Daniel Rainey's blog

Venues

2011-11-16T06:39:00.003-05:00

This week I've been attending/observing a training session for lawyer/mediator/arbitrators offered by Cornell University's Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) school. The course is called "Employment Law Mediator Training," and it has brought home to me how specialized some areas of ADR work are, and how little borrowing of ideas about third party work there can be across venues.

The venue in which the class is working, and hopes to work professionally, is mediation in employment law, where attorneys or HR directors make decisions about which mediator to hire, and where operating through caucus and shuttle diplomacy is the norm. There are two mantras for the week: "It's always about the money," and "If you don't settle cases you'll never get hired again." Both are probably quite apropos for the venue in which the class is operating, but it is notable that both are antithetical to much of what is taught about ADR outside the employment law arena, where it is often not at all about the money, and where it is an article of faith that not getting a deal is not a sign of failure. As my tuition for being allowed to sit in on the class, I have been asked to observe some of the mock mediations conducted by the students and offer comments about their performance. At one point, after I had said my piece, the instructor commented that I obviously came from a more "pure" ADR background than she. Aside from the fact that I don't think anyone has ever described me as "pure," I think it reveals a perception that may be common to lawyers who do employment law work: all the warm fuzzy ADR talk about consensual outcomes and interest based discussions is nice, but too academic to be of any use. It wouldn't surprise me, but it might surprise some of the employment law mediators, to find that parties and practitioners in other venues would find their directive, caucus based approach too narrow to be of any use. I've always considered myself to be eclectic in approach - paraphrasing one of my virtual mentors, Kenneth Burke, I'll use anything I can, from anywhere I can find it, to help me figure out what's going on and what to do about it. Given that attitude, I acknowledge the utility and usefulness of the methods that are used in employment law mediation, but I wish trainers and teachers could find a way to cross the lines created by specific venues to recognize and discuss the usefulness of techniques and approaches from multiple venues. It seems to me that employment law mediators could learn a couple of things from the rest of the ADR world - I know that in a couple of cases I have observed this week there were some very non-monetary items that could have had a huge impact on a party's willingness to settle - and the rest of the ADR world could learn a bit from the employment law mediators about how to approach entrenched parties and zero sum situations.

Another topic that came up during the class has me thinking about the advice we give students who are trying to break in to the dispute resolution field. The message this week has been that it's nice to network with your peers, but you really need to network with the people who make decisions about which mediator, if any, will be hired. Probably good advice, and advice that I probably have not passed along to students clearly enough.

ACR Conference Notes

2011-10-14T08:43:00.001-04:00

At the opening session of the ACR conference in San Diego the President of the Association announced that ACR was, for the first time in living memory, in the black every month of this year. That was good news, and a remarkable turn around from the dire financial straits that ACR was in just a couple of years ago. Other things about the conference, however, have been a bit disappointing.

My disappointment started with the opening plenary session. The topic was framed around “diversity of practice,” but there was little or no diversity among the panel members – they, for the most part, came from a lawyer/mediator/arbitrator background, which is not in and of itself a problem. But if the object of the plenary was to discuss the problems and opportunities offered by true diversity of practice in the conflict/dispute resolution field, if fell far short. One of my colleagues observed that the conversation on the stage mirrored conversations mediators have been having in small groups for years, and another observed that if a panel with all mediator/ADR types was diverse, then ACR had little to offer her as a peacemaker. This, in my view, is a serious problem with ACR, and it is reflected in the choice of panel members (a group of the usual ADR suspects) and the lack of sensitivity to what are sometimes radically different goals and processes embraced by those who are supposed to be served by ACR. Even the slogan for the conference, “Many Paths, One Goal,” is a problem for me. In addition to the many paths not being present on the stage, we don’t all have the same goal. I hesitate to put words in their mouths, but I think most of the panelists would embrace the idea that the “goal” is to get to resolution or settlement of reasonably discrete issues or problems – that is what they do every day in their practices. I suppose that if you look at it from a high enough level, we may all have a similar goal – perhaps as my partner, Julia, said, we all want to leave things in better shape than we found them. But as you get closer to the ground there are many among us who are interested not in resolution or settlement, but in changed relationships, capacity building, social justice, etc. At any rate, I, and many others who I heard express an opinion, found the opening session disappointing and indicative of deeper problems in the Association.

The other strikingly evident problem with this conference was pointed out by Tony Picchioni, the Chair of the dispute resolution program at SMU – there were damn few people under 30 at the conference. I have always seen ACR as an insular group, and I have said in the past that we should make it easy, not hard, for students to attend and actively participate in the conference. I’m trying to practice what I preach by organizing a student panel at the ODR Forum this year – at the very least, we at ACR could organize a spotlight panel for students and give free access to the conference for those who participate. But youth are not in evidence in any numbers at ACR conferences. This will not serve us well in the long run.

I may sound like I am anti-ACR, but I’m not. I’m just disappointed that the premier professional group for practitioners and academics dealing with conflicts, disputes, and social tension isn’t doing a better job of putting up a tent where everybody feels welcome and served. And I wouldn’t be writing this if I hadn’t heard a number of colleagues at the conference saying much the same thing.

Names and Things

2011-10-03T10:43:00.002-04:00

Pieces of two conversations over the past couple of days have gotten me thinking about how to label some of the work in which I am directly (and tangentially) involved with the InternetBar.Org and SMU.

The first conversation occurred yesterday at lunch with Jeff Aresty and Tony Picchioni: Jeff is the founder and President of InternetBar.Org, and Tony is the department chair for the dispute resolution program at Southern Methodist University. Tony mentioned that he is working with faculty to consider changing the name of the program to get away from the dispute resolution or conflict resolution label. It seems that the university is finding the same reaction that Colin found at eBay – disputes and conflict are seen as negative, while customer relations, customer service, and other less confrontational sounding labels are seen as positive. These reactions and the impulse to re-label is, I think, an extension of a debate that has long gone on in the “field” (if we can agree there is one). Many differentiate between conflict and disputes, and many question the use of the term resolution as part of our name, given the fact that many in the general “field” don’t aim toward resolution of discrete issues/disputes/conflicts as a primary goal. It is not merely an academic exercise. As Bernie Mayer and many others have forcefully argued, it matters what we call ourselves, and what labels we use to describe our work. It will be interesting to see what SMU decides regarding the label of their program.

The other conversation was with Jeff over breakfast this morning. On a conference call with the IBO Board of Directors (which I missed due to incompetence in managing my schedule) there was a discussion of the PeaceTones initiative, which I helped found and which is near to my heart. (http://peacetones.org/) The Board Member asked, “What does music in Haiti have to do with ODR (online dispute resolution)? “ Good question. If one defines the field of dispute resolution, and by extension online dispute resolution, literally so that resolution of discrete issues/disputes/conflicts is the goal, and so that the mainstream ADR models that derive from rational action and contact theory are the presumed guides to practice, maybe music in Haiti has little to do with ODR. But if one looks at the sweep of work that is done under the rubric of dispute resolution, to include traditional mediation and facilitation, and transformative mediation, and peacebuilding, and community building, and capacity building, and relationship development, then music in Haiti, at least as IBO is working with music in Haiti, has a lot to do with “dispute resolution.”

How Different are e-Commerce and Divorce Mediation?

2011-09-19T19:06:00.003-04:00

In October I will participate (via web video) in a panel discussion at a conference in Wroclaw, Poland, sponsored by the Research Center for Legal and Economic Issues of Electronic Communications. The panel I’m on will focus on ODR, and when I was asked for a topic about which I would like to speak I responded that I would talk about what I perceive as “The Great Divide” beginning to form between ODR as applied to e-commerce and ODR as applied to more traditional ADR pursuits. Having confidently blurted out that topic, I’m now wondering if the divide is as great as I once thought.

ODR as an area of interest was born when it became clear that commerce on the Internet was creating disputes that were unlike the disputes that we create in face-to-face interaction. People who could or would never meet were engaged in conflict across national and legal borders in an environment where litigation or alternative approaches to dispute resolution were not practical, or even possible. As interest in ODR has built, the focus has largely remained on the huge volume of disputes generated by e-commerce, with eBay as the poster child for ODR applications and approaches. That is changing a bit, and there is an interest in the application of technology to more traditional ADR venues: there were even two NSF funded research projects in that area in which I was involved. But, for the most part, I think when students and practitioners think of ODR, the first thing that comes to mind is ODR as applied to e-commerce.

The “great divide” distinction I have drawn is based in the differing needs of e-commerce ODR as opposed to, for example, ODR applied to divorce mediation or community mediation. ODR for e-commerce must find ways to deal with very large numbers of cases (our poster child, eBay, handles sixty million cases per year), with reasonably predictable characteristics (it didn’t arrive, it wasn’t as advertised, it was damaged, etc.). ODR for more traditional venues must help practitioners deal with fewer cases, but cases in which the characteristics may not be so predictable – in short, disputes that are more “messy.”

The special needs in e-commerce have driven development of algorithm-driven fourth party ODR applications, and crowd sourced ODR applications, that push information, classify disputes, and manage disputes largely, or at least in part, without the attention of a traditional third party (eBay’s Resolution Center, or Colin Rule’s community court and reputation system software at Modria, for example). Adventurous developers targeting traditional venues have created a number of applications that attempt to create what I call “virtual tables,” with the capability of delivering online all of the functions that would be necessary for a face-to-face session (The Mediation Room, Juripax, etc.). The development of ODR in e-commerce has been reasonably successful. The development of ODR in the more traditional context has met with mixed success, and in fact my own practice uses communication and data handling applications that, for the most part, were not designed with dispute resolution in mind at all.

So, seeing all this, I began to think of the divide between e-commerce and traditional ADR venues, and I observed what I thought was a deep difference in needs and applications, which I further observed seemed to be widening – hence, the “Great Divide.” I’m rethinking this.

I still think there are significant differences between the needs of e-commerce and traditional ADR, but there are some developments in the area between the two that have interesting implications for both.

I’m involved on the margins in the development of a proposal to NSF that will address multi-party disputes and the handling of information in situations where there are many voices and a lot of data that have to be handled by the third party. The need in multi-party disputes, which I would characterize as more traditional than e-commerce, is how to take a large amount of communication from multiple channels and keep the sheer volume from becoming simply noise that the third party has trouble separating into meaningful messages. Going hand-in-hand with this research is an already underway study of whether and how a computer application can sift through communication and identify value statements and emotional statements, and further how the application (the fourth party) can make useful comments to the third party about those statements. On the far edge of research is a project underway in Israel that is seeking to create, using artificial intelligence, a fourth party capable of taking the place of a flesh-and-blood third party.

So there seems to be a convergence of interests around data handling, and around automating some functions that traditional third parties have had to handle for themselves or with co-mediators. I still think there is a divide between the ODR-related needs and interests of e-commerce and traditional ADR, but I’m beginning to think there is more common ground than has been apparent to me.

Closing of Walter Reed

2011-08-31T20:18:00.004-04:00

I heard a news item this morning about the closing of the Walter Reed medical center. It made me reflect on a project of which I am still quite proud, and which guarantees that connections to Walter Reed will continue.

In 2007, when the stories about the abysmal conditions at the hospital broke in the Washington Post, Ethan Katsh and I were pretty sure that the Army would quickly clean up the physical mess, but we were equally sure that long term dispute or conflict management would not be part of the vocabulary they would use to address the problems at the medical center.

Using NMB Board Member Harry Hoglander’s connections with Congressman John Tierney’s office, Ethan, Harry, and I got a meeting with the new Deputy Commander at Walter Reed, General Tucker. To make a long story short, we were able to convince him that an Ombudsman Office at Walter Reed would help the Army address more than broken air conditioners and peeling paint. To his credit, he immediately saw the utility in creating an Ombudsman Office that would serve all of Army MEDCOM, not just Walter Reed. Also to his credit, he brought in Colonel Becky Baker, who headed the team that created the Army MEDCOM Ombudsman Office, which now has offices around the world at Army medical facilities, and which is offering dispute resolution and management services to literally thousands of wounded soldiers, families, and medical professionals every year. Not coincidentally, given the work Ethan and I have done in online dispute resolution, there is an ODR component to the Ombudsman Office, too.

The ghost of Walter Reed Army Medical Center hovers over all of the Ombudsman Offices.

The Army MEDCOM Ombudsman Office web site is at:
http://medcomombudsman.amedd.army.mil/index.html

A Serious Proposal That Will Never Be Seriously Considered

2011-08-29T18:19:00.001-04:00

Last Wednesday (August 24), this blurb appeared in Politico (specifically, in the Politico Huddle):

A SERIOUS PROPOSAL FOR THE GRAND DUKE OF SUPERCOMMITTEEDOM – “if they’re serious about reaching compromise, they should borrow someone like Dan Rainey, COS for the National Mediation Board. Non-political, skilled in the art of negotiation, and a history of results at the bargaining table,” writes Ted Philips, a legislative aide in Massachusetts.”

I’d be shocked if the Supercommittee invited any third party in to their discussions – they would only do that if there were a sincere desire to make a deal. I doubt very much that there is such a sincere desire, and I doubt very much that the discussion in the room will in any way resemble a standard dispute resolution process. Let’s just say that I don’t envision them spending a lot of time exploring common interests. That is not to say that I don’t think a deal is possible. On the contrary, I think it is quite possible, but as the result of political pressure on both sides, not as the result of a discussion guided by best practices in conflict resolution.

If the Supercommittee really wanted to work out a rational compromise, they might very well invite in a third party, but they certainly would not invite me, as brilliant as Ted may think I am. Instead, they would look for a high profile politician or ex-politician with enough personal clout to lean on the parties as a peer. Would that relationship yield a bad outcome? Not necessarily, but it certainly would rely on a process that is light years from the idealized mediation environment that we teach, and that we even try to deliver as third parties.

How Do We Know What We Know?

2011-08-05T18:46:00.002-04:00

Given my current job, there are a lot of things I would like to write about that I can't address - that doesn't mean I don't have opinions about them or points of view, but as the Chief of Staff of an Executive Branch agency, I have to be careful about what I say in public.

However, there is a phenomenon not related to any specific policy issue that I am experiencing again in relation to the FAA re-authorization bill and the partial shutdown of the FAA that I think I can comment on without being in danger of crossing any ethical or legal lines.

The controversy over the FAA bill started with three provisions that affect the National Mediation Board, and a rule that the Board passed last year. We are not part of the FAA, nor is there any direct connection between us and the FAA's work, so it is curious that the FAA funding bill would be used to tack on three provisions that affect the NMB. But that's another story.

Without going into specifics, I have found it to be the case that not one of the "expert" journalists and commentators have actually gotten the basic facts of the matter right, and not one has described the nature of the rule that is at the base of the conflict correctly. Granted, I am pretty well versed on what is going on, but the reporting and commenting has been notably lacking, sometimes to the point of being shoddy - one NPR expert couldn't even correctly offer the name of the legislation under which the rule was changed. Also puzzling is that the NMB has not been contacted at all to supply background for any of the talking heads or print journalists.

This reminds me, again, of something I tell dispute resolution students all the time - research from afar, reading journalistic accounts, and taking the word of experts will get you into trouble. Nothing replaces "local knowledge," and it is unlikely that any "outsider" will ever understand any conflict in the way or at the level that someone who is a party to the conflict understands it. That seems like such an obvious thing, but the FAA affair has really brought it home to me in spades.

InternetBar.Org Discussion forum

2011-07-24T08:58:00.002-04:00

Jeff Aresty of InternetBar.Org has begun a discussion forum related to online justice systems. The first two posts (his and mine) are included below. To see or join the forum as it unfolds, go to www.InternetBar.org and click on the "forums" tab.

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Jeff's Opening Post:

In 2007, Ethan Katsh and I wrote an op-ed piece for the Boston Globe on the use of online dispute resolution technologies in the small claims setting. http://www.boston.co..._claims_courts/

In this piece, we advocated the creation of a high tech small claims court: we asked what a "high-tech small claims court more in tune with the times look like? In such a court one can "travel to the courthouse" with the click of a mouse and gain access to filing forms via the Web. One need not take time off from work to have one's case heard, engage in endless dialogue with court clerks or wait for the return of self-addressed envelopes to obtain a complaint form."

Recently, Marta Poblet of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, edited a book, "Mobile Technologies for Conflict Management" http://www.springer....8-94-007-1383-3, that offers a vision of mobile justice systems. Can a private justice small claims system emerge that is accessible through cell phones? Could it really come into being? What would have to happen for such a vision to become real?

So, one discussion thread I'd like to kick off in this ODR and e-government forum for IBO, is how can we come up with a plan to build a global small claims court that lets parties resolve disputes using technology and law? What disputes could it handle? Would enough people use it?

By approaching the topic in this way, I'm taking an activist approach. There are enough examples and research articles out there to demonstrate that (1) the existing justice institutions of the world, which are found in jurisdictionally based legal systems, are not providing access to justice in huge numbers, neither proportionately nor in the aggregate; (2) in contradistinction, ODR-based systems in private markets are hugely successful and let millions of people avoid conflict and keep disputes out of physical courts; and, finally, (3) there is enough research which shows the way to come up with a plan to resolve small claims cases globally.

Initially, I am asking Darin Thompson, of the BC Ministry of Attorney General and Daniel Rainey, Chief of Staff of the National Mediation Board, to be the first Discussants on the topic and then let's open it up from there.

Jeff Aresty

My initial reply:

My comments are not going to be groundbreaking, but I think they are fundamental to the issue of an online justice system, whether in a small claims court context or in a broader context.

The two issues that jump immediately to mind are accessibility and enforceability.

As you note, accessibility is becoming less an issue with the proliferation of Internet-capable mobile phones and hand held computers. Even in areas where one would think access might be an issue, rural Afghanistan, for example, it is common for most individuals to either have access to the web, or to be near someone who does. At one time, when I did polls of ODR students to see what they thought might be the most significant barriers to online dispute resolution, access to the Internet routinely came up as a significant barrier. That is much less the case now - most now acknowledge that, in terms of raw access, the game has changed significantly over the past few years. The other side of access, however, presents cultural/personal issues, not technical issues. While many people may have technical access to the web, justice systems in and of themselves have traditionally been opaque, and not open to those with less education or monetary resources. Why does that change just because the person is holding an amazing little gadget that gets them access to the Internet? It seems to me that for any online justice system to work, there must be some level of education done for those who will, potentially, use it, and the system must be inviting enough to be distinct from the profoundly uninviting justice systems with which they will be used to dealing.

Once you have built it and they have come, the issue of enforceability becomes important. I won't go on about this because it is an obvious problem. The UNCITRAL work that is going on now regarding international commercial disputes is approaching the issue as one of voluntary participation, with a "naming and shaming" sanction for those who don't abide by outcomes. I don't have any great ideas about this that others have not already discussed, but if I can get the individual who doesn't trust justice systems to tap into an online system there has to be a way to ensure that justice pronounced is justice delivered.

