Systems Thinking In Action Conference 
 “From learning organizations to learning communities”
September 15-17, 1997 ~ Orlando Florida
"The fundamental challenge of the future for many organizations is to
transform their capacities to create knowledge."


Four of Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse (OPC) staff are participating
in a remarkable conference in the U.S. that draws more than a thousand
participants from the private sector to discuss organizational and
systems change.  For the past three years, OPC has been one of the few
non-profit organizations to attend and present papers and workshops at
this event. This year the theme of 'from Learning Organizations to
Learning Communities' fits closely with the work that Ontario Prevention
Clearinghouse, and it's affiliated company Innovaction, have been doing
with organizations and community groups, as well as internally. 
A new web-site has been set up for this conference with links to current
and past presentations at the Systems Thinking In Action conference, to
an Internet accessible edited compilation of CLICK4HP discussions on
'learning communities' and to related on-line discussions, such as
Citizens for Local Democracy [C4LD]. See this Learning communities
online page at http://www.opc.on.ca/events/stia97/

The Building Learning Communities On-line Discussion
The OPC staff, in conjunction with Pegasus Communications [the
conference organizers] have set up an ON-LINE DISCUSSION on the themes
and issues raised at the conference. The Systems Thinking in Action
Conference 1997 - Discussion Forum,  An Online Learning Community - is
now accessible at:
http://www.opc.on.ca/HyperNews/get/learning.html

The discussion on learning organizations and communities is very rich,
thought-provoking and stimulating - take a look, read the commentary and
consider posting your message. Anyone (and EVERYONE) is welcome to visit
frequently Sept. 15-17 and post comments, questions, and/or
contributions. There are some nice features of this HyperNews discussion
format. These include that you can completely preview what your posting
will look like to the general public, BEFORE you send it, and that you
can put a symbol before your message or reply which lets readers know
that it's a question, angry response, info note, etc. Please visit the
site and contribute what you know or think about learning communities. 

Alison
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Alison Stirling, health promotion consultant
Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]  
Internet: http://www.web.net/~stirling/
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