...Three Years Later

"Gosh golly!  This co-resolution thing is really taking off!  I've got people interested in the process, trial runs have demonstrated effectiveness and party-satisfaction, and I will be presenting the process at the National ACR Conference!  Oh boy!"
Strapped with suspenders and square-and-circle diagrams, this young attorney scampers off into the field of Alternative Dispute Resolution in 2011...

Cut to black.  Silence.  Nothingness.

The words "...Three Years Later" fade onto the screen with a creeping chill.

At this point, the audience has assumed that the optimistic protagonist has died or met some other tragic fate.  However, quite the inverse happened in this case--the optimistic protagonist had assumed that the audience had died out.
I haven't blogged about co-resolution in three years, but it wasn't because my efforts to practice and promote this new process had fizzled out--it was because I thought no one was reading this blog.  But don't worry.  You haven't missed out on much.  Trial runs have been continuing since 2012, participant surveys have demonstrated effectiveness, neutrality, and party-satisfaction with the process, and I have been invited to speak about these experiences at the National ACR Conference.  Again.  2009 all over again.  So, what has changed?

Apparently, everything.

The full-day training that I conducted in 2009 ended up with two participants who conducted a few co-resolution sessions, one participant who--four years later--consistently refers to the process as "co-mediation," and the quietly consistent (and consistently quiet) support of Susan Shostak.  Obviously, the effort at that time did not have the stickiness (using Gladwell's term) that would cause the idea to spread outside of my direct involvement.
That was then.  The full-day training that I conducted last Friday ended with participants setting up further meetings to discuss co-resolution (without my suggestion), requesting further material from me, and pitching the idea to other members of the ADR community.  Looking back at the "Mission Accomplished" optimism I was expressing a handful of blog posts (and as many years) ago, I don't want to declare any kind of victory yet.  It's just that people are talking.  There is, if anything, more promotional work to be done than ever before.

So, while I haven't said a lot about it in this blog over the last three years, a lot can be said about keeping your nose down and building the ADR-cred of the process and yourself through regularly-conducted co-resolution sessions (thanks Susan) and through taking a leadership role in the Ohio Mediation Association (thanks again Susan).

Or maybe the change was that I turned 30.