Daniel Rainey

Unusual Optimism

2011-07-20T20:06:00.002-04:00

We spent some time in Bethlehem with Zoughbi Zoughbi, Director of Wi'am, the Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center, which, I think, was the high point of the SMU course for many of the students. If one had not heard Zoughbi speak about the larger Israel/Palestine conflict before, it might have been hard to pick up, but I heard what came across as optimism when I asked him about the progress Hamas and Fatah are making toward reconciliation. As a politician he is an independent, so he isn't aligned with either party, but his optimism came from his sense that the Palestinian people, the constituents of both parties, have become fed up with things at a level that is even greater than in the past. Their frustration is pushing the political parties to behave differently, at least in Zoughbi's opinion, and that may lead to some real change on the Palestinian side of the border. His optimism did not extend to the Israeli government. However, several of the Israeli academics and conflict resolution professionals we met with on that side of the border indicated a similar discontent among the Israeli public at large, particularly younger Israeli citizens, so maybe there really is room for optimism. I cling to the belief that a true resolution is not possible in my lifetime, but even settlement of some of the more pressing issues would change the dynamic greatly.

The West Bank, etc.

2011-07-03T23:49:00.002-04:00

Plans change, reminding us that we are actually in the middle of a conflict zone. Things in Israel are very calm, and if one did not know that there was a wall between us and the occupied territory, it would be easy to think that the conflict here had ended. But Saturday (the 9th) is the anniversary of the International Court of Justice ruling that the occupation is illegal, and I got a list serve message from an activist group letting me know that there will be active protests against the occupation, and, I assume, confrontations with the Israeli military, from the 9th through the 16th. We got a bit more scrutiny than expected when we came in, and our friend who is teaching here in Jerusalem this week came in from Jordan with her daughter (who works for a U.S. Congressman) and was held for over three hours at a checkpoint. All of this means that we have decided to move up our attempt to visit the Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center, Wi'am, from the 10th to 5th, perhaps missing some of the confrontation.

Opposites

2011-06-30T13:45:00.002-04:00

Sitting in a coffee shop today I saw the polar extremes of cultural approaches to modesty and appropriateness - perhaps a shorthand hint about the long standing and intractable nature of the conflict across this part of the world.

In the door of the shop came a woman dressed in a full burqa, down to the black gloves that cover the hands for complete modesty. On her heels was a woman in a tight dress, low cut to show off rather ample breasts, and a patch of webbing down each side about 6-8 inches wide, showing flesh all the way (I could tell she was wearing a black thong, so not much was left to the imagination).

How does one reconcile those two world views?

Getting Ready for Trauma

2011-06-28T11:22:00.002-04:00

I'm currently in Istanbul, on the way to the Long Term Conflict and Trauma class that is being offered through the SMU study abroad program. This class will be an experiment for me and for SMU, because this is the first time it is being offered, and because it is cross listed between Dispute Resolution and Counseling, and because I am team teaching it with a specialist in trauma counseling.

As I head for the class next week, there is unrest on the Israeli/Syrian border, the Israeli police/military have come under criticism for riot preparation that is too life-like, Hamas and Fatah are trying to reconcile (with some internal controversy, of course), Egypt has opened the border with Gaza, and in September Palestine will petition the UN for recognition. Oh, and there's this thing called the "Arab Spring." In the background all the usual is going on - checkpoints and confrontations, with noise about restarting the "peace" talks.

This course will concentrate not on the Track 1 issues that have yet to follow the "roadmap" - instead it will look at the lower level, day to day stress and conflict found in any society, but which is exacerbated by the existence of long term, deep rooted conflict such as the one with which the Israeli's and Palestinians have been living for five decades.

As the class progresses I'll update this blog with entries from Jerusalem, Haifa, Neve Shalom, and, I hope the West Bank.

Archivist Award

2011-05-17T10:22:00.002-04:00

Next week I will accept for the NMB an award from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) - The Archivist Achievement Award for 2011. This award recognizes the work the NMB has done in the area of records management, particularly e-records management, and the work we have done in making information available online to the public and the parties with whom we work.

This is particularly gratifying because I have made the records and document management program at the NMB a central piece of the online dispute resolution (ODR) program for the past six years. I have argued that it is essential for dispute resolution professionals and parties to take advantage of the unique power that ICT and online work offers in two areas: managing large amounts of data, and making communication possible for dispersed groups. Before we began doing online arbitration and using brainstorming and document sharing tools to conduct arbitration and mediation, the NMB was laying the groundwork by putting in place records and document management and sharing programs that allow the public, the parties, and our mediators to access vital information at any time, from anywhere.

Books and things . . . .

2011-05-08T18:36:00.002-04:00

Mohamed, Ethan and I are getting closer to realizing the ODR source book that Eleven publishing is planning to release later this year. All the chapters are back with the authors for final edits, so we may actually be on schedule. When it comes out, I think it will be, as Mohamed has suggested, a 'Bible' for ODR - the authors are from all over the world and the topics covered will be theoretical and practical.

The Israel/Palestine course through SMU is getting closer, and assuming I continue to recover from the little bout of pneumonia that I have had, we should have an interesting time. Certainly, no matter how the class goes, this is an interesting time to be in Israel and Palestine - Hamas and Fatah are trying to reconcile, Egypt is declaring that they have "no enemies - anywhere" and the Israeli government seems nervous about the tenor of the times. There have been a couple of interesting occurrences in the U.S. that suggest Israeli/American forces are even more tightly closing ranks. The now rescinded recension of the honorary degree for Tony Kushner at City University of New York, and the ongoing attempt to sue Jimmy Carter for using the word 'apartheid' in the title of his book on Israeli-Palestinian relations would seem to indicate that the tension is ratcheting up a bit. At any rate, I'm looking forward to discussing the state of things with the SMU group, on the ground in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Dallas Conflict Resolution Network

2011-02-16T17:56:00.003-05:00

On Thursday, February 17, I will give a talk and lead a discussion on "ODR - A Global Perspective." The slides/notes for that talk are on my web site - http://danielrainey.us - under the "Recent Activities" tab.

Cutting Edge Issues in ADR

2011-01-29T15:09:00.006-05:00

Last week I was on a panel discussing cutting edge issues in ADR with Colin Rule and Susan Exon. The event was a symposium sponsored by the Law Review at the Laverne School of Law in California, and the "cutting edge" ADR issue we were discussing was ODR. My presentation was short, as will Colin and Susan's, because we wanted to leave a lot of time for Q&A, but I've posted the slides and notes for my part of the panel on my web site - http://danielrainey.us - under the "Recent Activities" tab.

ODR Practice

2011-01-15T20:09:00.001-05:00

Later this month, Colin Rule, Susan Exon, and I will collaborate on a panel at an ADR conference sponsored by the Law Review at La Verne School of Law in California. My topic will be one that I have been thinking about a lot over the past year or so: the apparent divide between the requirements for fourth parties and the approach to ODR taken by practitioners working in e-commerce and those of us working in what would be considered the more “traditional” ADR venues.

I made some comments about this in the “Algorithm vs. Art” presentation that I did in Buenos Aires last June, and I have continued to think that the divide is real. There is a lot of development work afoot in the e-commerce arena, with the work being done at eBay and the UNCITRAL project that is developing an international dispute resolution system for e-commerce, and much more. E-commerce generates a mountain of disputes, falling within some reasonably narrow parameters, with a low expectation of F2F interaction, a limited expectation of the parties having an ongoing relationship, etc. Those of us who do more “traditional” work see a lower volume of disputes, issues that are a bit more complex or messy, with a high expectation of F2F interaction, and the probability of ongoing relationships. Most of the platforms that have been developed for traditional venues have not been runaway financial successes, but there is an increasing use of ICT applications not specifically designed for ODR, but which fulfill some functions that are basic to dispute resolution.

Colin and Susan have recently written about the ethical considerations of ODR, and I think the increasing use of various applications has sparked a real need to concentrate on the impact of technology on the ethics and practice of dispute resolution more generally.

ACR 2010

2010-09-03T09:13:00.002-04:00

This is an interesting ACR conference from a technology standpoint. There are multiple technology sessions, not all of which are being offered by the usual suspects. I did a pre-conference session in the use of technology in ADR practice, and I'll do a session later today with Jeff Aresty, Alberto Elisavetsky, and Sanjana Hattotuwa on uses of technology in international work, but there are other sessions and a lot of interest in technology that is not couched in as much skepticism as I've seen in past years. And, of course, Ethan Katsh is getting an award from ACR this year, which gives the ODR community within ACR another platform from which to recruit. It may be that we've turned the corner and are actually becoming part of the mainstream.

R&D Crossover

2010-07-26T14:04:00.001-04:00

I am at the annual conference of ALRA, the Association of Labor Relations Agencies, in Ottawa, Canada – the Association’s members are drawn from Canada and the U.S., and the conference alternates between the two countries.

Last night in the hospitality suite I was engaged in a discussion with a gentleman who has just coauthored a paper on electronic voting in union elections (using the web and telephone electronic voting). I told him about the work that UNCITRAL has embarked upon to create an international B2C dispute resolution program online, and about the work that Chittu and Colin have been doing at eBay/PayPal with community courts. He thought both were interesting, but not related to his interest in online voting. I think he’s wrong.

First, it seems to me that the community court platform has some direct connections to the idea of online voting, but that’s not what I really started thinking about later in the evening. I began to reflect on an observation I have made in the past about the relationship between developments in graphics and animation and the world of offline and online games.

It has always seemed to me that gaming has been the R&D ground for advances in graphics and animation that have spilled over into arenas not contemplated by the developers. The ability to create better animation and graphic effects for online games like WOW has had a spillover effect that has enabled non-game sites like Second Life to exist, and I still have some faith that at some point the improving nature of avatars is going to open up a dispute resolution use for graphic environments that will be significant. Basically, the R&D is done where there is an immediate need, and an immediate payoff in the form of sales or subscriptions that puts money back into the system for more R&D, etc. Everyone benefits in the long run as the new technology becomes cheaper and more readily available – my webcam can let me present myself as me, or as a cartoon character, or as a dinosaur (probably appropriate) and it can use my facial expressions to move my dinosaur’s head, mouth and eyebrows to convey nonverbal messages. That’s “free” with my webcam, and is a result of graphic development in a commercial arena far removed from basic communication.

So, I think my ALRA friend will find that the work being done in B2B and B2C ODR will spill over into his world, perhaps sooner than he thinks, and I think it means that projects and discussions like the ODR and Consumers 2010 conference in Vancouver in November have the potential to impact a far wider audience than the ones that immediately come to mind when one thinks of online commerce.

Haiti and Afghanistan

2010-07-10T06:31:00.002-04:00

Although I will not be along as things move forward, there is movement on a couple of fronts with InternetBar.Org.

Ruha is in Haiti arranging the Haiti Sings competition and getting, finally, the contract signed for the Haiti PeaceTones collection. Haiti sings is an "American Idol" type competition for Haitian performers - the prize will include the opportunity to open for a Haitian professional musical group when they play in New York later this year.

Jeff is off to Afghanistan next week to try to put together the final pieces of the land registry project. He's got appointments with movers and shakers in the legal community, the academic community, the aid worker community, and the government, so our hopes are reasonably high that we can get the project off the ground. Selling rule of law in places like Afghanistan can be a bit of a lift, but, as I have argued to Jeff and others, it may be possible for the war lords and government officials in Afghanistan to make more money faster by establishing rule of law in the land rights and ownership area than they could make through graft and corruption. We'll see how that idea sells in Kabul.

Notes from USIP

2010-06-24T11:55:00.002-04:00

This morning I sat in for a while on a USIP session entitled, "Can You Help Me Now? Mobile Phones and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan." The InternetBar.Org proposal for using mobile phones for land deed registration was on the table for discussion, along with a number of other projects. I wrote down a couple of observations based on the discussion.

First, any time one sets up an online system that increases communication, there is an automatic increase in the opportunity for communication and agreement, but there is a corresponding increase in the opportunity for disagreement. In the case of the land deeds, not everyone on the ground will be happy to see a central registry - if I took over someone's land, creating a way to prove it doesn't belong to me would not be welcome, and if I'm a local war lord, an unwelcome development might provoke a violent response. So, it seems that all ODR systems need to be cognizant not only of the direct conflict which it is designed to resolve (e.g., who owns the land) but also of the indirect conflict it can generate (e.g., displeasure from the war lord or the government bureaucrat who might lose the ability to skim income from the rightful owner). ODR within ODR, culturally sensitive - quite a challenge, particularly in Afghanistan these days with the discovery of a trillion dollars worth of lithium, the mining of which will be tied to land ownership and access.

Second, it is clear that crowdsourcing is not always a good idea. I heard from two projects that promote "bounded crowdsourcing," which is the use of a large number of identified experts or trained participants instead of opening up to the crowd at large.

Third, it is worth pondering what liability, legally or morally, one assumes when a project puts into the hands of people technology that may cause conflict that did not exist before, like I mentioned above, or which basically changes the nature of social relationships. An example of the latter is found in the process by which expat Afghans send money back to the folks at home. Traditionally it came by letter, which probably could not be read by the recipient (the literacy rate for males above 25 is 30 percent - for females it's 11 percent). So, the letter would be read collectively and everyone would know how much money the individual received. That put pressure on the individual to disperse the money based on the complex web of social and class relationships at work in the society. Now, the money can come in via cell phone, so that no one knows who is getting what - suddenly there is an individual empowerment that never existed before. From the comfortable perspective of my office in an individualist society that sounds good. From the ground in Afghanistan, I suspect it cuts both ways pretty deeply.

Teaching ODR

2010-06-24T07:06:00.002-04:00

My short article on Teaching ODR is available on Mediate.com at this URL:

http://www.odr2010.com.ar/ing/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Teaching-Online-Dispute-Resolution-Rainey-May-2010-Final.pdf

NSF, etc.

2010-06-23T15:45:00.000-04:00

As usual, I've been a bit lax in posting here, but things are moving along on a number of fronts. Today and Friday of this week I'll be playing the role of Mediator in the final research project related to the National Science Foundation ODR research that has been ongoing for almost six years. Four sets of volunteers from the airline and railroad industries (management and labor) have agreed to spend some time on both days working with STORM2, the experimental software application that the NSF research created to handle online brainstorming. If all goes well, we should be able to publish some of the results reasonably soon.

Tomorrow I'm sitting in on a USIP discussion about mobile telephony and peacebuilding. Jeff will be on the panel and so will one of our contacts in Afghanistan, with whom we hope to work in the near future. Jeff is going to Kabul in July, but due to some health issues and work issues, I'll not be joining him on this trip.

There is a significant ODR and commercial disputes conference coming up in Vancouver later this year - I've agreed to post at least once a week on the blog for the conference, and I'll cross-post here as we get closer to the conference.

2010 Post Conference Comments

2010-06-04T09:19:00.002-04:00

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.

Notes from ODR Forum Presentation

2010-06-02T11:31:00.000-04:00

9th Annual International ODR Forum:
Peacebuilding in the Digital Era

"State of the Art in ODR"
Daniel Rainey
June 2, 2010

[Slide #1: Title Slide]

• I have produced a couple of articles for this Forum, both of which are available on the Forum web site.

• Those articles focus on the ODR work I've done at the National Mediation Board, and on lessons I've learned teaching ODR classes for the past few years.

• This morning I'd like to suggest that you go to the Forum web site to see the article about the NMB and ODR - because I'm not going to talk much about that right now. Instead, I'm going to pick up an idea that is embedded in the Teaching ODR article, and which I think speaks to the title of this panel - the State of the Art in ODR.

• There are three assumptions about Online Dispute Resolution that students seem to consistently bring to ODR classes - if they know nothing or very little about ODR, they tend to assume that:

➢ Interactions conducted online can never, under any circumstances, be as good as interactions conducted face to face.

I strongly disagree with that assumption, but I'll let it lie for the moment -
we can bring it back up in the Q&A session if anyone is interested. They also
tend to assume that:

➢ The ultimate goal of "good" ODR is to eliminate the need for face to face interaction; and

➢ The "Holy Grail" of ODR is an algorithm driven system (a true fourth party) that eliminates the need for live third parties.

• This sets up an unnecessary, but common, false conflict: Algorithm vs. Art. [Go to Slide 2]

[Slide 2: Algorithm vs. Art]

• One of the hardest obstacles for me to overcome, as a teacher, is to get students to stop thinking and talking in either/or terms about technology assisted dispute resolution and face to face dispute resolution. The tendency, from a distance, is to see the two as at best an odd couple, and at worst as incompatible.

• But I don't think they have to be.

[Slide 3: Algorithm Driven ODR]

• Let me stop for a moment here and make sure I am clear about what I mean when I talk about algorithm driven ODR.

• I am referring to those ODR applications that either have or aspire to use logic trees and algorithms to take some or all of the burden of dispute resolution work from the mediator/facilitator.

• Conceptually, an extreme example would be a type of Neanderthal artificial intelligence that would interact with the parties, walking them through the steps of an ADR process. Not so extreme examples would include the double blind bidding systems like CyberSettle, and the filtering systems like the one in use by e-Bay and the one being constructed for the National Archives in the U.S.

• e-Bay's filtering system is a good example, and that's the one shown on this slide - in an environment where there are very many "disputes," an automated ODR filtering system can offer information and options that stop a great many disputes from progressing to the point where a live third party is necessary.

• Regardless of what those new to the concept of ODR think, our colleagues who work on algorithm driven systems don't really want to do away with traditional third parties, but that is often the perceived goal.

[Slide 4: The Art of Mediation]

• On the other hand, there is the more traditional notion of mediation and dispute resolution that says the practice is an art, not a science, and that online, automated interaction can never take the place of the third party.

• This graphic is a crude way of demonstrating an environment where there are many complicated issues that must be gradually crafted into a unified whole - this is the type of environment in which I usually work these days. For example, it is not uncommon for a company and a union to come to the bargaining table with several hundred open items, each one of which has ties to or affects many others. The "art" in mediation is slowly moving them all toward a unified whole that is acceptable to all of the parties.

• I don't see this as a process in which ODR technology is useless - but many who are new to the idea of ODR, and many who are steeped in traditional training and practice in ADR, do see the art and the technology as incompatible.

• In the work I do, I try to take a variety of ICT tools and use them to enhance various steps or functions in the process of mediation and facilitation, leaving the face to face interaction intact, but making it more efficient and, I hope, more effective.

[Slide 5: Algorithm & Art]

• Having said all that, so what? What does it mean to those of us who now make up an increasingly large and accomplished ODR community around the world?

• There are two things I would stress.

➢ First, we all need to be aware that our colleagues who are coming to ODR now, after over a decade of talk and development, bring with them a very different perspective than we have developed among ourselves. As we put together ODR courses, ODR training, as we give speeches or presentations on ODR, we need to remember to address issues like the one’s I’ve brought up today directly, even if they are not really issues for those of us who have dealt ODR for some time..

