People are talking and making plans.  There's a flurry of emails across the globe.  Here's one of them, addressed to all of you:

Dear Kent, Johnnie and friends in the systems network:

After Kent's eloquent appeal and after an exchange of e-mails with Johnnie a few weeks ago, I am trying even harder to modify my agenda to attend at least part of the forthcoming meeting in Philadelphia.  I will know for sure next Monday, but in the meantime I need to have urgently some information about the program for the event, so that if I am able to join only for part of the time it will be the one that will allow an exchange among S3 practitioners in order to share we have learned during the last few decades.

I was very fortunate to be present almost at the creation of the S3 program.  In fact, my dissertation in OR was supposed to be the first degree in S3, but the graduate program was not approved in time.  I have been thinking quite a lot about the origins, main characters (from Russ, Eric, Hasan and Tom, all the way to Eli Marks, Julius Aronofsky, Britt Harris, Howard Perlmutter and other names that may not well know to you) and the evolution of our approach to systems thinking and practice. After nearly 35 years of working in this field I am finally beginning to understand what it is that we acquired in terms of perspectives, methods, practices and ways of confronting real problems at the international, regional and local levels.  I would welcome the opportunity of sharing these insights with other systems thinkers and practitioners in the S3 network.  At one point, I suggested Johnnie to organize some kind of workshop, in which I could make an initial presentation of what I saw emerging during the years I was at Penn (68-72) and how I think the approach evolved before its virtual disappearance as an institutionalized program in an academic setting. Some of you were able to hear my initial musings on this subject when I was the Silberberg visiting professor at the S3 program in 1986-1987.  If you consider it useful, I could also share some of the practical experience I have acquired in a variety of cases where the systems approach has proven a most valuable tool for me.

Well, in any case, I am now checking about possible flights to Philadelphia.  Will let you know on Monday.

Francisco
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Francisco Sagasti
Agenda: PERÚ
Apartado 18-1194
Lima, Perú
Tel.: (511) 437-3792
Fax.: (511) 435-0410
Web page: www.agendaperu.org.pe