Greetings Complexity-Primary-Care listserv members,

I wanted to take this opportunity to invite you and your colleagues to come
to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, for the 2nd Annual Plexus Institute Summit
from April 1-4, 2004.

If you believe innovation is a social process that involves facing up to
complex challenges, you will want to participate in this gathering. Here you
will find many opportunities to interact with colleagues, create new
insights and innovative actions toward improving the health of people,
organizations and healthcare systems, and develop new professional
relationships. Your learning and planning will be stimulated by the wisdom
and experience of diffusion of innovations scholar, Everett Rogers;
complexity science scholar and neuroscientist, J.A.Scott Kelso; social
program innovator, Rita Saenz; organizational scholar and practitioner,
Glenda Eoyang; social innovation consultant, Keith McCandless; and, jazz
musician and organizational speaker, Michael Gold.

The focus of the gathering will be six complex challenges suggested by
Plexus Institute members. Learning Networks based on these themes will be
created during the conference to help everyone move forward on these
"real-time" challenges. Our intent is for the breadth, depth, and liveliness
of this learning exchange to delight you with new insights and possibilities
for action!

The conference organizers believe the process of innovating, dealing with
the uncertainty and disruption that innovations inevitably bring, and
working wisely with innovations can be enhanced through communities of
practice and social networks. Conference participants will have the
opportunity to experience the intelligence of such communities as they join
with a diverse mix of organizational leaders, healthcare executives and
practitioners, scientists, policy-makers and scholars to form a conference
Learning Network to address one of six different, but interrelated, complex
challenges:

. developing leaders
. scales of complexity in healthy communities
. building healthcare organizations where nurses thrive
. managing for organizational resilience
. applying complexity to clinical practice
. changing change agent practices

Plexus Institute is a community of diverse people (scientists, business
executives, nurses, artists, teachers, journalists, researchers, physicians,
college students, and community leaders) united in our determination to
create something better. We are people who, by learning from each other, are
making strides against some of the major problems afflicting society and
human organizations. For this gathering we are working in collaboration with
Mayo Clinic, the University of Minnesota and the Harvard University Program
for Health Systems Improvement.

The Institute's mission is: "Fostering the health of individuals, families,
communities, organizations and our natural environment by helping people use
concepts emerging from the new science of complexity."

Here, "health" is a meant to include physical as well as mental and
spiritual dimensions. A "healthy" individual has a healthy body, healthy
relationships, a healthy home and workplace. It is someone who is poised for
learning, growth and adaptability. Similarly a "healthy" organization is
more than a materially successful one. It is an environment in which
relationships are rewarding and opportunities to learn, grow and contribute
are available to all. It is poised to adapt. A "healthy" community is one in
which all people are nurtured and valued, where information flows freely,
where there is healthy interaction between all groups and where institutions
support the growth and development of all.

We hope that you will consider joining us for this event, and will help us
to spread the word about this event.

For more information, we invite you to visit our homepage at
www.plexusinstitute.org and find out further information for this event
under the EVENTS heading.

Thanks,

Darren Stanley