➢ Second, I strongly believe that we should be developing very many simple, narrowly focused tools that enhance communication, and that can be used in conjunction with face to face interaction. The tools need to be secure (many are already available, but they are "in the cloud" which is not always acceptable for sensitive disputes), inexpensive, and accessible. What I call "virtual tables" (soup to nuts ODR sites that recreate all the aspects of a discussion at a real table) are nice, but most mediators and most parties don't want or need them - they want and need specific types of help with specific pieces of the ADR process.

• This doesn't mean that virtual table development, algorithm driven development, and even "smart" ODR system development should not continue - we should simply recognize that they are useful for one part of the dispute resolution world (perhaps a large part, but I'm not sure of that), but not for all of the dispute resolution world. We can and should have Algorithm AND Art.

• Finally today I want to announce a project that I hope will be interesting to those of us who are teaching, or who will teach ODR. I am aware of an increasing number of ODR courses, and ODR modules within courses, around the world, and I am sure there are many more of which I am not aware. I am working to put together an ODR Educators Online Workroom where we can all share syllabi, readings, exercises, and engage in ongoing discussions about what we are doing in our classes. I'll invite all of the ODR educators I know into the site, and hope that they will in turn invite others, etc.

• The site will be sponsored by Creighton University, where Colin and I designed and where I still teach the first required ODR course in a graduate dispute resolution degree program. The Werner Institute at Creighton has set up what they are calling the ADRHub - I will create a group on the Hub, post all of the material that I use in my ODR courses at Creighton and SMU, and invite everyone in to share as they wish.

[Slide 6: Q&A]

• That's it for my remarks - I'll open the floor for questions and discussion.

Mediation and Lawyers

2010-05-31T08:15:00.000-04:00

One of the topics of conversation at dinner last night was the extent to which lawyers are a “problem” in the ADR community. In the U.S., the legal community came to the party reasonably late (although they are making up for lost time). I once joked that as soon as lawyers learned how to bill for ADR work, they would take over the mediation world – not quite, but the impulse is there. At this point, however, the legal community and the ADR community at large have a reasonably peaceful relationship in the U.S. – the ABA even lets me belong to the Section of Dispute Resolution (the fastest growing section in the ABA), even though I am not a lawyer.

In Argentina, the situation is very different – the legal community generally thinks that only lawyers should do mediation, and they have tried through practice and legislation to make sure that it is difficult for non-lawyers to practice mediation. They have not been entirely successful, as our dinner companions’ experience shows, but it is difficult if you are not an attorney. Alicia told us of a speech on mediation that she gave to the Assembly here, during which she was actually jeered from the audience (made up mostly of lawyers). It is interesting that one way the legal community here has found to make money from mediation is through mediation training – they will take your money for the training, then , if you are not a lawyer, all you can do is hang the certificate on the wall – you can’t practice what they just took your money for teaching you.

This really highlights the perspective that IBO and Jeff Aresty brings to this issue in an online context – as you move away from “people, places, and paper” it is more and more possible for the idea of access to justice to expand, and to expand with non-lawyers playing a significant role.

Forum Posts

2010-05-31T06:58:00.003-04:00

Julia and I are here in Buenos Aires getting ready for the ODR Forum later this week - but for the moment just seeing the sights. We had a great time last night visiting with Alberto and Alecia and talking about mediation over dinner. Alberto is hosting the Forum and Alecia runs the largest mediation center in Argentina, so we had a lot of talk and interesting perspectives flying across the table.

As the week goes on, I'll post notes from the Forum.

PeaceTones: Haiti Sings 2010

2010-05-25T07:24:00.002-04:00

IBO and PeaceTones has kicked off a new project, in cooperation with Microfundo, called "Haiti Sings 2010."

The project offers the opportunity for Haitian performers to showcase their talents in a contest that will lead to a new PeaceTones collection and an appearance with Tabou Combo in New York City.

PeaceTones overall is an access to justice project that uses music as a way to inject rule of law issues into conflict and post conflict areas, and to raise money to fund projects in the artists communities.

You can find more information about PeaceTones at http://peacetones.cloverpad.org/, and specific information about "Haiti Sings 2010" at http://peacetones.cloverpad.org/haitisings

Forum Papers

2010-05-05T09:09:00.004-04:00

Two short papers I prepared for the Buenos Aires ODR Forum are now posted on the Forum web site. They are available in English, and soon will be available in Spanish on the same site. The URL is: http://www.odr2010.com.ar/ing/?page_id=694

2010-04-29T18:11:00.000-04:00

Here are a couple of rants that will firmly establish me as an aging, crusty old codger.

When I first met Miriam Nisbet, earlier this year at her office at the National Archives, we quickly fell into a discussion about fountain pens. As it turned out, both of us really like to use old fashioned fountain pens, and that day she was using a Lamy much like a couple that I have. She's a Mont Blanc person, and I'm a Waterman guy (I've been carrying my oldest Waterman for over 25 years), so we agreed to disagree about that, avoiding conflict and finding the common interest like good conflict resolvers.

So what, you ask? Well I have a Waterman pen that was given to me by Julia some years ago that is one of my favorite pens. The barrel is made of an olive branch - it is a beautiful instrument, and the olive branch seemed to me to be a good material for a conflict resolver to have in hand, so to speak.

This rant was prompted by the fact that Waterman isn't Waterman any more, and customer service isn't what customer service used to be. (I told you I was going to sound like an old codger.) When the nib began to leak on my olive branch pen, I looked up the service center for Waterman and found that now Parker and Waterman are owned by Tupperware. The only time I used Waterman service in the past they were still an independent company, and it was a joy. Their guarantee was that any time, for any reason, if the pen failed to work properly, they would fix it. The Parker-Waterman Service Center, brought to you by Tupperware will gladly honor that guarantee - if you can produce the original receipt for the pen. What are the chances of that after 25 years? So, I paid my $66.00 to get the pen fixed. I'll hang on to my Waterman pens, but I just might go over to Miriam's Mont Blancs in the future.

My second rant has to do with preachers who think they are free to say whatever they want about whomever they want without taking responsibility for their words. Billy Graham's son was uninvited from offering a prayer for DOD because he referred to Islam as "evil." On today's Washington Post web site he authored an article entitled, "Prayer is not Political," in which he argues that we should all be OK with comments made in the name of God - as defined by him, apparently. Just as people were angered by Louis Farrakhan's reference to Judaism as a "gutter religion," we should all be angered by Graham's reference to Islam as "evil." My response to his contention that prayer is not political, is that whenever a person who has chosen to be a public figure, as he has, makes a remark that is divisive and clearly charged with politics, as his comment was, religion has crossed into the political arena. So, for me, in Graham's case, "Prayer is not Apolitical" and I'm glad DOD uninvited him.

Government ADR & the ODR Forum

2010-04-27T21:25:00.002-04:00

First a correction: a while ago I mentioned that Esther Vilalta Aura Nicuesa, a colleague from Spain, had participated in a conference on the "crime of silence." I was incorrect - she had passed information on to me from one of her colleagues who had, in fact, attended. Sorry for the error, Esther.

Yesterday I chaired a meeting of representatives from some small government agencies with ADR programs that deal primarily with external customers (citizens, private sector organizations, etc.). We met to discuss whether there exists a special community of interest among those of us who supply third parties to sit between the government and the public, or between non-government parties. The consensus was that we do share some common interests, and that the traditional government ADR community, while supportive, can't offer as much as we can offer to each other. Consequently, we are going to go ahead with a larger Small Agency ADR Summit some time later this year, bringing together a much larger group of small agencies and small, externally oriented programs. Our hope is that our coalition (or whatever we call ourselves) will be able to share best practices, training, etc., all of which will benefit the public we serve. I'll write more about this effort as we move along.

The ODR Forum is coming up very soon(June 2nd and 3rd in Buenos Aires). As far as I know, I'm speaking in some venue about ODR and e-Government, and I've put together a paper discussing the ODR program at the NMB. After a couple of other friendly readers have given me some feedback, I'll post it, and the Forum will include it in the online proceedings. I'll also send down to the Forum a short report on the results of an informal survey that I did to get feedback from students who have taken ODR classes over the past several years. I'll post that, too, when the final version is ready.

ABA Section of Dispute Resolution

2010-04-09T11:52:00.003-04:00

I've spent the last couple of days at the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution annual conference. It's been interesting, and a bit depressing at times.

The depressing part comes in two waves.

First, it seems to be even more the case than ever that the unthinking assumption is that mediators (and by extension all third parties, since the "mediator" seems still to be the frame in which most people see intervention work) come to the profession through law school. Maybe they are correct, but it's depressing nonetheless.

Second, as Colin Rule put it last night at dinner, we seem still to be talking about the same issues, in the same way, that we were talking about when he entered the field 20 years ago.

There have been some bright spots. Lawrence Susskind delivered the plenary session address yesterday morning, and it was a well phrased, well argued suggestion for how to approach value based conflict. What he said was on point - for example he outlined the "logic of mediation" as 1) parties know their interests, 2) parties and their representative will act rationally, and 3) parties and their representatives will not turn down a deal that is better than no deal. This, of course breaks down when basic values are involved. The only problem I have with Susskind's talk is that, like many of our colleagues from major institutions, the information was delivered as if he had just discovered it and was delivering the stone tablets. There have been a lot of people doing a lot of work related to this issue for a long time - Susskind said it well, and he certainly has the experience to relate the theory to practice, but there are others out there doing good work, too. You can find the full text of his remarks on his blog at http://theconsensusbuildingapproach.blogspot.com/

One other bright side was the attendance at the ODR panel Ethan, Miriam, Howard, and I did yesterday afternoon. The room was pretty full and there was a lot of interest. It seems that each year brings new interest, and new faces into the discussion of ODR. I had a conversation with a gentleman who is putting together an ODR course for a university, which also seems to be more common these days. I'm trying to finish up a short report on a survey of ODR students from the past few years, which will include a very informal survey of ODR courses being offered around the world. I'll post that when it's done - I hope within the next week or two.

Naming and Shaming

2010-03-25T07:09:00.005-04:00

My friend Sanjana Hattotuwa, a Sri Lankan who has been at the forefront of using ICT for peacebuilding and transformative conflict resolution, has developed a number of technology channels for what he calls "naming and shaming." Basically, if actors in a conflict are engaging in behavior that is destructive or improper, one function that conflict professionals can serve is to name the offending actors, and name the behavior in order to bring shame. One hopes that such naming and shaming would result in altered behavior, but if not, at least the behavior would be exposed and would have to be conducted in the open.

I've been thinking about naming and shaming for the past couple of weeks. The first thing that got me thinking was the public and semi-public falling out that the U.S. government and the government of Israel have had over new construction in East Jerusalem and the Palestinian Authority. For far too long it has been absolutely taboo to mention the detrimental effect on hopes for peace that actions of the Israeli government have had, so it is heartening that this U.S. administration has taken even baby steps in the direction of naming and shaming Israel's actions. We've been willing for a long time to rightly name and shame the Palestinians for corrupt government, internecine fighting, etc., so it's about time for some balance in our public statements. Whether naming and shaming will move the process along to some resolution is questionable - the issues are ridiculously complex - but it's a step.

The other thing that has prompted my thinking about shame is the behavior of the Tea Party activists and their cheerleaders. It is one thing to protest loudly, but quite another to engage in invective, particularly racist and homophobic invective, and to physically threaten and attack those with whom one disagrees. Shame on the ones who name-call and threaten, and shame on the Republican "leaders" who egg them on. For a good take on this from a black journalist, see Courtland Milloy's article in the Washington Post earlier this week: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/23/AR2010032304018.html

University of the People

2010-03-10T16:18:00.004-05:00

I heard a story on NPR this morning that really caught my attention. An Israeli education entrepreneur has launched a new, tuition free, all online education resource called "The University of the People." One of the UN agencies made it a featured program (http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30848&Cr=ict&Cr1) and apparently Yale Law School is a "research partner," whatever that means. I was interested in the story and the concept for a number of reasons.

First, if you go to their web site (http://www.uopeople.org/groups/free-education) you'll find that the testimonials from the existing student body (about 15,000 students if I heard the story correctly) are from developing nations or nations in conflict or post-conflict status (Viet Nam, Lebanon, etc.). There have been open universities before - my friend Bob Starbird and I offered a film making class through the DC Open University, which I think is now defunct. The difference here is that the University of the People is all online, and is available across borders to anyone with an Internet connection.

It struck me that some of the criticism they are getting is similar to the comments I heard about ODR technology several years ago - not everyone has access, there is no controlling body internationally (therefore no degrees), etc. But for some of the students who just want access to information and assistance with business concepts, and other "practical" educational opportunities, the University of the People is the only game in town, much as ODR was the only game in town for international online commerce when it first came onto the scene in the 1990's.

Now, if we can just get the University of the People to offer courses in dispute resolution . . . .

Lex Witness, Crimes of Silence, etc.

2010-03-09T11:42:00.002-05:00

Things move along on many fronts, as usual.

I’m working with Ethan Katsh to write a chapter for an ODR textbook that will be published by the Springer Press later this year. I remember my first interaction with the Axel Springer group back in 1980 – they had (may still have) an office building that was built right up to the Berlin Wall. They built it as a poke in the eye to the East, and I remember standing at a window on one of the upper floors looking out over East Berlin and seeing all of the antennas pointed back toward the West.

I also just agreed to write a short piece for “Lex Witness,” an Indian online journal. (http://www.witnesslive.in/) I’ll focus on the ODR work that the NMB has been doing for the past few years, and on a new idea that we are pursuing to bring together all of the small Federal agencies who have ADR programs that deal with “the public.” The idea is to gather together in a summit meeting to see if forming some sort of interest group would offer some Open Government opportunities.

A draft of a contract for a number of artists from Haiti who will be the contributors to the next PeaceTones collection is wending its way through the signing process – if we can get that off the ground, and connect it to a concert or two in the U.S., perhaps we can pump some resources back into Haiti, where they are sorely needed.

Aura Vilalta put a note on her Facebook page about a “crimes of silence” conference in which she was participating in Spain. I’d like to look into the proceedings of the conference, for it seems that, to quote one of the participants, “crimes of silence are the worst kinds of crimes,” because they allow injustice to thrive. I think in Spanish law there is a formal category for crimes of silence that dates from the Franco regime.

Finally, we may have found a funder for the playground and child trauma center we are trying to construct in Bethlehem. I’m putting together a course in conflict and trauma with Miki Kidron, a psychologist from Israel, that we will teach in July, 2011 – I really hope we can have the playground in place at Wi’am in Bethlehem by then, and that we can hold at least one of the class meetings there.

Time passes . . . .

2010-03-02T08:29:00.001-05:00

This has been a week for looking back and considering the passing of time.

Last week I went down with the Board Members and other colleagues from the NMB to speak to a meeting of the leadership of the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association – my father belonged to that union all of his working life, and I was wearing his union tie tack at the meeting and at dinner afterward. The reception they gave me was so warm it felt like a homecoming.

In class at SMU this past weekend I was talking about some second track meetings in Maastricht and Malta that I was part of back in the late 1990’s – the meetings were with academics and others from the US and Libya. Then I saw in the New York Times on Sunday a long article about Saif Qadaffi, one of the Libyan leader’s younger sons. He took up the meetings and continued them in London with a more first track group, and was instrumental in getting the deals done for PanAm reparations, etc., and opening up formal relations with the U.S. He’s pressing for democratic reform in Libya – more power to him.

Over the weekend, Ron Turner, a gentleman with whom I went through elementary, junior high, and high schools, contacted me via Facebook – we’ll get together soon to see what 40+ years has done to and for both of us.

Just this morning I got the latest echo from my past, this time not a pleasant echo. Lorraine Brown, my friend and colleague from GMU and the Federal Theatre Project, died last week. She was nearing her 81st birthday, so had a long and interesting life, but her passing leaves a void personally, and it takes from this world one of the true experts in an era in which government actions were not seen as evil, and the arts had a solid place in American society.

Lorraine's death brings to mind two comments about the passage of time. Berloiz said, “Time is a great teacher – unfortunately, it kills all its pupils.” Perhaps more to the point for Lorraine, the playwright Preston Jones pointedly said, just before his own death, “Time is a son-of-a-bitch.”

The Massachusetts "Miracle"

2010-01-21T07:22:00.002-05:00

The aftermath of the Massachusetts Senate election is nothing short of depressing.

If the reactions of my friends from Massachusetts who are active in Democratic politics are any indication, there will be a long round of internal fighting and recriminations within the party – she was a horrible candidate, they ran the worst campaign ever, etc. – and some of that may be true. But dwelling on it won’t help and I’m afraid John Kerry was prescient when he warned against the infighting by alluding to one of my favorite descriptions of the Democratic Party. Mo Udall once said that whenever the Democrats want to form a firing squad they first get into a circle. Let the circling begin.

As someone who probably fits best with some of the generation before me – the last of the Roosevelt liberals – I am not happy about the campaign’s ideological impact on the Senate, but leaving the politics of the campaign aside, I’m really more bothered as dispute resolution professional.

Most of the time, when the Senate is at all functional, disputes are settled and legislation is crafted through a series of compromises that produces legislation guaranteed to totally please no one – but things do get done.

In the best of times, it is actually possible to identify interests on both sides that can get served in legislation created by consensus.

From the outside, it would appear that the Republican strategy and platform at the moment is simply, “We are the Party that will make sure Obama can’t do anything.” As an indication of this, I would simply point to the incessant chanting of “for-ty one, for-ty one,” at Brown’s victory party. It seems that creating gridlock by breaking the Democratic “super majority” was the most important element of his campaign. It worked as a strategy, and I think that ensures that the Republicans will ride that horse all the way through the mid-term elections, and that basically nothing will get done legislatively for the foreseeable future. The Democrats may find a way to pass health care reform, but they’ll have to contort the reform so much to get it past the Republicans that it almost surely will become election fodder in the next couple of election cycles.

As someone who tries to make a living out of resolving conflict, or at least helping people live constructively amid conflict, this is not a happy moment.

On the first day of 2010 . . . .

2010-01-01T09:12:00.001-05:00

Here it is, the first day of the new year, and for the past couple of weeks we have been surrounded by broadcasts and columns "looking back" at the past year and the past decade. I understand the impulse to look back, and it's one I can't resist, either.

Most of the past decade was taken up with the Bush presidency. Enough said about that. The economy was in the toilet. Enough said about that.

For many, this was a year that couldn't end soon enough: when an NPR commentator asked, rhetorically, "what can we say about 2009?," Julia immediately responded, "AMF."

It has been a trying year for me, too, in many ways.

I have begun to think of the Thanksgiving-through-New Year's Eve period as the season of lost mothers. This is the first year that Julia and her siblings spent without their mother, and four other friends have mourned the deaths of their mothers since Thanksgiving day. I'm tired of wearing my "funeral tie."

