2010 Post Conference Comments

The Buenos Aires ODR Forum ended yesterday, and there were some interesting wrinkles this year.

First, the city of Buenos Aires suffered a power outage yesterday and we held the conference by light from the windows and by candlelight. There were no Power Points until the University brought in a generator later in the day, so people really had to just talk, and you could tell all of the Internet junkies by the way their fingers (mine included) twitched all day looking for a keyboard.

Second, the presence of local ADR practitioners with an interest in ODR is higher than in any of the other Forums that I have attended. Alberto has generated an online interest group (ODRLatinoAmerica) with almost 1600 members, many of whom are here and involved in the Forum. In the past, most of the publications and most of the discussions have been in English, but there was a real need at this conference for translation because of the high level of participation by Spanish-speaking ADR professionals. I think this will lead in the short term to a mirror image of the ODR.info site in Spanish, and I think it signals a need for our NCTDR group to think more glocally – globally, but with a real focus on the local communities where we all interact. We all owe many thanks to Alberto for a fine conference and for making this clear to all of us.

Finally, there was for the first time serious talk of taking the sponsoring organization (NCTDR) and making it a more formal organization, perhaps even a membership organization along the lines of ACR or IOA. That’s an exciting and daunting prospect, of which more later.

The next Forum is tentatively scheduled for January, 2011, in India, and after that, in June, 2012, in the Czech Republic.