I blogged I chose to go to Santa Fe Institute’s Business Network event instead of 7x24 Exchange. Santa Fe focuses on complex systems research.

Q: What is "complex systems research?"
A: The study of nonlinear, interactive systems from which interesting and unpredictable behavior emerges is the hallmark of the research that is pursued at SFI. This includes examining the dynamics of these 'complex systems' and how the systems evolve. The work is basic, theoretical science. Organizations that join the Business Network are often involved in applied research areas that have their roots in, or can be informed by, the work being performed at SFI. The Business Network provides a bridge between SFI's basic research and the applied work in which our members are engaged.

There a maximum of 60 companies as business network members. Out of the list of attendees. Here are the ones I want to connect to discuss green data centers as a use case in complex systems research.

Cisco

eBay

Google

IBM

Intel

Microsoft

I have already connected with one of the attendees from the above list and he is an infrastructure architect. But, his idea of infrastructure is all at the software level not at the physical infrastructure for data centers. He is interested in discussing whether others can follow their model of operation. We’ll see if he gives me permission to blog anything.

One downside of being a blogger is it can be hard to get people to discuss ideas, so sometimes i don’t start a conversation by saying I am a blogger. I do blog, but it is still less than 10% of what I do, so there is plenty to discuss with a blog post being written only if appropriate. If my blogging comes up I explain, I always ask permission to blog on conversations that are private and not specifically set up as blog interviews.