In areas where my work (away from the NMB) is most focused, things have not gotten better. Israel continues to fracture along religious and party lines, with secular Jews fleeing Jerusalem for Tel Aviv and some semblance of freedom from orthodox religious strictures. In Palestine, the rift between Hamas and Fatah is as deep as ever, and Fatah continues to break apart internally. I'd be tempted to quote Yeats - "the center cannot hold" - but there doesn't appear to be a center among the Palestinians. When I was in Haifa earlier this year I heard Tzipi Livni give a speech about her desire to work with the Palestinians. Later in the year, when Julia and I were in London, the British courts issued an arrest warrant for Livni, blocking her travel to the UK. When the "progressive" in the government is wanted for war crimes, you know that conflict resolution has an uphill struggle.

In Afghanistan, deaths and violence are rising, making our desire to create commercial opportunities for women and rule of law a reality seem nearly impossible.

But still, there were bright spots. We got PeaceTones off the ground in 2009, and we are working to set up the non-profit that will put money back into Sierra Leone for educating children in Freetown. The City of Rhyme kids from Recife were the featured entertainment at the World Justice Forum in Vienna - from what I heard, their sound equipment and their spirit literally and figuratively rocked the Forum to its foundations.

We do have a viable proposal to build a playground and child care center adjacent to the community mediation center in Bethlehem, and I have high hopes it will become a reality in 2010.

I'm working on a study abroad course for SMU that will address child trauma for both Israeli and Palestinian kids - I hope to make something more than just a course out of that effort.

Our proposals for work in Afghanistan are still in the mix of projects being considered for funding, so we may be able to do some good there in 2010.

Faced with mountains of conflict in the world, I have to keep focused on a comment I heard during 2009 at a charity fund raising event - it may seem that we are emptying the ocean with a teaspoon, but even that makes a difference. In terms of ODR or ADR or conflict resolution, or whatever you want to call it, no matter which way we look, the ocean's in front of us. But I have a teaspoon so I'll keep using it.

There are some ongoing bright spots in my life for which I am most thankful.

Julia remains the love of my life and the anchor for my scattered existence.

I am constantly amazed at the intelligent, committed, and energetic people with whom I interact at SMU and Creighton - they want to, and will, change the world.

And, as I say every year, I am humbled by the wonderful group of people around the world whom I have the privilege to call friends.

I send you my love, and I wish you all the best in this new year.

Afghanistan, again.

2009-12-04T06:32:00.001-05:00

The day after the President’s West Point speech on Afghanistan I got this e-mail from VP Biden’s office (via the administration’s information distribution system):

Last night, President Obama laid out his plan to defend our national interest by refocusing our efforts on three clear goals: defeating al Qaeda, stabilizing Pakistan, and breaking the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan.

To achieve these goals, the President has authorized the rapid deployment of 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan, with a firm commitment to begin bringing our troops home in 2011.

It's a clean break from the failed Afghanistan policy of the Bush administration, and a new, focused strategy that can succeed.

Our new strategy ends the era of blank checks for Afghanistan's leaders, facilitates a responsible transition to Afghan security forces, and begins bringing our troops home in 2011.

I thought the speech was very good, as a speech, and I thought the President did pretty much the only thing he could do given the strong feelings on both ends of the spectrum. He’s taking the middle ground, and that is necessary given the political situation, but as everyone knows, when you walk in the middle ground you get shot at from both sides.

The problem I have with all of this stems from the initial impulse to go to “war” with “extremism.” Unfortunately, what we are fighting is an idea and a belief, not an army, and I have believed from the very beginning that treating our “enemy” as if it were one identifiable group of people located in a narrow specific geographic location is a losing approach. The President’s reasons for being in Afghanistan are reasonable. The desire to leave a stable government there is laudable. The desire to make our borders safe is comforting. But I don’t think any amount of military force, particularly concentrated in one country, will defeat the beliefs that are our real enemy.

Oxford Notes

2009-11-28T05:03:00.002-05:00

The economic news is horrible here – unemployment well over 10 percent, and the news yesterday was dominated by the Dubai default, which sent the London stock market down more in one day than had been seen in over a hundred years – even worse than the crash in the 1930’s. That led us to wonder if that kind of economic news would affect immigration policy, and I suppose that thought was fueled by the fact that most of the service workers in the UK seem to be either from Africa, or more commonly, eastern Eurpoe.

A tee shirt, seen on the street in London, that I probably should own: “The body of a God.” Below this, a picture of Buddha.

In Oxford we stumbled into Ste. Mary the Virgin church, which is one of the oldest and most visited parish churches in the country. It is also the “official” church of Oxford University, and is where their graduation ceremonies are held. It is an unusual church, with a painted ceiling and what seemed to me to be dual naves. I’ll have to look it up and read a bit about how it is constructed.

It’s a grim place, like most medieval Christian churches, with skulls here and there to remind one of the temporary nature of life, and the platform where the Oxford martyrs were tried and convicted of heresy. The site where they were burned at the stake is just down the road. A typical example of medieval Christian charity.

We went briefly through one of the old Bodleian buildings, but decided not to stay around for the long tour. Instead we went through the old Bodleian main building, which is now the Science Museum (with Einstein’s blackboard). The writing on the blackboard contains notes from a lecture in 1931 that establishes the nature of the expanding universe. One can tell that at a glance. For me, it's like trying to read Thai.

Before lunch we decided to go up to the new Ashmolean Museum. I think it has taken over as our new favorite museum space – and the collection ain’t bad, either. We both were very taken with the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, where they have done a really great job of creating a museum out of an old train station. At the Ashmolean, they have married the façade of the old museum with a new structure in a most seamless way, and they have created a center atrium that floods the museum with natural light and opens up the galleries to a central space that is really inviting. We loved it.

Perhaps the highlight of the day, which will tell you something about me, was lunch in the White Horse pub, where we had a couple of cask ales and a roast dinner where J. R. R. Tolkien used to gather with his friends while he taught at Oxford and was writing the Ring trilogy.

We've noted two fashions here that we hope do not make it to the U.S. First, very short skirts, with leggings underneath, and high boots. It is the very rare body on which this combo looks good. Second, what we have come to call "the poofy coat." It has normal lines until one gets to the lower part of the coat, which balloons out before gathering again at the hem. Let's just say it's not flattering to anyone. I suppose we should not be too critical of women who try things like this. London men seem to be largely clueless, or show aggressively bad taste, when it comes to fashion.

London Notes, Cont.

2009-11-26T19:11:00.002-05:00

The weather continues to be spectacular – Julia bundled up a bit, but I walked all over Kew Gardens today with only a sweater.

Kew Gardens is very nice, and it was a treat to finally get out there after many trips to and through London. We walked all through the glass houses (one of which is the oldest and largest remaining of the Victorian glass houses) taking shots of blooming plants, etc.

In one of the glass houses there was what the crew at Kew had labeled as “perhaps the oldest pot plant in the world.” In the U.S., we would have said “potted plant” to distinguish it from Marijuana, but you get the drift. Anyway, it was brought back from the tropics in 1775, in a pot, and has been a part of the Kew Gardens since then. (The Gardens themselves are celebrating their 250th anniversary.) The problem is that at least one of the bonsai on display at the National Arboretum in DC is older (if one considers those to be “pot plants,”) and I’d guess there are a whole bunch more bonsai scattered around that are older. Interestingly, under the pot for this old guy there was a time line that listed major events in its potted lifetime. The French Revolution was there. The American Revolution was not. The Kew gardeners are Still touchy about that one, I suppose.

Our Thanksgiving dinner experience at Boundary had its highs and lows – mostly highs. We started with French onion soup (about the best I’ve ever had) and a nice salad, and a wine suggested by the sommelier to match both a Dover sole and a grilled beef dish (the cows with the long horns, as our waiter explained – “they come from Yorkshire so they are English beeves”). The wine started slow but opened up nicely, and it fit the meal very well. It was a Rockburn Pinot Noir from New Zealand.

Julia’s sole was really good – I mean really, really good. The dusting of spice was not overwhelming, but it was balanced to the taste of the sole, and the display of de-boning the fish at the table was almost worth the price of admission in itself. My English beef wasn’t so good. It was very tough and stringy, which I let the waiter know, nicely. In a rare instance, I actually left some of the beef on the plate and sent it back to the kitchen. They took it off the bill, and I really enjoyed the perfectly done chips that came with the beef, so it wasn’t a total disaster.

For dessert we split a selection of very good English and French cheeses, followed by a mandarin souffle that was out of this world- a soft meringue crust with a mandarin crème center – none of that went back to the kitchen. All in all, I'd go back in a heartbeat.

Trip Notes - London

2009-11-26T04:06:00.002-05:00

This trip started out more smoothly than most – there were no lines at the Virgin Atlantic counter, and the TSA lines were very short. I commented to the security person at the scanner about the lack of people and she said she had noted the same thing. We were, of course, a day ahead of the real rush, so the Thanksgiving travel crowd may have picked up, but it certainly was not starting out as a crush of people.

We took the parkway out instead of going around the beltway because the traffic was terrible, so it may be that a lot more people were driving early instead of flying. The parking lot at Dulles was very empty, which it is usually not, so all of this may add up to really bad news for the airlines.

Flying coach on VA is slightly more tolerable than on other airlines. For starters, you have a little more room, and then there is the individual screen for movies, and the program that allows you to start and stop the movies at will. For an insomniac who never sleeps on planes, this is a godsend.

The first real back up we hit was at Heathrow when we were clearing customs, but even that wasn’t too bad. While we were in line and waiting, I commented to Julia that I have flown into Heathrow much more often than I’ve flown into BWI.

I picked up a sim card for my phone after finding out that the old UK card had expired, only to find that I am now going to have to “top it up” to have any call time. The problem with the “top up” is that in order to do it online or by phone one has to have a UK address. I could give them the hotel address, but that doesn’t match the address on the credit cards, so that won’t fly, either. So, later this morning I’m going to the T-Mobile store that is a few blocks from the hotel to top the sucker.

We took the Heathrow Express into town, as usual, and the cab ride from Paddington to the hotel was very short. The hotel is an apartment hotel, with a “full” kitchen, which we will probably use at some point. Tonight I have a reservation at one of Terence Conran’s new restaurants, Boundary, and I have very high hopes of a good meal. He used to own Le Pont de la Tour, by the Tower Bridge, which was one of my favorite places in London.

When we got to the hotel the room was not ready, which is a common event since the overnight planes from the US get in so early. We checked the bags and went over to the Victoria and Albert museum for a while, which was a real treat. I spent a lot of time in the sculpture hall photographing marble while Julia was in the gift shop, and I took a couple of nice shots of the newly refurbished courtyard.

In the main entry hall there is a huge glass chandelier by an American artist whose name I can’t remember (Coco commented on him and on the piece in the V&A when we had dinner last week) – it is just gaudy enough to be interesting.

I think the thing that most captured our attention, after the wrought iron hall, was the exhibition of musical instruments. There were some really great instruments, many with elaborate mother of pearl inlay, marquetry work, etc.

After the V&A we went to a pub near the hotel that has cask ale, where we had some of the ale, some fish and chips, and a meat pie. You can’t get any more London than that for lunch.

We called it an evening early to get on to local time, but not before watching the latest edition of Top Gear, which is just a hoot. On this episode the boys were building an electric car to compete with the Volt – in a couple of spots I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes. Julia enjoyed it, too, but I think it’s more of a guy thing.

The plan today is to head out to Kew Gardens – the weather yesterday was spectacularly good and we hope it hold for a while today so we can enjoy the gardens.

Time Passes

2009-11-19T17:45:00.002-05:00

I spent today facilitating a discussion among the labor relations managers at CSX Railroad, and working on matters related to the 75th anniversary celebration that is coming up at the National Mediation Board. At the moment, I'm sitting in the Jacksonville airport, waiting for a flight that is delayed by the computer glitch that shut down Atlanta (and in a domino effect, had an impact on pretty much everyone else on the east coast).

Next week Julia and I head out together for a few days to get reaquainted after my couple of month round of travel and having my head buried in more projects than I can count. Alan Tidwell accused me of being a "work slut" - and I confess that he's probably right. At any rate, there are some good things going on.

Jeff just got back from Vienna, where he arranged for the Brazil PeaceTones group to perform for the World Justice Forum - we got a lot of good buzz from that, and I hope we can push out another couple of collections soon.

The proposal that the SMU class wrote for Afghanistan is in the hands of an NGO in Kabul, and there is a good chance that some part of that proposal will actually get into an action plan on the ground there.

I'm working on getting the proposal for the children's center/playground in Bethlehem out and in the works - I still have some hope that we can do something with that before Christmas.

All in all, it's been a pretty interesting year, and I hope to use the next month and a half to tie up a lot of loose ends so I can begin the new year with renewed hope and determination.

Home Again

2009-11-06T08:13:00.002-05:00

I'm back off the road for a week or so - I have one work trip down to Jacksonville later this month, and then Julia and I are going to get lost in the UK for a week around Thanksgiving.

Jeff is on his way to Vienna next week for the World Justice Forum. We have become a featured program for the Forum, and the kids from Recife (the ones on the PeaceTones Brazil collection) will perform at the Forum plenary. We have an intern going along to take photos and video, so I hope to be able to post something from the Forum soon.

The proposal from the SMU class related to training women in Afghanistan in the area of micro-commerce and dispute resolution is going forward with some other material that IBO has put in the mix for grants through the National Defense University. One element of those proposals involved the use of eBay's Community Court software, adapted for mobile phones, and serving as the basis of e-Jurga's (the traditional dispute mechanism that resolves 80% of the disputes in the country). It's all good stuff and we are keeping our fingers crossed that we will be able to follow through with the projects.

Catching Up

2009-10-18T13:46:00.002-04:00

I've been on the road almost constantly for the past three weeks or so, and it's been hard to keep up with critical correspondence, much less blog posts. But there are some things of note going on.

The SMU class is working on proposals for three projects (one on race relations capacity building, one on women's e-commerce issues and dispute resolution in Afghanistan, and one on child trauma in the West Bank) that are all fundable. Their compassion and concern energizes Alma and me.

I just did a pro bono training day for North Mississippi Hospice - it was a very cold and windy day by a lake near Oxford, so we cut things a bit short, but the group was very interested and engaged, and the work they do is easily worth me getting a little chilly if what I did can be of any help to them.

SMU has asked me to put together a "learning abroad" course for Israel and Palestine, to be offered in 2011 - I'm working on the prospectus for that now. In the meantime, I think there are some intern possibilities for Wi'am in Bethlehem, and I'm going to try to get those off the ground through Mediators Beyond Borders and the SMU student chapter of MBB.

I've been going to bed at night frustrated that there are many things in the air that I need to work on - October and November look pretty brutal in terms of travel and commitments, but I hope a few days away in the UK with Julia in November and a bit of slowing down toward the end of the year will recharge my batteries.

Why are we in Afghanistan?

2009-10-06T15:22:00.004-04:00

The class I am teaching at SMU with Alma Jadallah is creating proposals for funding as an exercise on the business side of dispute resolution. I hope we can actually get the projects they are working on funded, but in an educational sense that would be, as they say in Louisiana, lagniappe. One of the projects is focused on race relations in the US, one is developing a playground and child care for kids in the West Bank, and one is searching for ways to help women business owners in Afghanistan.

Over dinner last week in Texas, Alma asked me to explain why I think we are in Afghanistan – and I found it hard to enunciate. We are there to protect the population from “radical” anti-democratic forces – but we’ve ignored that situation in many other places. We are there to ensure rights and education for girls and women – but we are actively ignoring situations just as bad, and arguably worse, in other places. We have a “strategic” interest in Afghanistan – whatever that means, and I think it means many things to many people. My point, I guess, is that how one defines “why” we are in Afghanistan depends on one’s perspective.

I met a gentleman on the plane today as I flew down to Atlanta from DC who brought that home to me in a most graphic way. Matthew Kinney is a Staff Sgt. in the Army – he’s a medic who gets into helicopters and flies into places where people get wounded and killed and does his best to keep them alive. He’s done two tours in Iraq and two tours in Afghanistan, and because I’m twice as old as he is, I feel ok saying that he’s a remarkable young man. If you’d like a clue as to how remarkable, click on this URL:

http://soldiersangelsgermany.blogspot.com/2009/03/flight-medic-ssg-matthew-kinney-awarded.html

(The "insert link" function is still not working on this site, so you will have to cut and paste the link.)

We talked about rural roots (Nacogdoches and north Mississippi), animals (horses and dogs) and what it meant to teach dispute resolution. At some point in the conversation, I asked him if he supported the call for more troops in Afghanistan, and he answered yes almost before I had the question out of my mouth. I asked him the same question Alma asked me, and he didn’t have any trouble answering. He spoke not of policy or strategy or other abstractions. Instead he spoke of the people there who, from his perspective need our help – we put him there, they need help, so he’s more than willing to give it, whether “it” involves medicine or school construction, or creating safe zones. Reading and hearing the news it is easy to forget that abstract policy debates have very personal and sometimes tragic consequences – we routinely ask young men and women like Staff Sgt. Kinney to disrupt their lives, endure horrors that most of us can’t imagine, and live with visions of their “service” for a lifetime. It is a constant wonder to me that most of them are like Staff Sgt. Kinney – they do their job as best they can and when they see something obviously wrong they try to do the right thing.

For their sakes, I wish our policy discussions were as clearly focused on doing the right thing. And, no, Alma – I’m still not sure I really know why we are in Afghanistan.

Bloggers and Do-Gooders

2009-10-02T14:51:00.004-04:00

Jeff, PeaceTones, and I got a nice mention in a legal blog. Someone is noticing, apparently - go to this URL to see the entry:

http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2009/10/lawyer-promotes-world-music---and-world-peace.html

(For some reason, the "insert link" function is not working on this site at the moment, so you'll have to cut and paste it into your browser.)

Alma Jadallah and I are team teaching a course at SMU for the graduate dispute resolution program there. Last weekend we had two reasons to feel good about the future of dispute resolution (or conflict resolution, or whatever you want to call the field).

The first was a brief meeting of individuals interested in forming the SMU Mediators Beyond Borders chapter. We had about 25 people in the room at the meeting, and they are now all on a contact list as we go forward. All seem eager to do something constructive, and that is, of course, the prerequisite for making a little piece of the world a better place.

The second was the work our class did. We're approaching the class (Integrating Conflict Theories) as a practicum in which the students work with partners around the world to write funding proposals for projects that will enhance conflict resolution work that is already underway. One group is working with Operation Understanding DC (a group promoting positive relations between the black and Jewish communities), one is working with Wi'am (the Bethlehem community dispute resolution center), and one is working with IBO on a dispute resolution system for women in Afghanistan who have been trained in and who are working in commerce or micro-commerce.

Several other potential partners and projects fell by the wayside as a result of class numbers and preferences, but the energy with which the class is going after these projects is remarkable. Makes one proud to be a do-gooder.

