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 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.