Chicago, Illinois, USA, October 14 - 17, 2009
From STS Roundtable
Theme: Policy to Practice in Networked Organizations
We met in Chicago for four days of leading edge thinking, stimulating discourse, and shared insights that will enhance our thinking and practice! The 2009 annual meeting of the STS Roundtable (STS/RT, Inc.) began at 2:00pm on Wednesday afternoon, October 14, and continued through the closing commentary at 1:00pm on Saturday, October 17! Policy initiatives at many levels can drive organizations to reframe in order to adapt, and we focused on these adaptations in organization design for this thought-provoking meeting. It was an exciting opportunity to explore STS from the perspective of our 2009 theme: “Policy to Practice in Networked Organizations”.
The 2009 meeting line-up:
Wednesday, October 14, Pre-Meeting Events
"The Elders Speak" - These seminars are always led by experienced practitioners, and George Gates agreed to share insights and experiences from his years in the field. "STS Poster Session" - On Wednesday evening, we hosted a dessert and coffee welcome reception that included our first Poster Session.
Thursday, October 15 - Saturday, October 17, Main Meeting Sessions
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, we explored our meeting theme, “Policy to Practice in Networked Organizations” with major case sessions each day from North America and Europe.
"The Challenge of Building Networked Organizations to Meet Policy Mandates" - Betsy Merck and Carolyn Ordowich led a session about the challenges of building a networked organization among a host of public, private, and governmental organizations in response to emerging public policy in the United States.
"Beyond the Top Slice: STS Applied to Health & Social Services Partnerships'" - Jean Neumann and Antonio Sama of the Tavistock Institute in London bought lessons from a large scale change initiative in Europe to help us explore our theme from a global perspective.
"The Center for Labor and Community Research (CLCR) and the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council (CMRC)" - Dan Swinney, Executive Director of CLCR, members of the CLCR staff, and several other colleagues brought us up to date on their activities, plans, and successes in this amazing story of bringing together diverse stakeholders to promote high-road education and manufacturing.
In addition to these major sessions, there were 'fresh air' working sessions to help us dig deeper into our learning, lessons from Roundtable members’ ‘Discovery’ work, and small and large group examination of the policy to practice implications for the future of STS. We experienced two full days and two half days of great learning opportunities, in-depth discussions, and time to connect with good colleagues and friends!