I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here . . .

2009-09-24T08:45:00.003-04:00

Last night Julia and I went to a fund raising dinner for the National Brain Tumor Society. We are interested in this charity because one of Julia's uncles died as the result of a brain tumor several years ago, and as a result his daughter, Mary Catherine, became heavily involved in funding for research and wound up on the Board of the Society. We had a nice dinner and picked up some good wine at the silent auction (I bid on the one's Mary Catherine suggested - she's really an oenophile). But the reason I'll remember the night is the company at the table where we were seated.

I sat beside two gentlemen who were involved in the Society because of the impact of brain tumors on their families. One has a daughter who is a survivor, and one had a son who died at age 14. As they talked, they moved each other to tears, and of course reduced me to mush.

I suppose there are all kinds of lessons one could take away from a night like that, but I was struck again by something that has been on my mind a lot for the past few years: no matter how much we think we are in control of our lives, and no matter how comfortable we may be with the things and the people around us, the one sure truth in this life is that our existence is not static. The change isn't always for the good, but change is coming. Life moves on, we lose the comfort of friends and family, and we all leave behind unrealized opportunities to make the space around us a better place.

That's a rambling way to say that I realized again how important it is to find opportunities wherever they present themselves, and to make a difference in the world immediately around us, even it it's only, as one of my dinner companions put it, "emptying the ocean with a teaspoon."

The subject line of this entry comes from a Phil Ochs song, which is one of my favorites. He wrote:

"There's no place in this world where I'll belong when I'm gone,
and I won't know the right from the wrong when I'm gone . . .
I can't add my name into the fight when I'm gone,
so I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here."

Crowdsourced Online Dispute Resolution

2009-09-11T16:08:00.003-04:00

I spent part of last night and a bit of today participating in a conference sponsored by The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University – the best I can tell, the conference was entitled, “Exploring Next Generation Governance Models.” I was invited to participate specifically in one of the concurrent sessions, “Crowdsourced Online Dispute Resolution,” a discussion among tech and dispute resolution professionals about research and opportunities for crowdsourced ODR.

There were some interesting ideas surfaced, beginning with some remarks at dinner last night by Andrew McLaughlin, Deputy CTO in the Obama White House, and previously at Google. The metaphor he used, which I think is a very good one, is that we are in the throes of a change in the nature of governance from an old-fashioned “broadcast” model, where central sources send out information and services through controlled channels, to an Internet model where information is distributed through packet sharing and self-organizing networks. Not to stretch the metaphor too far, the key difference is that in an Internet model, there is a common protocol with development above, and a myriad of uses below, all able to converse because of the common protocol. In a government or social frame, this has some implications for how decisions are made and how policies are developed and implanted. On the physical side, it is why creating a unified first responder system using the old broadcast technology won’t work – the system failed at 9/11 (8 years ago today) and at Katrina, and even a good system using secure channels will fail again in the future. The failure will be for different reasons, but the impact will be the same – much better, the argument goes, to set a protocol and allow multiple apps and multiple uses, all of which can talk to each other. Anyway, I found it a compelling metaphor for Gov 2.0.

As a side note, I think the strong push toward “public input” that is at the heart of e-government, Gov 2.0, or whatever you call it, is interesting. The proponents take it as an article of faith that open public input and crowdsourced policy making is not only good, but democratic in a fundamental way. I think there is a good bit of exaggeration in this attitude, and a good bit of elitism. The people in the room at the Cosmos Club today will certainly be active participants in crowdsourced government. But many citizens will not be active participants (and on my darker days I think they should not be). For a variety of reasons having to do with class and income and other factors, I think crowdsourced policy making will create a political underclass in Gov 2.0 that is as firm and palpable as the political underclass that exists now. Gov 2.0 and crowdsourced policies may level things a bit, but we should wait before we get too excited about how much it will level things.

In the ODR session I made a couple of comments that I’ll pass along here. First, I noted that the participants were defining dispute resolution very narrowly. For one thing, they were defining it as always seeking resolution, which is not the case. Also, they were talking about ODR as based in online commerce (which I don’t think is accurate any more) and as operating independently as a fourth party without the need of a third party. My comments were aimed at redefining ODR as “the intelligent application of technology to any dispute handling process.” That’s not perfect either, but I think it’s better than a more narrow definition, and in the development of systems, definitions absolutely matter.

The other issue I addressed was the tendency to approach crowdsourcing as though the crowd were all on the post-platform development side of the equation. For example, eBay’s new community court is held up as a crowdsourced approach to dispute resolution because it brings in multiple eBay community members to resolve issues. (Peer patent review is also often cited as a crowdsourced activity – and one participant commented that the first crowdsourced dispute resolution was the creation of local juries in England that took the burden of making decisions about local justice away from the monarch.) My argument was the there should be a crowd on the other side of the equation, too – the more input and diversity in the development process (sort of a Linux model), the less any one person or small group’s perspective will dominate the application's functionality. This is, I think, particularly important when there is any multi-cultural dimension to the dispute resolution process – which there almost always is.

I think this will be an ongoing discussion, and I hope to remain engaged.

PeaceTones Notice

2009-09-08T13:11:00.001-04:00

I sent the following note to a number of friends over the holiday weekend:

Dear Friends:

Many, if not most, of you have heard me speak of a project called PeaceTones.

The idea was simple enough – use the availability of digital property (music and art) in conflict and post conflict areas to generate money for community building and peacebuilding in the communities where the artists live. In all of the PeaceTones efforts, the artists donate rights to some of their art, making up a PeaceTones collection from their community. The non-profit that I work with, the InternetBar (IBO) furnishes the online marketplace, sells the art, and returns 90% of the revenue to the community. We operate on the assumption that it is not necessary to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a difference in communities where people may be living on a few dollars a day. Integral to the PeaceTones project is the development of respect for rule of law, primarily through the use of contracts negotiated by lawyers around the world working pro bono for the artists, and by the use of an online dispute resolution (ODR) program to address any problems with the collections.

Getting the first collections up has been, to quote the Grateful Dead, a “long, strange trip,” including lost contracts, bouts of malaria, and all the communication problems you can imagine between the U.S. and conflict/post conflict areas around the world. But we’ve succeeded, and the first two PeaceTones collections are now available for purchase – PeaceTones Sierra Leone, and PeaceTones Brazil.

PeaceTones Sierra Leone contains Hip-Hop and Rap music from artists in Freetown, Sierra Leone - the proceeds from the sale of the collection will go to the JR Foundation, a non-profit devoted to providing educational opportunities to children in Freetown.

PeaceTones Brazil contains Rap, Hip-Hop, and poetry from Recife, one of the most violent places in the world that is not currently officially a war zone. The kids from Recife have crafted a series of hopeful messages in their music, and the proceeds from their collection will go to fund a community center and recording studio in Recife. Full translations from the Portuguese are available for the Brazil collection.

I have insisted from the beginning that the PeaceTones collections should be judged differently from other music collections – we are not a record label and we are not competing with record labels. We are offering an outlet to artists in war-torn areas, and a means of generating income to help in their own communities – whether you like Rap or Hip-Hop or not, I ask that you consider downloading these collections as an act of caring and social justice. Both are available on Amazon.com and on iTunes, where you can hear snippets of the music. Just search using the term PeaceTones.

An Eventful Summer

2009-08-30T17:05:00.005-04:00

A lot has happened since my last post - this has turned out to be one of the busiest summers I can remember.

Of course, one major thing is the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy. For all of my adult life, if you were marginalized in the U.S. due to poverty, race, or disability, or if you were just a working stiff, the one loud and consistent voice in your corner was Ted Kennedy. I don't really have a lot of hero figures, but he's someone I have long admired, and I think the political profile of this country has just taken a hit as big and as obvious as the falling of the twin towers from the skyline in NYC. Believing as I do in forgiveness and second chances, I am measuring the depth of my Christian friends' faith by how much they harp on his earlier faults - his self-confessed "personal demons" - and how much they acknowledge his more recent conduct.

Another birthday has just passed for me. Another chance for me to reflect on my own need for forgiveness and my own second act. I hope my personal reformation is as successful as his was.

PeaceTones Sierra Leone is now up on iTunes, and PeaceTones Brazil has been posted on Tunecore and will soon make its way into the marketplace.

This collection is from City of Rhyme, a group of young kids in Recife, certainly one of the most violent places in the world not currently acknowledged as a war or conflict zone. It should be available on Amazon.com within the next couple of weeks, and then on iTunes a couple of weeks after that.

I've been invited to participate in a conference on the Gov 2.0 project - the conference is sponsored by the Berkman Center at Harvard in conjunction with the White House. It's here in DC on Sept. 10 and 11 - I've no idea what to expect.

The new SMU course, "Integrating Conflict Theories," has made and is looming. Alma Abdul-Hadi Jadallah and I will teach it together - it's an experiment so we are both eager to see how it goes. The SMU ODR course starts again on the heels of this course, and the Creighton online course begins at midnight tonight.

PeaceTones, Finally

2009-08-13T10:01:00.003-04:00

There is a certain amount of satisfaction inherent in seeing a project that has encountered every known roadblock (from sectarian strife to malaria) come to fruition. As of yesterday, PeaceTones Sierra Leone is up and available on Amazon.com (just go to amazon.com and search the music section with the keyword PeaceTones. We are still waiting for it to get through the iTunes system to be posted there, but that should happen soon - we'll try for some significant publicity once it hits iTunes.

2009-08-04T20:21:00.002-04:00

The following standards of practice have just been drafted by the Center Fellows and have been adopted by ICANN.

Online Dispute Resolution
Standards of Practice

These Standards of Practice are recommended by the Advisory Committee of the International Centre for Technology and Dispute. The Standards are based on the current literature and research in the field of Online Dispute Resolution and are offered as guidelines for practice across the spectrum of ODR.

The Advisory Committee recognizes that other bodies have addressed the issue of standards for ODR practice, including: The US Federal Trade Commission, The Canadian Working Group on Electronic Commerce and Consumers, The Australian National Alternative Dispute Resolution Advisory Council, The Alliance for Global Business, The Global Business Dialogue on Electronic Commerce, The Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue, Consumers International, The European Consumers' Organisation, The International Chamber of Commerce, and The American Bar Association. These Standards of Practice attempt to consider all of the collected wisdom of these bodies, in addition to the considerable experience and perspective brought to the practice of ODR by the Fellows of the International Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution.
The Committee recognizes that Online Dispute Resolution is a wide field, anchored in technology assisted third party intervention efforts, whether aimed at resolution, peace-building, or conflict management. In all of these venues and efforts, technology enhances and transforms the capacity to handle dispute and conflict functions which require the involvement of a third party to consider matters; or in those venues where technology based Online Dispute Resolution serves as the "fourth party."

The Committee Members recognize and honour that Online Dispute Resolution may be used on the entire spectrum of dispute resolution; from problem diagnosis, to promoting bilateral communication between parties, to arbitration and court-like or court processes. The Committee Members also recognize that Online Dispute Resolution may be applied in a wide range of disputes; from interpersonal disputes including consumer to consumer issues or marital separation; to interstate conflict.

The Committee Members recognize and honour that each Online Dispute Resolution scheme will be unique in its application of technology, and dependant on the community it serves. The Committee Members also recognize the importance of national and international law in the performance of Online Dispute Resolution schemes. Thus, these recommended Standards of Practice must be considered as principles, and not necessarily as individual operational frameworks.

Proposed Principles:

Accessibility

Online Dispute Resolution systems must be accessible to system users: ODR systems should be accessible in that they are easy to find and access, but accessible also in the sense that they address geographical and language barriers. Insofar as it is possible, ODR systems should strive to become media neutral in order to encourage the widest access.

The Online Dispute Resolution technology developed must reflect an ease of use to all system users. ODR platforms should make help content and tutorials readily available to users, and strive to keep user interfaces as simple and intuitive as possible.
The use of technology in Online Dispute Resolution must increase parties' access to justice. Hence, technology should neither be imposed upon those who do not have the means to interact through technology, nor discouraged for those who could profit from use of ODR. Online Dispute Resolution providers must take into consideration all types of individuals and their needs. Users without Internet access or with a limited knowledge of technology should not be discriminated against by being forced into using an unfamiliar electronic means. But neither should the law constrain those dispute resolution providers and parties in conflict who feel confident in using Online Dispute Resolution systems and could then benefit from their use.

Affordability

Online Dispute Resolution Systems may be an alternative to court or person-to-person based dispute resolution, creating cost savings by their very nature. Disputes when resolved online should be dealt with in a reasonable time period, which reflects the needs of the disputes at hand. In any event, disputes must be resolved as expeditious as possible. Further, Online Dispute Resolution schemes must provide an economical alternative to formal dispute resolution processes, and provide access to justice where formal channels are not available, at an economic level that does not disenfranchise potential users in developing areas or in conflict/post conflict zones.

Transparency

ODR schemes must make clear the process used in pursuit of dispute resolution or management. Further, ODR schemes must be transparent in terms of the identities and affiliations of the ODR providers, the identities and affiliations of the interveners and managers of the ODR systems, and the security efforts undertaken by the ODR provider to safeguard user data and identity.
The place where the ODR process occurs is where the ODR platform is. ODR service providers must disclose the physical location and contact details.
Parties must always retain their right to be represented or assisted by a third party at all stages of the procedure. However, whenever parties are legally represented they may be asked to disclose their representation.

Fairness

ODR systems and providers must create a fair redress environment, unbiased toward any individual participant in the process. Software algorithms must similarly be designed to offer no systemic benefit to one party over another.

Innovation and relevance

Online Dispute Resolution schemes must remain at the cutting edge of service delivery and technological innovation.

Online Dispute Resolution schemes must meet the requirements of community, institution, and legal frameworks they serve.

Online Dispute Resolution schemes should be funded, whenever this is appropriate and possible, by public entities with the aim of enhancing trust and peace in society.
Third parties

Dispute resolution professionals shall have sufficient skills and training to fulfill their function, but they will not need to be licensed legal practitioners. However, ODR, when appropriate, must take measures to ensure legal experts are available for consultation when specialized knowledge on the interpretation and application of laws and regulations is required in the process of providing ODR services.

Information about the credentials and experience of third parties shall be made available for the parties.

Third parties shall be independent, without any type of personal or professional relationship with any of the parties.

ODR service providers shall incorporate procedures for saving harmless providers and third parties who may be unbiased in a dispute or have any other causes which may harm the fair use of ODR.

The third party, whenever this is feasible, shall not be linked to successful case settlement or to a recommendation or decision in favour of any particular party. When dealing with repeat players ODR service providers shall provide with a mechanism to grant grater level of transparency and impartiality.

General

Online Dispute Resolution schemes must promote respectful online communication.
Online Dispute Resolution schemes should encourage parties, whenever appropriate, to resolve their disputes using consensual processes, particularly when the restoration of the social links amongst disputants is of paramount importance, such as in family disputes. Consensual processes however should not be imposed against the will of the parties.

Online Dispute Resolution schemes must provide for confidentiality and data security as required by national, regional and international law. Yet, transparency should be upheld in certain processes, particularly when parties have unequal bargaining power, in order to install confidence in the Online Dispute Resolution Schemes.

Online Dispute Resolution schemes are encouraged educate users and the community by providing generic information to users and stakeholders about trends and statistics.

Recommended by Advisory Committee of the International Centre for Technology and Dispute, July 2009

PeaceTones and "Whither Am I Drifting?"

2009-07-31T17:15:00.002-04:00

The "Whither Am I Drifting?" is sort of an inside joke - it's the title of an essay that was assigned to the students on the old "Life and Loves of Dobie Gillis" tv program. You had to be there.

As I've said before about PeaceTones, the wheels turn slowly, but they do turn. This afternoon I uploaded the artwork for the Sierra Leone PeaceTones collection, and that was the last step before having Tunecore post the collection on most of the major download sites. It will still be a matter of 4-6 weeks before it shows up on all of the sites, but at least it is really in process now. The collection artwork is something I put together from a photograph made by my friend, Alusine Kanu, who is from Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Some of the frustration I have felt during the process of getting PeaceTones off the ground has resulted in some soul-searching on my part, and in what may be the first real career goal I’ve ever had. I’ve decided that I would like to maneuver myself into a position so that within the next couple of years I can spend some time devoting myself full time to some of the humanitarian projects that I’ve had to work on in my spare time. I don’t know what that will look like, but at least now I’m thinking about it in some systematic way, which is more than I was doing before.

As anyone who knows me well at all knows, I’m not a religious person. I spent a good part of my younger years engaged in questionable activities, including some that were hurtful to others, but I like to think that I’ve been able to improve myself as I have gotten older - I’m not saying that I’ve gotten any wiser, but I do think that, on the whole, I have managed to shed some of the things I should have shed, and I have managed to become if not a completely good person, at least someone who can look at himself in the mirror without cringing. I may not be overtly religious, but I have a commitment to helping those who are in distress and to leaving the little corner of the world that I have inhabited a better place as a result of my passing through. So, I’m trying to figure out how to devote more of my time to those commitments.

Internships and Study Abroad

2009-07-31T17:13:00.001-04:00

It looks like there may be some traction for both an internship program and a study abroad course involving SMU and Wi’am. I talked to Tony Picchioni, my Department Chair at SMU, and he indicated that working with the SMU students, Mediators Beyond Borders, Wi’am (in Bethlehem), the University of Bethlehem, and some educational institutions in Israel would fit into the goals that SMU has set for the program. So, in the near future I’ll be developing plans to make all this happen, I hope during 2010.

ODR

2009-07-31T17:10:00.000-04:00

We keep trying to move forward with the effort to incorporate ODR into the ADR structure of the federal government. Ethan Katsh is working on a white paper for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and I have been talking with a representative from CyberSettle about how to integrate some technology into federal ADR programs.

At the moment the health care debate and the economy have overshadowed everything, so I don’t have any false hope that our little effort will rise to the top of the heap – but we keep pushing.

Afghanistan, etc.

2009-07-20T17:58:00.000-04:00

I’ve let things go for a while without updating – between travel and family affairs, I’m afraid my online life suffers.

I attended the USIP conference on “serious games” last week, at which Beth Noveck presented the opening remarks, and at which Colin Rule presented information on his “community court” work with e-Bay/PayPal. Beth’s comments highlighted the White House’s commitment to using games to communicate with, and perhaps change the behavior of, the gaming generation – health care games to change behavior related to diet and exercise, for example. She commented that there was a meeting in the Science and Technology office at which every person around the table was a “gamer.” That’s got to be new for the White House.

Colin’s comments started a dialogue that continued a few minutes ago on a conference call with representatives from USIP, NDU, InternetBar, and others. The call focused on Afghanistan and what we could do to promote rule of law there using ODR tools. Jeff Aresty just came back from Afghanistan, and he was on the call with Colin, Ethan Katsh, Lin Wells, Sheldon Himmelfarb, and others. We are starting a wiki to get some ideas down in concrete form, and as I wrote to Jeff and Colin after the phone call, I think there are some opportunities there for some applications of ODR to conflict management, conflict coaching, etc., and for the community court idea to sprout in some “constructed communities” like women in education groups or in micro-commerce groups. We’ll see what happens.

