Systems, Sustainability, and Holyoke

At a networking session last Thursday, I was asked as I often am how I made the leap from technologist-cum-businesswoman to sustainability professional.  Turns out, though, it wasn't a leap. It was really a natural progression.

I like to consider myself a "systems thinker". The great irony of that term is that, while any given "system" is partially defined by its boundaries, "systems thinking" is all about taking them down.

I started with hardware. It was interesting, but when combined with software expanded my horizons by an order of magnitude. Now add data. Remember "data mining"? It's a term that's been around since before most of my colleagues were born. But it was an amazing concept - take data collected to perform a particular function, and discover it has more to tell you than you'd though to ask!  It was obvious that I'd move on to networks - did we really imagine the Internet in the days of 2780/3780? Combine with people and see how social media  changes our society. Combine societies - and look at what it's doing to global politics. It's no wonder I'm now looking beyond the industry's walls at what IT means as part of our planetary system.

Which is why I was so pumped by the announcement this month from Massachusetts Governor Patrick, EMC CEO Joe Tucci, Cisco CEO John Chambers, MIT President Susan Hockfield, U. Mass President Jack Wilson, and Boston University President Robert Brown that we're going to collaborate to build a "green", High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke, MA.

On the one hand, we announced we're building a data center together. With walls. But look at the walls coming down:

• Data centers usually belong to an organization. This one is a collaboration.
• Organizations are usually government, industry, or academia. This is belongs to all three.
• Data centers are usually about commerce or research. This one will serve them both.
• Data centers are usually about the environment within. This is also about the people of Holyoke, economic opportunity, and the source of the electricity (much of it hydro!) that will be powering it.

Sustainability isn't about tweaking what we already know how to do. It's about taking down the walls, putting together pieces that had been looked at separately,  and creating new visions as a result. Joe Tucci said "The process of innovation truly thrives when government, education and private industry lock arms as one". Our CTO Jeff Nick called it "a rich Petri dish, if you will, from which new ideas and new discoveries form".
 
Now that's what I call a "system"!