So you think you can negotiate?

Earlier this week we announced that FallFest ’14 would be taking place this Saturday, November 22nd in IRC chat rooms.  If you would like to pre-register or take a look around before things get started, here’s where to go.  A special thanks to Threnody of OngoingWorlds for setting the site and chat rooms up for us.  Well done!

We’re really looking forward the great show that host club Phoenix Roleplaying will be putting on for us and the rest of the simming and online role playing community.  Indeed, chairwoman Misty Taylor already has a fantastic line-up of events on the schedule.  Look for it to be published here later today or on Saturday before the festival starts.  With that being said, we still have a few open slots to fill.  If you would like to lead a discussion on a simming topic, run a trivia game, or host a live chat sim, please email me at star [dot] idf [at] gmail [dot] com.  The schedule is filling up fast, so don’t wait!

What is this negotiation business?  Earlier this year during SciWorld, I led a discussion on ethics and “law” within the role playing community.  As do most FallFest and SciWorld discussions, it went in a little different direction than I was expecting.  Toward the end of the chat, we talked about how to effectively and fairly negotiate with others.  Indeed, we’re always negotiating whether we realize it or not.  Even now, you and I are negotiating.  I’m trying to convince you to go to FallFest.  And hopefully you’re now trying to convince you to go to FallFest too.  🙂  Anyway, that SciWorld discussion got me thinking–why not lead a discussion on negotiation and conflict resolution?  Or even better, why don’t we do a negotiation role play and then debrief it?

So here’s what we’re going to do:  It’ll be a two-hour event.  The first hour will be a live negotiation role play exercise set in the Star Trek Universe.  Everyone will break up into pairs, and I’ll give each side a briefing on their goals and objectives.  Then the pairs will head off to private chats to… negotiate!  After an hour or so, we’ll bring everyone back together to talk about what happened, and hopefully learn a thing or two from each other.  Where else can you do that for free?

FallFest starts on Saturday, November 22nd at 1:45pm EST / 6:45pm GMT.  See you there!