I don’t know whether the e-government initiative is moving slower or whether I’m just out of the loop, but there’s been no obvious movement on integrating ODR there. I hope to work a bit with Ethan to furnish more ammunition for the WHOSTP if they want it.

Crowd-Sourcing and ODR

2009-07-02T17:20:00.001-04:00

I have been asked to participate in a recently-initiated collaboration focused on exploring the scope and capabilities of crowd-sourced online dispute resolution. This project is taking place during the summer of 2009 and involves, among other groups, the Berkman Center at Harvard (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/), the MIT Media Lab (http://www.media.mit.edu/), and the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution (http://www.odr.info). The goals of the project are to identify and pursue ODR research (examining the legal, policy, social, administrative, business, technical and other requirements of these interactions), and to develop and test a crowd-sourced online dispute resolution tool for academic analysis and evaluation. The results of the work will be fed to the White House Office of Science and Technology policy for use in their Open Government work. If anyone has any ideas about crowd-sourcing that I could pass along, please let me know.

White House Office of Science and Technology Blog

2009-06-29T18:47:00.004-04:00

The Open Government project underway through the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is moving forward, and some of the language that we suggested regarding federal ODR has made it into the next round. Here’s an edited posting that explains the process and includes some of our language (the red text under item 3):

TUE, JUNE 16, 7:37 PM EST
Wrap-Up of the Open Government Brainstorming: Collaboration
Posted by Beth Noveck and Michael Baldwin
n.b. The Phase II: Collaboration Discussion will continue through this week. Phase III: Drafting will begin on Monday, June 22, 2009.

From May 21st through June 3rd, thousands of you shared your ideas in Phase I of this public consultation process, the Brainstorm in the Open Government Initiative. June 3rd marked the beginning of Phase II, the Discussion Phase. We started with your ideas on Transparency and Participation. Comments continue to flood in from across the country on those topics and we encourage you to share your thoughts. Today we turn to our third and final topic: Collaboration. As the President explained in his Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government: "Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector."

This next series of blog postings is designed to solicit public feedback to identify opportunities for collaboration. We want to set the stage for that conversation by summarizing the input received thus far. We’ve distilled your ideas on collaboration into three topics on which we’ll focus:

· Enhancing Intra- and Inter-Government Collaboration
· Creating Incentives for Public-Private Partnerships
· Innovating in Alternative Dispute Resolution

As noted in our previous wrap-up posts about Transparency and Participation, we read and considered all the ideas you generated during the Open Government Brainstorm hosted by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA). We also reviewed ideas submitted by federal employees, who were particularly engaged and lively on this topic, as well as submissions posted in From the Inbox. NAPA did an analysis of the Brainstorm (pdf).

Here are some examples of specific submissions, grouped by topic area:

. . . .

3. Innovating in Dispute Resolution – A number of you shared ideas for innovative dispute resolution strategies that will:

· Build on existing dispute resolution authorities and guidance
· Recommend that departments and agencies consider the spectrum of options when considering the public’s role in collaborative governance
· Ensure collaborative governance objectives are integrated into agency mission statements, strategic plans, and senior executive service performance plans
· Promote adoption of the Principles for Agency Engagement in Collaborative Problem-Solving and Environmental Conflict Resolution
· Consider engaging independent conveners and facilitators
· Promote federal staff training in collaborative and dispute resolution competencies
· Create an ODR consulting team, made up of representatives from agencies currently using ODR technology tasked with offering advice to the Office of Science and Technology, the CTO, and the existing Interagency Dispute Resolution Working Group Steering Committee. Creating this team by identifying ODR adopters already working within the government costs nothing and brings some significant advantages.
· Urge agencies to consider and use online dispute resolution technologies in all of their dispute resolution activities
· All Federal agencies should develop effective and simple methods, including the use of electronic technology, to educate the public about its claims/benefits policies and procedures.

The OSTP blog is up and available for anyone’s comments – here’s the text of the opening blog entry (the URL that leads directly to the blog is attached below ). I urge anyone who has an interest in ODR to go to the blog and leave comments (which I will probably do tomorrow).

Collaborative Problem-Solving and Alternative Dispute Resolution
n.b. With this post we conclude “Phase II: Discussion” of the public consultation on open gov’t. If you’re looking for the Declassification Policy Forum, please scroll to next post on the OSTP Blog homepage.

Across the federal government, greater use can be made of collaborative problem-solving and alternative dispute resolution processes to reduce the costs of conflict (e.g., project delays, poorly informed decisions, appeals and litigation) and to increase the benefits of collaboration (e.g., timely, cost-effective, & innovative solutions; improved working relationships; buy-in and commitment).
Embracing such approaches will be an important step in working to gain public trust and in creating a more transparent, participatory and collaborative government.

Through the Open Government Brainstorm and online dialogue with government employees you have highlighted how the public can be engaged in meaningful collaboration in the work of Government. For example, a recurring theme has been the need for agencies to think about the full spectrum of options when considering the public’s role in collaborative governance (e.g., collaborative planning processes, consensus building processes, and participatory decision-making processes). Some recommended that increased federal training is needed to build core competencies in collaboration and conflict resolution. Others recommended that an online consultation team be created so that those with experience and expertise can help point others to existing and innovative resources for better engaging the public in the work of Government. Check out the Collaboration Wrap-up for a more comprehensive summary of the ideas suggested in Phase I.
Your ideas raise several important issues, and we invite your thoughts and comments on the following
· From a citizen’s perspective, what are preferred approaches to dealing with known or anticipated conflicts involving the Government?
· Does Government need to do a better job of identifying the various options available when working to resolve conflicts involving government agencies and the public?
· Can you identify examples of collaborative problem-solving and alternative dispute resolution efforts that have resulted in the creation of productive working relationships and increased trust between the Government and the public?
· Agencies are increasingly embracing the participatory capabilities of Web 2.0 technology. What role can “Where 2.0” technologies (such as location-based services, collaborative mapping, and spatial multi-criteria decision support tools) play in effective collaborative problem-solving?

As always, we look forward to hearing your thoughts on this blog.

Here’s the OSTP blog site - go have a look and leave your comments:

http://blog.ostp.gov/2009/06/29/collaborative-problem-solving-and-alternative-dispute-resolution/

Notes from Montreal

2009-06-19T07:36:00.002-04:00

There seems to be progress on a number of fronts this week. I'm here in Montreal for meetings with the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) and the Canadian National Railroad (CN) - with both we are sharing information about the state of the airline and railroad industries, and exchanging information about some of the innovative programs we have going on both sides of the border. In particular, I'm interested in the grievance handling process that CN uses (they have very few that progress to arbitration) and they are interested in the ODR work that we are doing.

The contract is now signed and the music in hand for the Sierra Leone PeaceTones collection - it's in Gillian's hands now, so I assume the collection will be posted very soon. Susan Dodia, one of the graduate students at SMU and a PR professional has done a very good press release for us, so I hope we can get some press coverage as we finally launch the project.

I've been working with the SMU group to establish a Mediators Beyond Borders chapter on campus - that seems to be taking off, too. If all goes well, we will set up a project with Wi'am in Bethlehem, with interns, etc., and I'm going to talk to the administration at SMU about setting up a "study abroad" class connected to ODR and peacebuilding that will visit the West Bank and Israel - I don't know how many hurdles I'll have to get over to get that done, but I expect a few.

I'm teaching another class in ODR for Northern Virginia Mediation Service next week - we seem to have more people enrolled than ever before in this class, but I don't know what that says about the state of ODR.

Julia and her siblings have scheduled the memorial service for her mom next weekend - I'm going to speak, but I've no idea what I'll say. I do know that it will be difficult for me. I think the most challenging public speaking I ever did was the eulogy for Tim Boothby, a student at GMU who died of leukemia and surprised me by leaving a request that I speak at his funeral. This will be at least that hard.

Jeanette Morelli

2009-06-12T14:47:00.003-04:00

Julia's mom, Jeanette, died this morning in the most peaceful way I can imagine - her friend and caretaker, Irma, was reading the Bible to her, and praying and singing in Spanish at Jeanette's bedside when she made her transition.

While that was happening, I was jotting down the following notes about Jeanette, as I remember her.

_____________________

June 12, 2009

I don’t get mother-in-law jokes. They rely on what is supposed to be a natural antagonism between sons-in-law and mothers-in-law that just didn’t exist with Jeanette and me.

Shortly after I first met Jeanette, I began to wonder why I liked her so much, and so easily. From the time Julia brought me home for the first nervous dinner with Mama, there was just something about Jeanette that appealed to me.

On the surface, you’d think I would have had some trouble feeling comfortable with Jeanette. After all, Jeanette’s politics didn’t exactly match mine, and our views on religion were deities apart. Navigating dinner-time conversation gave new meaning to the old cliché, “don’t talk about politics or religion.” But taking those things out of the mix didn’t slow down our conversation at all – one of the things I most liked about Jeanette was her curiosity, and her interest in a wide range of topics, any one of which could make for interesting conversation.

Maybe most daunting for me at first was the social atmosphere in the Morelli household. I come from a family that is largely Celt and Anglo-Saxon – a taciturn bunch, for whom a very few words, well chosen and to the point, constituted a lengthy conversation. In my family, when someone broke silence and said something, you knew to pay attention because it had to be important. In the Morelli household, I have routinely been witness to four or five conversations going on at once, with everyone involved in every conversation, skipping from one topic to another, and never losing the sense of any single conversation. Silence did not and does not reign. And yet, far from being put off by the noise and conversational misdirection, I always have found it, from the first, delightful and invigorating. From the first time I met her I have thought of Jeanette as the eye of a storm, calm in her own way, but the mother of beautiful chaos.

Of course there were many, many things about Jeanette that made her likeable, but I can be a little slow and it took me a while to realize that the things that I immediately saw and liked most about Jeanette were characteristics that she shared with her daughter, Julia – whom I adore.

Jeanette was not easily swayed – she was a woman of strong convictions. When Jeanette became convinced that something was right, or something had to be done, there was a certain set of the jaw and steely-eyed determination that emanated from her face. Jeanette was not a passive observer of life, and one rarely had trouble figuring out what she thought about a given subject.

Another characteristic they shared is a love of travel, and a curiosity about what’s “over there.” There is one phrase, a question really, that could not be uttered in Jeanette’s presence without risk of interruption. You could get the first part out – “Would you like to go to . . .,” but then you’d likely be interrupted with, “Yes, when?” before you could say where you were proposing to go. Jeanette loved to be on the move in new places, with new things to learn. I consider it a privilege to have shared some of that learning with her.

My first memory of watching someone die goes back a bit over half a century, to my great-grandmother, Ma Parchman. Much as Jeanette has done, Ma lay in her bed, in her home, with all of her family around her, and slowly departed this life for the next. As young as I was, I remember taking cues from the older family members and realizing that nothing tragic had happened. She left us quietly and then everyone sat around talking about bits of her life (she was a real character, so there were plenty of stories) and remembering all the living that led up to the day she left us. To this day, my memory of her is not the last days, but a vivid picture of her sitting on her front porch in a long, black frontier dress with white lace at the cuffs and throat, smoking a corncob pipe, with her hands on her walking cane, in control of her world.

When I remember my mother, who went through a similar slow exit, I don’t remember the frail forehead I kissed goodbye for the last time – I remember the robust country girl who routinely beat me playing horses, and probably shaped my character more than any other single person.

And when I remember Jeanette, I’ll remember the news junkie who gave me Julia.

For some reason, the single image of Jeanette I get as I write this is from Australia in the early 1990’s. She’s in her 70’s, walking along a beach somewhere near Sydney, with her daughters by her side, the wind off the ocean whipping through her hair, just having a fine time.

ODR and the Law

2009-06-08T18:56:00.002-04:00

One of my experiences in Israel happened to track very closely with a discussion underway in the Creighton ODR class that I’m teaching online right now. This last week’s topic of discussion in the class was ODR and the Law. Talking about technology and the law, particularly technology that may be effective in either accessing the traditional legal system or helping get resolution of issues as the parties bypass the traditional legal system, is both interesting and frustrating. It’s interesting because there are so many possibilities and frustrating because there are so many barriers.

I think the situation we just ran into in Israel is a good barometer. Ethan and Colin met with the Magistrate of the Supreme Court of Israel – I’m no expert on Israeli law, but I understand that this person is a pretty significant player in the justice system, and is in a position to actually do things when it comes to ODR projects that may address what is a notorious backlog of cases in the small claims arena in Israel. He was favorably disposed to the idea of ODR because of his own background, and because the husband of the Chief Justice of the Court is a mediator who attended the ODR conference in Haifa, and who reported favorably on the idea of ODR to his wife, the Chief Justice, who in turn spoke well of the idea to the Magistrate. That would seem to be the ideal setup for getting a pilot project in small claims off the ground, and the conversation with the Magistrate was good – but it focused on the barriers inherent in the traditional system and in the individuals in place in the legal system who would not fully support the idea. We may get something going as a pilot project, but the progress will probably be slow and steady, not quick and decisive. So, to quote Rado and Ragni, even “when the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars” there is still reluctance in the legal community to take the plunge with an ODR project.

In the class discussion, I ended the week with a summary of what I see as some of the barriers to implementing ODR in a legal context. Here’s my short list, in no particular order of importance.

First is the issue of enforceability and the tug-of-war between settlement and resolution. The perception still persists that ODR agreements (and ADR agreements by extension) are difficult to enforce – there may be a preference for settlement (having a powerful third party end the disagreement with an enforceable ruling) rather than resolution (a mutually agreeable and mutually perceived “fair” outcome) that is just built into our concept of the law and justice.

Second, the issue of access brings along with it the issue of control for the traditional legal establishment and the related problem of how to charge for services in an “easy access” world. As a side note, I think the legal profession will do with ODR what it did with ADR – it will figure out how to charge for the services and will then rush headlong to begin charging, thereby really launching ODR in the legal context.

Third, there are barriers inherent in the individuals who make up the legal establishment. I don’t think the age and generation impact on the use of ODR technology is as great as it once was, but it is still there. More importantly, I think the entrenched establishment simply has no incentive to change, and therefore will not champion change – that’s a formula that is at play in pretty much every establishment/revolutionary dynamic.

Finally, there are barriers inherent in the process of the law. The legal process has in place well established rules and procedures based on millennia of practice, and in many venues (I’d point to the Texas State Bar as a good example) many of those procedures have been transferred to an online environment. That’s an obvious first step, and I think it is inevitable that more and more of the traditional processes will go online – the big issue is when, if ever in my lifetime, the legal system will undergo any real process transformation. When and if it does, ODR will play a central role – but that’s a hard sell right now.

Back in the USA

2009-06-08T14:48:00.002-04:00

After a long and winding road, I’m back in the U.S. – just over 10 hours from Tel Aviv to Atlanta, about 14 hours or a little more overall to get all the way to Dulles. I got a note from Jeff and Valerie when I turned on my iPhone and it seems they are well underway on the West Bank. I also picked up a voice mail from JR, and it seems that the contract and music from Sierra Leone are waiting for me in DC, so apparently progress is being made.

I’ve been trying to see if Graham Ross, one of the “usual suspects” in the ODR world won election in the EU Parliament race that just ended. If not, he’s been asked to stand for the UK Parliament, so it seems he has launched a political career with the Jury party – they pride themselves for having a platform that is not a platform. I’ve got to talk to him about that to see how he makes sense of that. So far the election results I have found are not comprehensive, but Graham’s name is not there among the winners yet. He was number two on the slate, so if the Jury party did well at all he should be in.

Leaving Tel Aviv

2009-06-07T11:26:00.000-04:00

I didn’t make it to the meeting at the Supreme Court this morning because I was still making sure that Valerie, the intern who is here with us to help with the PeaceTones project, was recovered as much as possible from the fall she took in the old city yesterday. We were at the emergency room until about 1:30 this morning.

However, Colin and Ethan apparently did well with the meeting. They didn’t have to do a hard sell on ODR for two reasons. First, the chief justice of the court’s husband is a mediator who attended the Forum in Haifa – he sent back what was apparently a glowing report of the Forum to her, and she in turn mentioned it favorably to the Magistrate with whom we were to meet. Second, the Magistrate is a younger member of the Court staff and is eager to integrate technology into the court’s business. They have a notoriously large backlog of cases with no way of clearing them, so some form of ODR may be a way to begin making headway. We’ll probably follow up with Orna and perhaps Noam on the ground there, and the NCTDR as the focus in the U.S. We shall see what we shall see.

Jeff and Valerie will go back to the West Bank tonight to meet with musicians, lawyers, and others in Bethlehem and Ramallah. If all goes well, we will have the beginnings of the PeaceTones West Bank collection when they come back to the U.S. later this week.

I noticed in the paper here that the PM has set next week as the time for a major policy speech – I suspect it will be in some measure a response to President Obama’s speech last week. The papers here, particularly the left wing papers that I read, were discussing the settlement issues rather openly, with the differences between the U.S. and Israel clearly drawn, and speculation about the support that France and Germany seem to be giving Obama’s position. Ethan just reminded me that a situation that has existed for many years still exists – to paraphrase a former Israeli PM, only one half of one side wants to make peace with only one half of the other side.

Down the Jordan

2009-06-05T15:02:00.003-04:00

The Jerusalem Post this morning covered President Obama’s speech yesterday in a much more moderate way than I thought they might – there was a good share of right wing articles with significant criticism, but for the most part, there was restraint.

We headed down south today along what used to be the Jordan River. It’s now the Jordan Riverbed – the marshes that used to line the river were drained and the water from the river used to irrigate the crops that grow all through the valley and along the border with Jordan. Our guide proudly asked, “and how did we do the miracle of raising these crops by the desert?” I suggested that’s it’s pretty easy if you don’t mind eradicating a river. The water issue is a significant element in talks between Israel and the PA, and they seem as difficult, or more, than the water issues in the US west, where we’ve done more or less what Israel has done here.

The other impact of the irrigation and development is the slow demise of the Dead Sea (is that redundant?). Since the Jordan no longer flows into the Dead Sea, the only water that replaces evaporation is from the winter floods that come from the rain in the mountains between the Dead Sea and Jerusalem. That’s not enough water to keep the level up, so the Dead Sea is being lowered by an average of one meter per year – it’s over 900 meters deep at its deepest, so it’s not going to go totally dry in my lifetime, but it is noticeably shrinking – the evaporation lines on the shore look like isobars on a map, making it very easy to track the drop in water level over the years.

We are in Jerusalem tonight, with some sightseeing tomorrow, before a visit with someone at the Supreme Court on Sunday morning.

