8,000 miles or 13,000 kilometers. That's the approximate distance between Hawaii, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and Italy. But thanks to Skype, that distance didn't matter when last week I gave a 3-hour lesson on online mediation to a class attending a mediation training offered by a prestigious Italian university.

During our online and highly interactive lesson, not only was I able to present our project Virtual Mediation Lab and share videos of actual online mediation simulations. At the end, 2 other mediators joined us via Skype. Since both of them had attended the same training in the past and now participate in our project Virtual Mediation Lab in Italian, the class had the opportunity to ask them directly any questions about their post-training experience.

Besides explaining what online mediation means and how it works, our lesson also covered these three topics.

1 – Why mediators need to practice soon after they complete their training. If that doesn't happen within 3-6 months, their enthusiasm and interest in mediation is gradually bound to wane, and eventually disappear.

2 – How online mediation creates new market opportunities

3 – Why it is a good idea for mediators to have a marketing plan. For what's the point of spending so much time, money, and energy for becoming an effective mediator – if nobody knows about us?

Giuseppe Leone