Description:

Jeff Hancock

 Founding Director, Stanford University Social Media Lab

Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication

Stanford University

Zoom has transformed the professional lives of mediators, and is undoubtedly here to stay. Zoom is vastly convenient, both for mediators and parties. But is Zoom mediation as effective as, does it deliver equal value to, in-person mediation? If mediation is in part art, has the art been diminished?

Jeff Hancock, Professor of Communication at Stanford University, is a leading expert in social media behavior and the psychology of online interaction. He studies the impact of social media and AI technology on social cognition, well-being, deception and trust, and how we use and understand language.

Professor Hancock recently led a team that studied the different kinds of fatigue caused by Zoom. Their findings, widely reported in the popular press, revealed that women scored notably higher for all types of “Zoom fatigue,” but the phenomenon affected both men and women, and all age ranges participating in remote work life.

Professor Hancock will discuss how to mitigate the effects of Zoom fatigue, and how to optimize the use of Zoom, in order to maintain trust, collaboration, and productivity, and, in the context of a hybrid work model, job satisfaction and a cohesive culture.

Professor Hancock will also delve deeper, placing the technology of Zoom within the historical continuum of advances in communication technology, and touching upon the spectrum of forms and relative values of human communication, their physiology and psychology, and the adaptability of human perception and communication.

Please join us for this important and timely presentation. Have the confidence of really knowing what you are proposing as an informed professional when you suggest or agree to mediation by Zoom.

Jeff Hancock’s award-winning research has been published in over 100 journal articles and conference proceedings and has been supported by funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Defense. Professor Hancock’s TED Talk on deception has been seen over one million times and his research has been frequently featured in the popular press, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NPR, CBS, and the BBC. Professor Hancock serves as an expert witness in cases involving technology and social behavior, including defamation, deceptive practices, technology trends, and interpretation of language online.

Professor Hancock was a Professor of Information Science and Communication at Cornell University prior to joining Stanford in 2015.

This program will offer MCLE credit and will be open to non-members of The Mediation Society without charge. MCLE credit will be available to non-members for $25. This payment may also be applied to first-year membership dues in TMS within six (6) months following the presentation of the program.