Forum Day Two

2009-06-04T02:29:00.005-04:00

Today kicks off with a speech from one of the Knesset Members, Tzipi Livni. Jeff, who is whispering in my ear, says she's Labor and therefore a bit on the left of Israeli politics.

I'm curious to see what she'll say, particularly given the news coverage of President Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia and his much anticipated speech in Cairo. The Jerusalem Post this morning is full of articles and commentary on the debate about settlements that is going on in the U.S. and here, and with coverage of the right wing's reaction to Obama's visit. One of the headlines trumpets the formation of organized protests painting Obama as anti-Israel and anti-Jewish.

I'm supposed to join a panel this morning after the keynote speech - the panel will include Sanjana by Skype, and is focused on ODR and peacebuilding. I've arranged for Zoughbi to join us, also by Skype, to give a Palestinian view, which was lacking.

I'll take contemporaneous notes as best I can while Tzipi Livni talks (so excuse any awkward phrasing, etc.) [If I have any editorial comments, I'll put them in brackets.]

Here goes:

Her basic approach is a nationalistic one, but a realistic one. She says her goal is a secure state of Israel, a home for the Jewish people, but since it is not possible to have everything they want, Israel should give up some of the land to the Palestinians in exchange for peace and security.

(She is the former chief negotiator for the peace talks that fell apart after the most recent election. She started off with a comment about the "sexy" nature of the conflict here, and that everyone wants to be involved - but that the need is for leaders on the Israeli and Palestinian side to work themselves for peace and security.)

"Two states for two peoples" is the key phrase - the desire is for a government on the Palestinian side that recognizes the need to stop terrorism, etc.

"We must face the situation on the ground . . . " [Where have I heard this before? Her position is that the settlements are on the table for discussion, but I think even she will find it hard to give up the settlements in exchange for peace. She indicates that there is a mainstream opinion in Israel that would consider changing the settlement situation, but that view is not being presented abroad in the world. My reaction to this phrase is that it's the one Israel has been using for decades to insist that increasing settlements in the West Bank have to be on the table because they represent "reality on the ground" - a reality, of course, driven by Israel.]

"Religious conflicts are unsolvable." She says the territorial conflict has been cast in a religious light and that makes it an unresolvable conflict.

She says, Hamas is a terrorist organization and a political movement which does not represent the political interests of the Palestinian people.

"Time is of the essence - stagnation is not the right Israeli strategy." The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is not the cause of the extremism and violence in the region, the extremists use the Israeli/Palestinian as an excuse for their actions.

"We have passed the point where this is a matter of unwillingness to speak, it is not about hating the other, but about trying to find out what is the best way to solve the conflict in representing our interests."

Who is the partner on the Palestinian side? Abas is too weak . . . cannot be a partner, and Hamas cannot be a partner because they cannot accept Israel's right to exist - no acceptance of two states for two peoples.

In the past the Palestinian partner was either a leadership that could deliver peace but didn't want to, or wanted to deliver peace but could not.

The aim of Annapolis was to reach final status on issues "on the ground" and then to go forward with a state based on the roadmap, adapting to the "on the ground" issues, and moving toward final status. This broke down, and she argues that stagnation in Israeli policy that exists now will lead to losing the partner on the Palestinian side (the PA) - even though the partner is weak they are a partner. [This seems to mean, to me, that negotiating with a weak partner is better than not negotiating or waiting until Hamas takes over and is the only partner in sight.]

The Israeli's must decide what issues can be compromised on and what are the deal breakers.

After a very emotional session presenting the narratives of both peoples, they decided (in Annapolis) not to discuss who has more rights to the land - cannot be resolved in negotiations - speak in terms of creating a better future rather than who has suffered more or has more rights.

They decided to address all the core issues at once, making an agreement that allowed give and take across a range of issues to create a package - [basically selling it like a contract negotiation - we gave up this, but we got that.] By addressing easy issues and deferring difficult issues you create a false hope and make the end game harder.

This is not a conflict that is going to be solved by the Internet - both sides must have their interests served, and there must be support from the Arab world at large. The Arab world needs to take some steps now to show support for peace, to encourage the Palestinians and skeptical Israeli's, as well as sending a message to the extremists across the Arab world. This can help, but not getting such a statement from the Arab world at large is no reason to avoid negotiating in the best interests of the principal parties.

"If there is something we cannot afford it is to give up."

"At the end of the day, we are going to make it."

Question: Can we do this without the U.S.?

We don't need to make peace for the sake of the Americans. At one point Rice and Bush included the refugees in the creation of the Palestinian states - then she describes a statement from Bush about how the settlements need to be addressed in a final solution. [Basically her answer was that when the U.S. says things that help her negotiating position, she's ok with our intervention, but when we say things that don't back her positions, we should butt out. I strongly suspect the other side would say the same thing.]

Some Photos from Bethlehem

2009-06-03T10:30:00.003-04:00

A watch tower on the wall, a mural on the wall near the Inter-Continental Hotel, and the dove of peace with a bullet-proof vest and a laser sight on her heart.

ODR Forum Morning Session

2009-06-03T05:56:00.001-04:00

The Forum began this morning with the classic conference format that I have railed against with my ODR colleagues for the past four years. We come together to talk about a new and exciting set of possibilities, and we wind up formatting our discussions around the old school academic approach –we read each other papers with power point slides and limit the ability of the “audience” to interact with the presenters. I’d much prefer an open format with a real conversation, but that’s an appeal that has not gotten any traction. Rant over.

Perhaps the main theme of the morning was the tension between ADR and ODR, and the question of whether ODR needs to be tied to “online” at all. These are themes that I’ve considered from some time - my practice has long included offline technology to facilitate dispute resolution, specifically and at a very basic level, the use of e-note taking in face-to-face settings.

The other issue, the connection of ADR to ODR, is more complex, but it’s also something that I’ve been forced to consider as a result of trying to figure out how to engage technology in the pursuit of “dispute resolution” in an agency with a specific mission related to traditional dispute resolution. The rapid move toward “open government” or e-government that the current administration has made has pushed the question even farther.

In the ODR classes I teach, I ask the question one way – has ODR been subsumed by ADR and should it be considered merely as an adjunct to ADR? Now that I think about it, that’s probably not the best way to start the discussion. Perhaps a better way is to ask whether there are functions beyond mediation per se that ODR technology can facilitate. This afternoon I’m going to talk about the functions that need to be served in e-government, and I’ll argue that even though they are not usually seen as classic parts of ADR, they are nonetheless reasonably seen as part of the dispute intervention continuum.

(Again, the notes from my talk are available on the Recent Activity page of my web site - http://sites.google.com/site/danielraineyorg/Home/recent-activity )

We're not in Kansas anymore.

2009-06-01T23:04:00.002-04:00

On the way back to the hotel from dinner Jeff and I had our first real, albiet very tiny, taste of what it's like to live with the occupation. An Israeli watch tower shone a light in the car and Israeli soldiers called out to us. We slowed down and stopped. The soldiers were speaking in Hebrew, so we couldn't understand them, and so Zoughbi finally just drove on very slowly, hoping out loud that we didn’t get shot. I was hoping, too. Zoughbi joked, “we are both with beards – maybe they think we are Hamas.” It was an anxious moment for Jeff and me, but I could tell that it was just another blip in another day for our host.

On the street on the way back into town there were many Palestinian Authority police, dressed much like the Israeli soldiers, carrying automatic weapons. Zoughbi indicated that the tensions between Hamas and Fatah are very high, that the Palestinians expect an Israeli attack on Iran, and that things could flash up ugly very quickly. The running joke from Hamas about the PA police is that they are really Israeli’s. Guess you had to be there to get it.

Hamas and Fatah

2009-06-01T12:32:00.002-04:00

Today started out with a pick-up by a driver arranged by Zoughbi – the driver assured us that the border crossing would be “very easy,” and it was. Apparently he has a “yellow card” which allows him to cross without too much trouble, and our US passports were not looked at twice.

At the Wi’am office we had a chance to arrange some follow-on meetings for Jeff later in the week, and we talked very directly about some possible collaboration with Wi’am and SMU and/or Bently. Wi’am runs a program that brings foreign students to the West Bank to live with families and work with various peacebuilding and conflict resolution programs in the territory.

A little interlude before lunch turned out to be very interesting. We went to the Bethlehem Peace Center just as the new Governor of the Bethlehem District was taking office. The place was a madhouse of people, and as we sat to have a cold drink in the lobby three men sat down with us. As it turned out, they were City Councilmen (along with Zoughbi) for the city of Bethlehem. They were a very interesting group: one Independent, one from Hamas, and two from Fatah. (The Member from Hamas is Muslim, but the two from Fatah are not – one is a Roman Catholic and one is Armenian Orthodox. Our friend Zoughbi is a Christian and an Independent.) We had a lengthy discussion about politics, including the local politics between Fatah and Hamas. It seems a dispute between those two parties is blocking the calling of new elections – all four of them are sitting in expired terms, and will stay in office until new elections or until the Governor appoints replacements. As one of them put it, logically, Fatah and Hamas should be able to work out their differences in this case, but emotionally it is hard. Their take on President Obama was interesting, and one that we heard more than once today – he is a vast improvement over Bush, and he is personally admired, but he represents an organization with its own agenda (the US government). There is doubt that he can be effective, not least because the US “cannot be seen in any way as a neutral party in this conflict.”

I was struck by a couple of things as we went from place to place around the West Bank today. First, we drove along a good bit of the wall Israel built to keep the Palestinians out of Israel proper. The wall is quite a sight, with murals and graffiti all over, and watchtowers all along its length. The areas next to the wall are dead, commercially and socially speaking. We also went through one of the refugee camps (one of three in the city of Bethlehem), which was not as I thought it would be. The normal picture of a refugee camp is a set of tents in the desert with no amenities – these refugee camps are permanent and some have been in place since the 1940’s. Some of the houses, as Zoughbi put it, are better than the houses in the “real” city. I'll upload some photos as soon as I can download them to my laptop.

This afternoon we had a chance to talk to a lawyer who is the director of the Palestinian Bar Association in Bethlehem – we were trying to interest him in the PeaceTones project, and to see if there was a way to sign up some of his members as counselors for the artists we hope to work with in the West Bank. He was amenable and Jeff will follow up as soon as we have artists with whom he can consult.

Tomorrow back through Jerusalem on the way to Haifa.

Waking Up in Jerusalem

2009-05-31T20:46:00.003-04:00

It’s a little after 3:00 a.m., Jerusalem time, and through the open balcony door I can hear the faint hum of traffic as the city begins to come to life (so it seems there are other early birds in the city apart from me). I can also hear the literal birds waking up and talking to each other – it reminds me of the chatter I normally hear in our garden in Alexandria. Jerusalem blends with the landscape – it seems that most of the city is built of the Jerusalem limestone from the hills around the city.

Getting here was pretty uneventful. The flight, of course, is tedious, but I’ve done enough tedious flights to have long ago gotten over both the dread beforehand and the down time after arriving. I managed money and a SIM card in the airport (my local number is 972 527 753 483), and Jeff and I took the local shuttle from the airport in Tel Aviv to the hotel on the eastern side of Jerusalem (like one of the old Jitney’s – they wait until it’s full to start a trip and then go where ever the passengers want). We had dinner at the hotel and made an early night of it, so I’m pretty much back on “normal time.” I have to confess that I was good at dinner – no dessert – but only partially good, as anyone who knows me would suspect. Instead of dessert I had second helpings of kibbi and hummos.

This morning the work starts. Zoughbi is sending a driver to take us down to Bethlehem to visit Wi’am, the community mediation center there, and, I hope, to get us in touch with some of the local musicians who will make up part of the PeaceTones collection that will help fund the center. We are staying overnight with a family in Bethlehem, making some more contacts tomorrow, and then heading north for Haifa and the ODR Forum on Wednesday. I’ll be shooting digital stills, and I’ve brought the Flip camera to shoot video, so I hope to post some photos and video as we move along.

One of the challenges I'm finding is that the wireless I'm using displays most pages in Hebrew, which of course is all Greek to me. Or something like that. Guessing at which box is which for logins and passwords has led to some interesting diversions.

Haifa ODR Conference Comments

2009-05-26T08:43:00.000-04:00

Go to the URL below for a copy of the comments (more or less) that I'll make in Haifa at the ODR Forum. The link takes you to a page on my web site - look under the "Seventh International Forum" entry for the link to the comments.

http://sites.google.com/site/danielraineyorg/Home/recent-activity

Sierra Leone PeacTones Collection

2009-05-25T19:34:00.000-04:00

I should be humming either "The Long and Winding Road" or "Truckin'" (what a long, strange trip it's been) as I write this.

JR, one of the artists from Sierra Leone has just returned from Freetown and he brought back three things: music, a signed contract, and malaria. Unfortunately, the malaria put him in the hospital, but he's out again and I'm to take delivery of the contract and the music on Friday, the 29th, so it looks like we'll have the SL collection up for sale by the time I do my presentation in Haifa next week. Ireland and Brazil should be close behind.

White House Online Brainstorm for Open Government

2009-05-21T19:49:00.000-04:00

Today the White House Chief Technology Officer launched an online public brainstorm to generate ideas for a final Open Government Directive. Anyone can go to the brainstorm site and add and/or vote on ideas posted by citizens. The brainstorm is up until June 3 (it will be followed by a more focused online discussion and then by a joint drafting exercise using a wiki), and can be accessed at this URL: http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/panel.do?id=4049

I've posted an ODR suggestion, so if it makes sense to you, I wouldn't mind a thumbs up for that option.

ODR and ADR

2009-05-14T09:20:00.000-04:00

One of the questions we discuss during the first week of class in the ODR course I'm teaching for Creighton University is this: Has ODR technology been so integrated into the basic fabric of ADR that it is no longer necessary or appropriate to talk about ODR and ADR separately? Is the application of ODR technology just the way business is done in ADR now? Opinions are generally mixed.

Related to this question is a proposal that Ethan Katsh and I have made to the Obama administration regarding ODR. Specifically, we've proposed an executive order that would direct all federal ADR programs to consider the use of ODR technology - the wording could go something like this:

Executive Order 12988 (Civil Justice Reform) established ADR (alternative dispute resolution) programs in all Federal court systems, and empowered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to encourage the development of ADR programs across all government agencies and departments. Pursuant to E.O. 12988, DOJ created the Inter-Agency Dispute Resolution Working Group (IADRWG) and the IADRWG Steering Committee. The Steering Committee includes the ranking ADR professionals from each of the departments and agencies. When E.O. 12988 was signed, ADR was considered an alternative to litigation, and the E.O. treated ADR as an adjunct to DOJ’s legal mission. In the intervening years, ADR has come to be applied in a wide variety of venues and contexts, far beyond the court-referred context conceived by E.O. 12988. In addition, the application of ODR technology to ADR efforts has grown rapidly. ADR and ODR offer direct advantages in at least four areas associated with the effort to make government more transparent and to enlarge the use of e-government strategies: 1) supplying information to individual citizens and groups; 2) obtaining citizen input; 3) delivering services to the public; and 4) facilitating the right of redress. All departments and agencies of the United States Government should assess and implement ODR services into current ADR programs, where ODR technology could facilitate dispute resolution.

The issue of cost is always at the forefront these days, so we put together some ideas about how the use of ODR technology could actually save money:

Directing agencies to consider ODR technology as part of their ADR programs, particularly if the directive is to consider and apply only when there are cost savings or other benefits associated with the adoption of ODR technology, costs absolutely nothing in and of itself.

A general declaration of the need to consider ODR technology, coupled with an ODR leadership group, would focus attention across government on the advantages of using ODR technology, and would do two things that might actually save money. First, it would ensure that if there were functions that agencies wanted to pursue via technology, they would have the best and most recent information about the lowest cost/highest impact way to do so. Second, it would make possible economies of scale if agencies across the government were able to purchase commercial online services as a group rather than as a patchwork of individual users. Also, the ability to develop joint best practices would save on money and save on “mistakes” and problems in the implementation of the technology.

Intelligent adoption of ODR technology could save money in other ways. The application of technology in the dispute resolution arena brings some cost savings, even if it is used inefficiently. Very directly, using technology makes it possible to cheaply get more citizen input, handle issues earlier and more informally (ergo less expensively), and evaluate trends in disputes across the government (making it possible to be proactive, thereby saving on future disputes). Obviously, when using ODR technology there is also a significant saving in travel costs and other out-of-pocket expenses involved in the traditional pursuit of ADR.

Overall, a directive linking consideration of ODR technology to ADR programs costs nothing to implement, and brings advantages that make it not just cost neutral, but cost-positive in the long run.

Whether this idea will go anywhere or not is still a question mark - but at some point I think the wider encouragement of and use of ODR technology in the public sector is inevitable.

Senior Agency Leadership Meeting - Open Government Directive

2009-05-12T16:52:00.000-04:00

I attended an interesting meeting today - the "Senior Agency Leadership" meeting that was a follow-up to the "Champions of Participation" meeting held in late March. Both meetings were designed as information and recommendation gathering events related to President Obama's Open Government Directive - literally the first thing he signed upon becoming President. On May 21, in some fashion, there will be a kick-off announcement for the Open Government initiative, and then aggressive follow-on after the announcement.

The discussion today was interesting on many levels. There were some there who proudly announced that they had been at the forefront of open government "for decades." Some looked back all the way to the Carter administration and noted that the idea of open government has been up and down at least since then (much earlier, actually). Most of the attendees today were simply thrilled that the idea of transparency and openness was such a cornerstone of this administration. It is already possible to see the full report from the first conference at http://www.americaspeaks.org/, and I'm sure the results of today's discussions will be up very quickly.

There were many ideas tossed about - some of the ones that I hope take hold include:

Taking the scope of the final Open Government Directive document far outside of the government to include citizens, technology firms, public interest groups, etc.
Avoiding the government-speak terms that elicit groans from anyone who has been around government for any length of time (e.g., "change the culture of government," and "interagency working group).
At least providing seed money (on the model used by NSF and others) to kick start the programs and to show the real value placed in the Directive.
Integrating some kind of conflict management process into the Directive.
Creating an "internal consulting team" from among agencies with proven success in open government (a self-nominated, rotating body with connections across government).
Building in training and reporting (including yearly performance assessment reports for all agencies) in a serious way.

There was a lot more on the table after the session today, and I left with high hopes that this approach can be embedded into the basic structure of government in a way that makes it last well beyond this administration.

Israel and Palestine

2009-05-07T06:48:00.000-04:00

I'm finalizing plans for the Haifa ODR Forum (June 3-4) and trips to Palestine (the West Bank) before and after the conference. I'll fly to Tel Aviv on the 30th of this month, and come back on the 8th of June. I've started blocking out the e-government paper I'll present at the Forum, but I'll wait until after the White House Open Government meeting next week to finalize the content. My plan is to visit Wi'am, the community dispute resolution center in Bethlehem run by Zoughbi Zoughbi, and then to make contact with the Said National Music Conservatory in an effort to solidify plans for the PeaceTones Palestine collection.

