was a panelist for an April 25, 2011 special program jointly sponsored by the CUNY Dispute Resolution Consortium at John Jay College and the Organization, Consulting and Work Psychology Division of the New York State Psychological Association.  She presented on the Use of Avatars for Conflict Resolution and predicted the future use of avatars to meet the needs of a growing population comfortable with virtual world technologies.

The use and limits of state-of–the-art and emerging technologies for mediation, conflict resolution and training were presented by a panel which was followed by a lively knowledge café style workshop to determine potential applications by program participants. New technologies,  including virtual world applications, were demonstrated during the presentation.  Topics covered included:

·       What’s the impact of new technologies (e.g. on-line mediation; virtual reality applications) on mediation, dispute and conflict resolution?

·       What’s the impact of the social media explosion on mediation, dispute and conflict resolution?

·       How can psychologists and mediation, dispute and conflict resolution professionals work together for the benefit of current and future clients?

·         What’s the impact of new technologies (e.g. on-line mediation; virtual reality applications) and the social media explosion on organization and consulting psychology?

Panel participants were Dr Suzanne Roff, Dr. Helen Rozelman, Jeff Thompson, and Alex Yaroslavsky.  The panel chair was Dr Richard Wexler.

CompassPoint Consulting’s core is its collaborative networks.  Next week  the Co-Founder of one of our collaborative networks Psychology21C will be presenting at the New York Academy of Sciences.  Richard Wexler will be discussing, among other ideas, what virtual environments offer organizations in terms of communication, training, and collaboration.  The presentation is titled “Revolutionary Virtual Reality Tools Changing Psychology, Consulting, Behavioral Science and Medicine.”  He will be joined by Walter Greenleaf, a research scientist and Founder of InWorld Solutions.

What I understand from each of them is that avatar-based, PC accessible technology is easy to learn, HIPAA compliant (confidential), and very cost effective.  I have been InWorld with my avatar and explored the terrain and chatted with others.  I see much potential and look forward to sharing what I discover.  For more on this, visit Psychology21C.

Suzanne