David Larson invited me to do a short presentation to his class at Hamline this afternoon, and it was fun to chat. We did the video over MSN Messenger, which kept losing the connection, but we had an audio conference backup over the phone. I was competing with arrival of the pizza, which is a face off I was sure to lose, but they asked some very good questions nonetheless.
I was especially engaged by the point about ODR as an opportunity for young people to enter the ADR field. David mentioned that at the ABA conference in Atlanta some of the old guard of ADR leaders explained that they are being reversed-mentored by younger folks just entering the field who can help them get up to speed with technology. I remarked that I felt my experience at the National Institute for Dispute Resolution (NIDR) fit that description. When I worked there right out of college my tech ability gave me legitimacy in the organization that my relative inexperience would never have afforded me otherwise.
I think we in the ODR field need to strategize further about how we can be a good entry ramp for young professionals into the ADR field. The field as a whole needs it -- I think we're way to focused on the "big names" and we haven't done a good enough job building a younger generation of leaders. ODR might help to address that.