Online Dispute Resolution in a Technology-Oriented Healthcare World

2009-05-07T06:41:00.001-04:00

Yesterday wrapped up the two-day meeting of leaders in the fields of electronic medical records, computer science, and online/alternative dispute resolution hosted by NSF, HHS, and the NMB. I led the team of facilitators who guided the discussions (with Leah Wing or UMass and the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution, and Joshua Gordon of Part of the Solution). The discussions centered around the implementation of electronic medical records on a large scale, and the risks and disputes likely to be generated by that process. To paraphrase one of the participants, we generated a lot of data, some information, and perhaps some knowledge. The results of the workshop will be summarized in a report to the NSF and the White House Office of Science and Technology. Information about the workshop, and the final report (when it is finished), and an interactive platform allowing comment on the issue can be found at the workshop web site: http://www.umass.edu/eei/2009Workshop A post by Jon Halamka on his blog can be found at: http://geekdoctor.blogspot.com/

ABA Book, ODR/Health Care, and SMU

2009-04-29T07:11:00.000-04:00

I just got my advance copy of The ABA Guide to International Business Negotiations, subtitled, "A Comparison of Cross-Cultural Issues and Successful Approaches, 3rd Edition." It's a brick, 1106 pages long, with my short essay, "Cross Cultural Skills in International Negotiations: Technology as a Catalyst and Barrier in the Internet Age," buried within. I don't know how well it will sell, but it's going to make a heck of a doorstop.

The ODR and medical records workshop is coming together - it's officially being billed as "Online Dispute Resolution in a Technology-Oriented Healthcare World." The workshop is being organized by the Electronic Enterprise Institute and the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution (both located within the University of Massachusetts at Amherst), and by me as the facilitator/workshop leader. It's being sponsored by the NSF, the Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, and the NMB. There are workshop representatives from the top ranks of three fields: health care records, computer science, and online dispute resolution - should be an interesting couple of days (May 5-6), and the hope is that the outcome will help set the research agenda for health care ODR for years to come.

I've agreed to be on the editorial board of the new student academic journal at SMU, tentatively being called "Dialogue." John Potter is the faculty advisor/editor, and he's planning what I think will be a very high quality publication outlet for SMU graduate students and contributors from across the field of dispute resolution.

Sudan

2009-04-29T06:34:00.001-04:00

It seems that the Sudan PeaceTones collection may be back in play. I talked to Bob Starbird last night in advance of his departure to Sudan on Saturday - he is going to serve as a PeaceTones "agent" in Sudan over the next four months, so we now have a link back in to the country and this should help us get that collection back on track.

ODR at Georgetown

2009-04-27T08:17:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday I was a guest in Alan Tidwell's "Managing Organizational Conflict" class at Georgetown U. Among other things, I had the pleasure (?) of seeing Joe Lieberman walking around the campus with a young man whom I presume to be a prospective Georgetown student.

When I introduced the topic of ODR to the class, I asserted that ODR has become a hot topic, but I cautioned that there are many ways to measure "hot." For example, on YouTube, Susan Boyle's video has gotten over 80 million views. ODR's not that hot. Moving down the scale, there's a YouTube video entitled "How to Make Dog Poo Cookies." That video has gotten over 120 thousand views. ODR's not that hot. There is another YouTube video entitled "Watching Paint Dry" that has gotten over 85 thousand views. ODR's not that hot. There is a video of me talking about ODR on YouTube - it's gotten 7 views. One of those views is mine, checking to see if I said anything really embarrassing, so it's actually gotten a half dozen views. That's how hot ODR is, measured on YouTube. Or at least how hot me talking about ODR is on YouTube.

Actually, I'm puzzled about why the Forum organizers in Canada put that clip on in the first place - it's really me introducing a panel of experts to talk about virtual worlds, so I'm really not talking about ODR much at all. Anyway, I thought the comparisons were amusing.

PeaceTones Update

2009-04-27T08:13:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I talked to JR, one of the musicians from Sierra Leone who is involved in our project - he's in Freetown until May 15, and while he is there he is gathering all of the signatures of the artists in Freetown on the PeaceTones contract. When he gets back to the U.S. in mid-may, we should finally have everything we need to actually launch the PeaceTones Sierra Leone collection.

Mark Ervine and Danny Devenney, the Belfast muralists who are contributing their art to the PeaceTones Belfast collection, will be in Massachusetts for the next couple of weeks. I'm going up later this week, and while I'm in Amherst with them I'll get their signatures on the final contract, so that will put us one step closer to releasing the PeaceTones Belfast collection.

I'm still trying to work out a partner in Palestine for that collection. Jeff Aresty and I will travel to Bethlehem in late May or early June when we attend the International ODR Forum in Haifa, and our hope is to finalize the details for that collection while we are there.

NSF, MBB, etc.

2009-04-07T13:58:00.000-04:00

The NSF workshop looms on the horizon (May 5-6). One of the challenges will be that the invitations got out of hand - we have approximately 50 people coming to the workshop. Those who have done faciliation work will recognize that this borders on being a mob, or at best a herd, instead of a working group, but I'm sure we'll work through the challenges. The guest list includes a who's who of professionals in the medical community, computer science, and dispute resolution, so I'm excited about working with them.

I've agreed to be the faculty advisor for a new Mediators Beyond Borders university chapter being set up at SMU. If it works out as well as I think it will, this should offer some interesting opportunities for the students there.

I've also been informed by ACR that, since no replacement was elected, I am still the Co-Chair of the ODR Section. That's fine, particularly since my work on the ACR Conference Technology Committee for the Atlanta conference is closely tied to the ODR section - we are going to do some exciting stuff with a great web site set up initially by John Windmueller, and with the ACR's first-ever cyber-cafe.

IOM Ombudsman

2009-03-26T14:01:00.000-04:00

Jeff and I had a chat this morning with the Ombudsman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM). They have offices in a number of locations, including Geneva and New York, but they deal with organizations and individuals around the world. The scattered nature of their staff and client base make them an ideal candidate for adding an online component to their Ombudsman program. The IOM generally deals with issues of migration, and their Permanent Observer status at the UN calls for them to "contribute to the political, social, economic, and humanitarian debate and action on migration within the multilateral framework of international dialogue and cooperation of the United Nations." Based on the conversation this morning, it looks like IBO and I will be involved as consultants as IOM and other international organizations consider adding online portals to their Ombudsman offices.

PeaceTones in Palestine

2009-03-12T07:20:00.000-04:00

We have reached an initial agreement to begin putting together a PeaceTones collection featuring musicians from Palestine, and if we can arrange it, musicians from Israel. The proceeds from this collection will go to Wi'am, a community mediation center in Bethlehem. I hope to visit the center as part of my June trip to Haifa for the International ODR Forum.

STORM2 and Irish Murals

2009-03-12T07:13:00.000-04:00

I just completed a two-day trip to Amherst to test the "final" version of STORM2, the online mediation platform developed as part of the NSF grant with UMass. During the past week I did demos of the platform for students in the Creighton ODR class to get feedback from them, and on Tuesday I mediated two cases asynchronously at UMass (the results of those cases will be used by one of the platform designers as part of a paper that will, we hope, be published in the near future). The software performed well and it is now loaded on a dedicated server and ready for use in the NMB's training program, where it will get further testing. If all goes well, there will be a link to STORM2 on the UTU University site, where we are cooperating in creating content and offering online training to parties in the air and rail industries.

Also this week I've been discussing the upcoming events in Amherst and DC with the Irish muralists, Danny Devanny and Mark Ervine, two artists from either side of the sectarian divide in Belfast. The deeply troubling revival of violence in the north has thrown some possible complications into the plans for their trip to the US, but we hope all can be worked out in time to stick with the early May dates for their work here.

STORM2 and ODR in Government

2009-03-05T19:13:00.000-05:00

I've been running a series of tests of STORM2, the software that we've created under the NSF grant - some of the students in the Creighton class that I'm teaching with Colin Rule have been giving me their feedback, and I am set to go to Amherst next week to mediate two test cases that will give us some more feedback and, I hope, set us up to do the larger study on the impact of anonymity in online dispute resolution later in the Spring.

Ethan Katsh and I have put forward a proposal for a new Executive Order moving ODR into the mainstream of government ADR and e-government - it's making the rounds in the White House and we are cautiously optimistic.

Leah Wing is working on the symposium involving Mark Ervine and Danny Devanny, the muralists from Belfast who have been working together on murals to reinforce the peace. If all goes well with the visa process, they will be in Amherst, and down in DC for an unveiling of one of their murals, in May.

Catching Up

2009-02-28T08:08:00.001-05:00

I've been on the road for a bit, so I haven't added anything for a while, but some things have been moving along.

The first PeaceTones collection - PeaceTones from Sierra Leone - will finally be out, I think, in March. I met with the artists' representative yesterday and the contract is in final form - all we have to do is get all the signatures on the contract and we are good to go. That may be a bit of a challenge in itself, since most are in Sierra Leone, and they operate, as their rep JR says, in "Freetown time." There is a concert by one of the artists in DC at the end of March and I hope to use that to kick off the publicity for the collection.

I'm in the middle of the Creighton online ODR course and the SMU International course at the moment. The SMU course is going well, mostly due to the participation of a great group of friends from around the world. The Creighton course has been a bit rougher - this is my first time with the teaching platform they use (Angel), my first time team-teaching online (with Colin Rule), and my first exposure to the student cohort at Creighton. Lessons have been learned, and I suppose we will discuss whether to do it again after the class is over next week.

Finally, I'm working with Ethan Katsh at UMass Amherst to suggest some ODR connections through the White House - what we are suggesting fits in well with the Obama administration's commitment to transparency, e-government, etc., so maybe we can do some good.

Staying with Conflict

2009-02-17T19:28:00.000-05:00

I just had the honor of doing a review of Bernie Mayer's new book, Staying with Conflict, due out in a couple of weeks. The review is posted at http://www.mediate.com/

ACR Conference Technology Initiative

2009-02-05T17:15:00.000-05:00

I've agreed to lead the ACR Annual Conference technology initiative for the 2009 conference - we would like to find a way to enhance the conference experience (before, during, and after the conference) for ACR members and interested bystanders by using ICT to augment the f2f sessions. If anyone reading this has an idea about how to do that, please post a comment or drop me an e-mail.

NSF ODR Workshop

2009-02-03T06:52:00.001-05:00

A workshop sponsored jointly by the National Science Foundation, the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution, and the National Mediation Board is scheduled for May 5-6, 2009, at the NMB offices in Washington, DC. Yesterday I attended a meeting with the Director of Policy and Research at HHS to see if they are interested in co-sponsoring - I think they will come on as a co-sponsor.

The workshop, which I will facilitate, will focus on directions for research directly related to the use of ODR as more and more online technology is incorporated into medical information and medical records systems. A large part of the conversation yesterday centered on the issue of trust, and how it may be possible to use ODR systems to increase trust in the online medical records system, and how ODR may be useful in maintaining accuracy in the records themselves.

Invitees to the workshop will come from the ODR/ADR community, the computer science community, and the government and medical communities.

PeaceTones, Creighton, and SMU

2009-01-10T15:22:00.000-05:00

The PeaceTones project continues to lurch forward - IBO did get the ABA World Justice Project grant, and I just met with a musician from Sierra Leone who will be the lead on that release (I hope very soon). We had hoped to get the first collection out before Christmas, but that proved to be impossible due to the complexity of getting the contracts together for Brazil and the North of Ireland. It now looks like all three collections are moving forward, and I have a meeting next week with someone from the Sudan project who is in the U.S., so maybe a little face to face discussion will help move that piece of the project along.

Colin and I are now ready for the Creighton University ODR course - it begins on January 19, and will be, as far as we know, the first all online ODR course to be made a requirement in an ADR degree program.

In February and March I'll again be teaching my course in International Dispute Resolution for the SMU dispute resolution program. I've lined up guests working in the North of Ireland, and in Sri Lanka, and for the first time I'll be able to bring in via conference call Zoughbi Zoughbi, the director of WI'AM, the Centre for Dispute Resolution in Bethlehem.

2009

2009-01-01T09:48:00.000-05:00

In the Washington Post this morning, a headline that rings true for some of us: “A Disastrous Year.”

Not completely disastrous, of course. If you rely on sports (as a spectator) to fill a significant portion of your life (which I don’t), this was a good year by all accounts. If you supported a screaming headlong rush away from George W. Bush and all his associates and all he stands for (which I did), this was a very good year.

Once you get past these high spots, however, “disastrous year” pretty much covers it.

For me, 2008 will be remembered as the year that erased my retirement savings, increased my cynicism about government, increased my pessimism about the hope for world peace, exponentially eroded any remaining vestige of a belief that human beings are fundamentally kind and fair, and as a year that saw a series of deaths, diseases, and accidents among my family and friends. Altogether, I’m quite happy to shake the dust of 2008 off my heels and look forward with optimism to 2009.

Of course, not everything was a disaster in 2008. I still share the universe with Julia, the love of my life. I continue to be entertained, uplifted, instructed, and supported by my colleagues in the ADR/ODR world. I continue to be challenged by and treasure the interaction with the graduate students at SMU. And I continue to enjoy the comfort of and support of an amazing ring of friends, scattered across the US and the world.

I’ll hold on to those good things in 2009, and maybe everything else will come around, too.

2008-12-10T19:13:00.000-05:00

My experience with two UN forums within the past week seems to indicate that we have some work to do before we can totally rely on conference technology in large venues. In both cases, one at an Internet governance conference in India and one at an e-government conference in Egypt, person to person technology worked fine. I was able to use Skype and WebEx to talk and work with the other conference speakers, but in both cases, getting the signal from a laptop to the AV system in the conference rooms was not possible. In both cases my presentation was able to go forward (in one case with a colleague narrating my power point slides and in the other case by using a podcast I sent ahead of time).

One very good thing that has come from the meetings is the creation of a new "Dynamic Coalition" associated with the UN Internet Governance Forum that will push for online dispute resolution as governance of the Internet develops.

2008-12-01T11:39:00.000-05:00

We (InternetBar.Org) just found out from Kurt Shaw, the Director Ejecutivo of Shine A Light (www.shinealight.org), that the young people we are working with in Brazil to produce one of the first PeaceTones collections has just won the Freedom to Create award, naming them the best young artists in the world working for human rights. This is very exciting, particularly since, as Kurt said, "two years ago these kids were begging for change at stop lights." Now all we have to do is get their music up on PeaceTones for distribution.

2008-11-23T17:07:00.000-05:00

Some progress on a number of fronts.

First, we (InternetBar.Org) seem to have gotten the grant from the ABA to help get PeaceTones off the ground. We don't know the amount yet, and the official announcement hasn't been made, but it looks good.

Second, the contracts for Belfast are being reviewed and we seem to be moving ahead there.

Third, the contracts for Brazil will be on the way for translation within the next day or so, so that seems to be moving ahead.

Finally, we are talking to a group that has already set up a ring tones site with artists from Africa (Afrika Tracks) - PeaceTones may be able to piggyback on that site, or partner with the other group, to make ring tones available very soon.

I have the ODR and Governance presentations ready for Cairo and India in December, and they form the guts of the presentation I'll do in Haifa in June, 2009 - I'm putting together ODR material for the Obama transition team, so I hope we'll be able to get ODR into their consciousness as the transition goes along.

The Army Ombudsman program, and the online component of that program, got a prominent mention in the Ombudsman blog (http://ombuds-blog.blogspot.com/).

PeaceTones Progress

2008-11-10T19:04:00.000-05:00

I just got the draft contacts for the first PeaceTones collection off to the north of Ireland/Northern Ireland - if things go well, we should have the first collection ready to go before the holidays.

I'm working on the presentation for the conference in India in December. The general topic is the intersection between e-governance and online dispute resolution - I'll post whatever I come up with on the web site under "recent activity."

2008-11-03T15:49:00.000-05:00

Just a few short notes about projects in progress to get this blog started. [There is a link to this blog from my web site - http://sites.google.com/site/danielraineyorg/ - the things I mention here are probably noted on the web site, too.]

The Army MEDCOM Ombudsman program is looking at some material I sent them with best practices and approaches to program assessment. I’ll re-contact them after they’ve had a chance to look at the material. They are already doing multiple follow-up contacts with individuals who interact with the Ombudsman's office (in person or online), so it will be a bit of a departure for them to do a full project assessment. I’m hoping I can talk them into having an “outside” assessment team (with some presence from the NCTDR) to help them with the assessment.

I’m working on contract drafts for two of the PeaceTones collections – the North of Ireland/Northern Ireland and Brazil. The drafts for Ireland are pretty much ready to go as soon as I hear back from Jackie and Jeff, and I’m waiting for specific artist info from Brazil before drafting those contracts. They will be somewhat more complex because we will be dealing with multiple distribution points for their money, and some of the artists will be minors – not to mention that the work I do will have to be translated in order to be useful in Brazil. The other issue we are seeing is that contracts that are ok for “developed” areas where there is a legal structure will not work, at least not alone, for areas where there is no legal infrastructure (like Sudan), or where the artists are minimally literate (like some in Brazil). We have set up an online legal information system for the artists, but that goes only so far.
The first draft of the Creighton ODR course template is in the hands of Creighton’s e-learning consultants, and Colin is working on the draft to fill in some areas I left for him to play with. The plan is to offer the course in January, so we’d like to get the syllabus and course template in place pretty soon.

The next iteration of the SMU ODR course will be held in Plano, TX, in November (14-16) and December (11-13, I think). Registration is down for all of the SMU courses, presumably because of the economy – we are going with the course this time with 10 class members – usually the cut off is 15. I’ve got the International class coming up early next year, and I’m wondering how the registration will be for that one.

The ODR textbook from NCTDR is moving again – Mohamed e-mailed to say that he thinks he has found a publisher, so we will take another run at getting consensus from the group on what the chapter layout should look like.

I’ve agreed to do two online presentations, one for a conference in Cairo and one for a conference in India, both on the general subject of ODR and e-governance. Now I just have to write them.

The book chapter for the ABA Guide to International Negotiations is with the publisher and I’m waiting for final word on publication – theoretically set for January.

I’m writing this sitting in the airport in Jacksonville, Florida, after two days of facilitation training for the labor relations staff at CSXT railroad. Linda Puchala and I put together a combo of facilitation skills and facilitative approaches to problem solving, along with a change styles instrument. They are undergoing pretty significant change in LR, so the information we included was designed to encourage facilitative problem solving within LR as well as with their customers.
I’m almost done with the first draft of the online grievance mediation training program for the NMB – I hope to integrate STORM2, the app developed as part of the NSF grant with UMass. The arbitration staff at CSXT and some folks from the train dispatchers union (ATDA) may be the first to use the online training program (I talked to the railroad about doing some GM work and online arbitration while I was down here this week).