CONVENOR works in conflict management and in community environmental decision-making. ​Our practice is distinct from most other groups working in these areas. We focus primarily on issues which affect conflict handling and participatory adult education systems, on a large scale.

In conflict management, we are best known for our work on 

    • organizations’ widespread and expensive failure to plan ahead for inevitable disputes,
      • including planning to defend themselves against the “hybrid warfare” attacks which are now proliferating; 
    • new strategies for teaching about negotiation;
    • gaps between theory and practice and between different specialties;
    • infrastructure issues; and
    • issues related to mediators’ ethics and qualifications.

In community & environment, we are best known for:

    • strategies for engaging individuals and groups on priority environmental topics;
    • Best Education Practices (BEPs) for natural resources education;
    • models for youth water education.

More:

    • For an introduction to a topic, click on a title.
    • For a drop down menu of subtopics, mouse over the title.

Publications:

Recently in Conflict Management: Recently in Community & Environment:

2026: Two new initiatives are in development, with the help of an expert group of advisors. One is a new multidisciplinary study group on grey zone conflict / hybrid warfare, to build on the work of Project Seshat. The other is an effort to build web-based tools to combat misinformation and disinformation, by making it easier to use an array of fact checkers and other tools. Neither is public at this time. Stay tuned!

Earlier in 2026 Project Seshat, which was led by Convenor’s Chris Honeyman, published its closing product: Hybrid Warfare – A Collection of Scenarios, edited by Adrian Borbély and based in test cases developed by the project. Hybrid Warfare – A Collection of Scenarios is the world’s first teaching casebook about hybrid warfare. Previously the project published, among other things, two special issues of journals in 2023 analyzing the relationship between hybrid warfare and conflict management. (Book Introduction: Borbély, A. and Honeyman, C. 2026. Midnight in a Kaleidoscope: Conflict Management and Hybrid Warfare. In PDF: Borbely & Honeyman 2026)

An article by Chris Honeyman and Rachel Tan Xi’En proposing a new suite of conflict management tools geared to hybrid warfare, with Singapore as the most likely venue, is in the July 2025 issue of Australia’s Dispute Resolution Review. (In PDF: Honeyman & Tan 2025)

Other highlights:

The American Bar Association published Negotiation Essentials for Lawyers (2019), edited by Chris Honeyman and Andrea Kupfer Schneider with 53 chapters; each adapted from the 2017 NDR for the needs of time-pressed lawyers. Interview with the editors (from Your ABA, October 2019).

The Negotiator’s Desk Reference (DRI Press 2017) is edited by Chris Honeyman and Andrea Kupfer Schneider. With 106 other contributors, the NDR superseded the same editors’ Negotiator’s Fieldbook (ABA 2006) as the most comprehensive book available about negotiation.

Convenor now includes National Extension Water Outreach Education website resources. This new content, developed primarily with Federal Government funding, has been rebuilt on Convenor.com based on the University of Wisconsin version, which is no longer available.

Materials are designed to support the work of outreach educators focused on natural resources. An extensive collection of research-based advice highlights Best Education Practices and Increasing Citizen Involvement themes. The content, developed 1996-2012 through multiple national and regional projects spearheaded at the University of Wisconsin, includes audience and behavior research syntheses, an educator self-assessment rubric, self-study modules, a decision-tree, and content resources.

Water Outreach Education: These pages are designed to help educators use Best Education Practices to plan an effective natural resources outreach strategy.

Changing Public Behavior: These pages are designed to help conservation and outreach professionals use social assessment resources to design an outreach initiative with measurable impacts.