Greening Your Gadgets
This was originally published on the Earthjustice Blog in December of 2008. It’s a conundrum: how can you reduce your.
This was originally published on the Earthjustice Blog in December of 2008. It’s a conundrum: how can you reduce your.
Being a career nonprofit IT type, I've repeatedly had the unpleasant experience of walking into a new job, only to find that critical information, such as software licenses and server passwords, are nowhere to be found. So before I can start to manage a new network, I have to hack it. This sort of thing happens in other industries as well, but it strikes me as something that plagues nonprofits.
Skeptics take note - I agree with you that Twitter, the "microblogging" service that your friends are pressuring you to join, appears to be the ultimate synthesis of vanity and wasted time. All of that potential is there, and, worse, the service seems to advertise those traits as its raison d'etre. But I'm going to ask you to bear with me as I offer some arguments for the service.
I'm a big fan of maxims, adages, anything that sums up an important, and possibly complex point in a sentence that can convey, if not the whole point, at least a conversation starter. The main challenge for a technology manager is communication, particularly with those who are uninterested and/or threatened by technological terms. I live and breathe this stuff, but I understand that I'm in the ten percent, the ten percent of people who like and are completely comfortable with technology. The rest of the world ranges from averse to highly competent, but not gaga over it all, like I am. Remembering that, and approaching each project and decision with that in mind, has helped me accomplish significant things for people who aren't necessarily bought in to all of my ideas on first listen.
I normally try to avoid being preachy, but this is too good a bandwagon to stay off of. If you make decisions about technology, at your organization, as a board member, or in your home, then you should decide to green your IT. This is socially beneficial action that you can take with all sorts of side benefits, such as cost savings and further efficiencies. And it's not so much of a new project to take on as it is a set of guidelines and practices to apply to your current plan. Even if my day job wasn't at an organization dedicated to defending our planet, I'd still be writing this post, I'm certain.
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