It was at an Astoria, Oregon inn, under a massive bridge that crosses the Columbia River, that Ruth Stiehl and Marilyn Lane first decided to teach people about systems by taking them on a raft trip. "As we talked," explains Ruth, "the imagery of the river was right there, shaping our conversation. In its own emergent way, the river presented itself as an experiential tool to help people see the systems they were part of."

In her work with community college curriculum developers, and in her book The Assessment Primer, Ruth had frequently used the river as a metaphor for illustrating useful systems concepts. Recently hired by Clatsop Community College to support its accreditation initiative, she impressed Marilyn--a 12-year board member for the college--with her deep, yet simple, approach to defining institutional outcomes. As the curriculum director for a K-12 school district, Marilyn saw an opportunity to expand the impact of their work to include a broader system.

"It occurred to me," says Marilyn, "that if we could develop an integrated curriculum to run through K-12 and match up with those community college outcomes, we could provide a much stronger context for our students."

An Experiment
The two enlisted the help of the high school principal in Astoria--an experienced river guide--and brought together a group of faculty and administrators from pre-K through community college for an experiential training pilot.

After an exciting run on the Deschutes River--a Columbia tributary 100 miles to the north--the rafters returned to a classroom for some reflection. Ruth laid down a rope and put segments across it to illustrate how the group related to each phase of the education process as separate and distinct--early childhood, elementary, middle school, high school, community college. "We were all struck by the dismaying accuracy of that depiction," Marilyn notes. "Each member of the group felt like an expert in one realm, but knew little about the rest of the system."

Why do you need to be at this conference? Because the conditions have never been riper for applying systems thinking to the complex challenges of organizational and community life. As our colleague Linda Booth Sweeney recently observed, "I have never seen so much demand for knowledge about, understanding, talking about, making visible, and working with complex systems. When National Geographic makes the 'BATH TUB' their BIG IDEA of 2009...you know your time has come."

This year, we'll focus on bringing you the tools and ideas you need to identify leverage points for setting new virtuous cycles in motion. We'll help you understand how the interconnectedness of the systems you're part of are shaping your results. We'll explore with you how new investments in learning, knowledge creation, and courageous conversation not only may improve your bottom line, but may even shift the way you think about success. Join keynote presenters Daniel H. Kim and Peter Senge to start your own new cycles of success by putting systems thinking into action.

Download the call for proposals. Stay tuned for more program details as they become available.

Help us improve the conference by sending an email to Janice Molloy with suggestions for program design innovations or topics of interest to you.

When you register before February 28, you save $700 off the full conference rate. Even lower rates are available for teams of four or more. Call 1-781-398-9700 for more information.