As Microsoft’s technological leader, Bill Gates famously went on periodic "Think Weeks" — retreating to a rural locale to drink Diet Orange Crush and read dozens upon dozens of papers prepared and carefully selected by Microsoft researchers and engineers. The process informed his thinking about the future of technology and shaped the company’s strategic direction.

Now that Gates has stepped down from day-to-day duties, Microsoft is continuing the Think Week tradition, but it has modified its approach to spread those big thoughts across more than 40 people, taking cues from the world of academic research. Think Week "co-chairs" are responsible for reviewing the papers and making sure the best get noticed and incorporated into the company’s approach.

"Think Week is a Microsoft institution," explained Tara Prakriya, general manager in Microsoft’s Technical Strategy Group, during a presentation this week at the Microsoft Research Faculty Summit. "It’s not really just about Bill — it’s our way of making sure grassroots ideas dock with the right place and make the impact that they need to."

Prakriya said Think Week co-chairs were chosen based on their respect, influence and reputation inside the company as experts on particular subjects, along with their openness to new ideas and the ability to get the right ideas to the right people. Here’s the full list, as presented by Prakriya during the Faculty Summit session.

Alex Gounares, Disruptive Industry Trends and Opportunities
Amir Netz, Business Intelligence
Amit Mital, Emerging Markets
Anders Hejlsberg, Programming Languages
Anders Vinberg, Systems Management
Andy Lees, Mobile
Anil Nori, Application Server
Anoop Gupta, Edication, Technical Policy/Strategy
Barry Briggs, MSIT
Blake Stone, Developer
Charles Songhurst, Finance
Chris Owens, Real Estate & Facilities
Chris Pratley, Productivity Scenarios
Debra Chrapaty, Cloud Computing Infrastructure
Eric Horvitz, Advanced Concepts and Directions
Gwen Houston, Diversity
Henry Sanders, Networking
Joshua Goodman, Client Development
KD Hallman, Silicon Architectures & Hardware Platforms
Kostas Mallios, Photography and Video
Larry Jordan, Content Publishing
Lili Cheng, Social Computing
Lisa Brummel, Human Resources
Michele Freed, Consumer Products
Mike Ehrenberg, Enterprise Applications
Norm Judah, White Space Opportunities in Microsoft Products
Orlando Ayala, Sales & Marketing
Pamela Passman, Opportunities for Technology in Government
Pedro Celis, Data Warehousing & Mining
Peter Haynes, Next Generation of Applications
Peter LoForte, Engineering Excellence
Peter Neupert, Healthcare
Qi Lu, Online Services
Rakesh Narasimhan, Storage
Rico Mariani, Visual Studio
Rob Bernard, Green Computing
Sharon Cunnington, Distributed Development
Steve Kaneko, UI/UX Design
Steve Potzin, Hardware
Tanj Bennett, OS in the Future
Tarek Najm, Knowledge Web & Web Semantics
Terry Crowley, Technical Strategy and Office
Layne Mortensen, Other

Taken as a whole, the group is an interesting collection of the some of the key technology leaders inside the company nowadays.

Think Week works in conjunction with a Microsoft process called "Quests" that work to align the company’s strategy on key topics across divisions. This year’s Think Week is in October, but the process started with a call for submissions last week. The "Best of Think Week" papers will be officially recognized in November.

No word on whether they’re continuing the Orange Crush tradition.

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and REI and Amazon; Steve Jobs on apps; Picnik’s pricing; and more  

Picnik today unveiled new pricing plans for its premium online photo editing service, including a monthly plan for $4.95 and a 6-month plan for $19.95. The Seattle company  will continue to charge $24.95 for its annual fee and offer a free version of the service..

Watch out REI — an online avalanche may be heading your way. Today, Amazon.com introduced a new Sports & Outdoors online retail store which is devoted to activities such as backpacking, climbing and hiking.

Delve Networks, the online video distribution service led by Alex Castro, has introduced a new self-service tool that allows companies to quickly add video to their Web sites. The platform starts at $249, with the company noting in a blog post that it allows companies to publish "high-quality video without needing to have a Ph.D in engineering to do so."

The Zino Society, a Seattle angel investment group, plans to award an $100,000 investment prize at its 4th annual Zino Zillionaire Investment Forum Sept. 17 in Seattle. Companies have until July 31 to apply for slots in the business plan pitch competition, which will feature 28 companies.

The San Fran social network hi5 — which is now led by former Seattle VC and entrepreneur Bill Gossman — has struck a deal to distribute more than 1,500 downloadable games from RealNetworks. The games — including popular titles in a number of genres — will range in price from free to more than $50.

Bothell biotech MDRNA has named former Dendreon CFO Peter Garcia as chief financial officer, with former MDRNA CFO Bruce York moving into the position of vice president of finance and chief accounting officer. Garcia, who will receive a base salary of $300,000, most recently served as CFO of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Nanosys.

Stat of the day: Apple today said that more than 1.5 billion applications have been downloaded in the past year from its app store, with CEO Steve Jobs noting in a press release that "it is going to be very hard for others to catch up."

Headline of the day comes via The Wall Street Journal’s Venture Capital Dispatch blog: "The Summer of Algae."

 

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and Yaletown bets on Partnerpedia  

Yaletown Venture Partners has taken an undisclosed equity stake in Constructive, a Vancouver, B.C.-based company that is building an online social networking platform for businesses called Partnerpedia.

Yaletown’s Steven Hnatiuk said the deal marks the fourth new investment for the Vancouver, B.C.-based firm since it closed its second fund late last year.

“We’re seeing the powerful effects of consumer social networking migrate into the B2B space,” said Hnatiuk in a statement, “However, there are few viable solutions out there that are designed to address the unique requirements of businesses."

Another player targeting that space is Seattle’s Conenza, which is led by former VC Tony Audino. SelectMinds, Jive Software and — to some extent — Ning also are playing in this arena.

Yaletown’s four investments include two IT deals in B.C. and two clean tech deals in Washington state.

 

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Chart: Unemployment rate in Washington rises to 9.3 percent  

The recession continues to take a toll on Washington’s economy, with state officials today saying that the unemployment rate rose to 9.3 percent during June. That was up slightly from 9.1 percent in May and nearly double the rate of 5.2 percent for the same period last year. Despite the fact that more than 10,000 jobs were lost, Gov. Chris Gregoire said that there are signs that the "economy may be stabilizing."

Interestingly, the software publishing category saw an increase in jobs last month. According to the report, 52,400 people were employed in the category in June, according to non-seasonally adjusted estimates. That compares to about 51,700 for the previous month and 51,000 for the same period last year.

That’s a small percentage increase, but at least the industry is not losing jobs like other sectors.

Meanwhile, the computer systems design category saw a decline of 1.2 percent with 32,100 employed in the sector last month.

Overall, the larger Information category — which includes many tech jobs as well as finance and real estate — saw a decline in jobs of 4.9 percent in June compared to the same period last year.

 

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