Blogging and generally thinking something interesting continues to be meagre these days, as I rush from one masterclass to another. Last week it was back to Warsaw for two days of Drafting Skills and Negotiation Skills.  Tomorrow back to Vienna for another Negotiation class at the IAEA. The IAEA is a central force in the intricate attempts to get a deal with Iran over its nuclear capabilities and ambitions: someone neutral (namely IAEA) will have a huge operational responsibility to check exactly what is being done in Iran (or not) to carry out its eventual undertakings. Plenty of negotiation technique needed for all that.

Then I race to Cambridge for graduation day, and hurtle thence back to Warsaw for a new class on Diplomatic Crisis Management.

At an earlier Negotiation class a couple of weeks ago, someone suggested that it would be good to have our core messages made available afterwards on a small card. This got me thinking. How best to summarise them in a terse memorable way?

Thus I have spent today reworking my presentation into the following areas:

Theory

Vulture, Orange, Onion, Pins, Carrots/Sticks, the Godfather

Technique

Tables + Triangles, Ear + Mouth, Anchor + Frames, Mirror, Silence, Sheepdog

This week in Vienna sees this vivid way of looking at Negotiation given its first full run. I may be some time.

At some point soon I need to muster my thoughts on the UK EU referendum. That is a belter of a negotiation, with massive onions, vultures, carrots and sticks flailing around in all directions. See also bluff. And sharp pins.