Dear Colleague,

Thank you for your interest in presenting a concurrent session at the 2006 Pegasus Conference, which will be held November 13-15, in Waltham, MA. Below is material about the theme, the conference, and the application process. In order to facilitate consideration of your proposal, please read this material carefully.

Conference Theme: Leading Beyond the Horizon: Strategies for Bringing Tomorrow into Today's Choices

We all know how to improve our effectiveness by learning from the past. But today's complex problems call on us to traverse time and distance in the other direction—using our imaginations instead of our memories to anticipate the future. As we'll explore at this year's conference, systems thinking and related disciplines can help us develop this kind of foresight. By understanding the long-term impact and unintended consequences of different scenarios, we can take wiser, more effective actions.

At this conference, participants will:
• Learn from insightful speakers whose work regularly takes them beyond the horizon
• Acquire skills for anticipating unintended consequences and managing "wicked messes"
• Uncover possible futures through storytelling, scenario planning, and systems modeling
• Network and collaborate with a community of people dedicated to designing sustainable solutions rather than quick fixes
• Reinforce their commitment to making a difference on a personal, organizational, and global level

At this year's event, we will explore and participate in a variety of methods that contribute to our ability to prepare for the future and make more robust decisions today. Systems thinking and the disciplines of organizational learning provide both a way of being and a practical toolset that help us measure and understand the time and distance that separate us from the consequences of our actions. They provide the kind of knowledge that can embolden each of us with the courage and humility to look farther down that road ahead and to accept our shared responsibility for shaping a future we will be proud to hand off to our children.

We are looking for presentations, both application case studies and skill-building workshops, that explore how we can cultivate foresight and strengthen our ability to lead today by making the right choices for today and tomorrow. Please consider the following questions as you prepare your application:

• Why is the ability to exercise foresight so important for organizational leaders in the 21st century?
• What tools and approaches can we use to help us extend our temporal and spatial horizons to anticipate both the impact and unintended consequences of our actions? How can we help others extend their horizons?
• How can we best leverage the creative tension we experience when we simultaneously accept the complexities and ambiguities of our current reality while holding a vision of a better tomorrow?
• In an interdependent world, how can we responsibly limit our scope so we focus on a manageable portion while still taking into account the whole?
• How can the dramatic lessons about interdependency inherent in global issues such as climate change and population growth be brought home to have meaning and immediacy in our everyday organizational lives?
• What skills are necessary for helping an organization think longer term-beyond the next quarterly report, the next standardized testing cycle, the next election?
• How does one "lead" a system?
• How are members of the various sectors in society interdependent? For example, how are businesses dependent on schools, community organizations, governmental agencies, nature, and so on? What do the players require from each other for their mutual existence and success? In what ways can we leverage these interdependencies for the benefit of all?
• What can we learn from our own successes and failures and those of others?

Audience
The Pegasus Conference primarily serves managers and teams from all industry segments, not-for-profit organizations, governmental agencies, consultants and trainers, and educators. Approximately 50 percent of the attendees are relatively new to the fields of systems thinking and organizational learning.

Sessions
Skill-building workshop proposals should demonstrate how your session will help attendees develop a specific skill set related to the conference theme.

Case study proposals should demonstrate an organizational issue that is recognizable to a broad audience in which the conclusions are transferable and highly useful in a variety of settings. The actual organization story should represent only a small part of the session. The learnings, outcomes, practices, and methods should take up the majority. Case studies should also support and reference the conference theme.

Case studies are most relevant when they are shared by company members who were actually involved in the work within the organization. For this reason, external consultants must partner with a co-presenter from the organization where the project took place. Case studies presented by managers from their own organizational experience are strongly encouraged.

We are actively seeking applications from the corporate arena.

The Application Process
Submit a preliminary proposal by February 24. If your preliminary proposal is selected, we will notify you by the week of February 28 and ask you for a more detailed proposal, which is due on March 13. Because of the tight timeframe for the second stage, be sure you can meet the March 13 deadline before you submit your preliminary application. Please be aware there are a limited number of session spaces available.

Evaluation
Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
• Strength of the description
• Presenters' knowledge, skill, and experience
• How well the session serves the theme of the conference, or how effectively it teaches a concept or skill set
• How the session "fits" with the other proposals (so that we may present a diverse group of sessions)

Please note the following:

• Preliminary Application deadline is February 24, 2006.
• Notification of first-cut acceptance or decline will be sent by e-mail no later than the week of February 28, 2006.
• Final Applications are due by March 13, 2006.
• Final acceptance will be made by March 31, 2006.
• Since only complete applications will be considered, please provide all information requested. If you have already presented at a Pegasus Conference, references are not necessary.
• At least one of the presenters must have attended a past Pegasus Conference.
• No more than two submissions will be considered per presenter.
• All sessions are 90 minutes in length.
• We will provide a complimentary conference registration for one accepted presenter per session and invite this primary presenter to make a voluntary contribution of $200 to a fund to support scholarship applicants. A second registration for a co-presenter (if applicable) will be provided at $495. Presenters are responsible for their own accommodations, travel arrangements, and expenses. Should you feel that your session requires additional presenters, they will be charged $895 per person as a registration fee.
• If presenting a case study, external consultants must partner with a co-presenter from the organization where the project took place.
• Pegasus Communications may rename sessions and edit descriptions as necessary.
• Acceptance of a proposal is based on the information provided in your application. Should a change in presenter, format, or content occur, Pegasus must be notified immediately and may reconsider whether the presentation should still be included in the conference.

The application is available at www.pegasuscom.com/pc06/presentapp.html. Please complete it by February 16 and submit it by email to stapresent@pegasuscom.com. Call Ben Cole at 781-398-9700 if you have questions.

We look forward to the possibility of partnering with you to create a dynamic program for the 2006 Pegasus Conference!

With warm regards,

The Pegasus Conference Design Team