June 15, 1999

Greetings MSOD Colleagues!

In another five weeks, you will be joining over 165 MSOD colleagues returning to our "academic home room" at Pajaro. This package brings some preliminary information about the conference and logistics to help you plan your travel to and time at the conference.

• Attachment I: Overview of the agenda
• Attachment II: Descriptions of Learning Sessions and Session Leaders
• Attachment III: Logistics Information
• Attachment IV: Food for Thought: Background Reading

A hardy band of 50+ alums -- having no idea what they had gotten themselves into -- braved the virtual world to put this conference together in a flexible design so that each of us can make the conference our own.

Much input, advice and creativity has been sought and received from the MSOD community to shape the conference design. It is full of choices -- opportunities for substantive dialogue, structured learning, and informal conversation. You will find: both prescheduled and emergent (RealTime) learning sessions; time for play; time free for catching up with classmates; time for meeting new colleagues; and a place, a "Community Café" in Grove House, for informal gathering any time.

The theme -- OD 2000: The Challenge of Designing our Future -- is intended to give us the latitude to step back, and look over the horizon to consider the challenges and trends emerging for organizations. We’ll explore how we, as OD practitioners, can best help organizations with those challenges. Some highlights of the conference…

At Thursday night's reception, dinner, and community session, we’ll have time to connect with each other. We’ll also begin to capture our shared MSOD history -- classes and faculty will tell some of their stories and draw them on an MSOD timeline on the wall.

Friday morning, our client guest speaker, Kirby Dyess, Intel's Vice President of New Business Development, will talk with us about what she sees as "the issues" emerging on the horizon for innovative, fast-moving companies such as Intel.

Following that, Dick Beckhard will lead us in an interactive session around finding the right questions as we begin to focus our thinking on the future and emerging issues.

Together we'll identify RealTime Learning Sessions (emergent sessions) that we want to lead or attend during the conference. We'll do this in an open space manner, and add these sessions to the agenda. The actual RealTime sessions will be held on Friday and Saturday afternoons.

Also on Friday and Saturday, over 25 MSOD alumni and faculty will lead prescheduled learning sessions, creating a rich diversity of topics related to the theme.

Friday night, we'll gather for a traditional Fireside. Pat Williams and Ann Feyerherm will facilitate a discussion with Bob Tannenbaum, Dick Beckhard, Tony Petrella, and Jeanne Cherbeneau around emerging issues.

Saturday afternoon, Peter Koestenbaum will provoke our thinking on building leadership capacity with a focus on resolving the paradox between business reality and human values.

Saturday night, the social group will set the stage for festivities: music, dancing, good food, fun, plus a traditional beach bonfire.

Sunday morning, we'll explore the questions we've uncovered through the conference, do some reflection and integration, plan next steps, and have our closing.

Our conference adventures will be captured in several ways: Sherrin Bennett will depict them on wall maps. Rapid feedback technology ("Council") will be in place for some sessions. After the conference, selected material will be posted on the MSOD website, so that our conference conversations can continue.

We are enormously excited about this alumni conference. Along with you, we will create a place for MSOD colleagues to gather each year, learn with and from each other, and then return with fresh energy to make a difference within our own organizations and with clients.

See you in Pajaro!

MSOD Alumni Planning Group

Steering Group Work group chairs and Susan Tydings (Omega) and Hillair Bell (Theta)

Logistics Group Cochairs: Sue Laxdal (Omega) and Dave Tipton (Omega) John Godon (Psi) Dawn Miller (Chi) Marianne Tracy (Rho) Denise Minchella-Pizzulli (Omega) Karen Tiller

Communications Group Linda Mangone (Omega) Chair Jeff Freedman (Omega) Paula Yardley Griffin (Xi) Elaine Palin (Pi) Judith Benson (Alpha Prime)

Social Group Cochairs: Shelley Brinkman (Upsilon) Mary Ann Ellis (Omega) Kathryn Riddle (Omega) Margo Freeberg (Psi) Elizabeth Magoon (Delta) Chuck Melick (Upsilon) Donna Caley Leach (Psi)

Advisor Group Chris Worley (Theta) Gordon Brooks (All Classes) Larry Reierson (Alpha) Angenett Jones-Taft (Alpha)