Teblog

A breath of fresh air. Eventually.

Many companies have spoken to me of their ambitions to become carbon neutral by some date - usually long into the future. Others talk of cutting or offsetting their C02 emissions in a shorter timescale.

While admirable in their intent, closer examination reveals that they are working to different criteria. They may choose a different base year. They may restrict their emissions by product or division. They may choose to ignore 'embedded' environmental damage caused by the mining, manufacture and delivery of the components they use. They might conveniently forget the in-use related emissions or ignore the end-of-life consequences.

Governments trumpet this that and the other ambitions for cutting greenhouse gases and they have plans to impose penalties and rewards based on the behaviour of large companies. But they stick to what they think they can (persuade others to) measure. And that, conveniently, is carbon, as I've mentioned before. (Sorry.)

What I want to concentrate on here is where the edge of policy lies. When the Carbon Reduction Commitment regulations arrive in 2010, the top 5,000 or so companies will be obliged to account for their direct and indirect emissions (from supplied energy). So all the accounting applies to what happens within the organisation. A company could theoretically dodge penalties by offshoring or selling off the nasty bits of its operations. But, given that the aim is to improve the earth's climate, this won't make a blind bit of difference. Indeed, if manufacture is 'offshored' then additional carbon (etc) costs will be incurred through transportation.

Once again, I feel I should make it clear that reducing humanity's impact on the environment is a good thing, quite regardless of whether or not we are actually the cause of climate change. There's no point in challenging the carbon orthodoxy, but there's nothing wrong with pointing out the narrowness of its vision and the timidity of its targets. Think of camels and committees.

Fundamentally, I'm suggesting that we accept the regulations but we don't treat them as gospel. If all we do is conform to the obligations set down, then the world is likely to become a much worse place in environmental terms. The difficulty lies in knowing quite what to do for the best.

Recently, someone at Vodafone was talking about teenagers and young adults changing their mobile phone handsets up to three times a year. They don't think about embedded carbon. Fashion is far more important. At the same meeting, someone made the astonishing assertion that Formula One motor racing is 'carbon neutral'.

A mobile phone shop might claim a clean environmental record based on its operations, quite ignoring how the stuff they sell came into being. Or, indeed, where it goes to at the end of its life. Max Moseley has been getting a lot of press lately, but not much with respect to his reforestation initiative in Mexico, something he kicked off in 1995, in close cooperation with Edinburgh University. The FIA Foundation's news archive from 2002 states that it, "offsets all the carbon dioxide emissions from racing cars in the Formula 1 and World Rally Championship series."

In an excellent guide for businesses called 'Getting to Zero', written by Clean Air - Cool Planet and the Forum for the Future, the authors state: "it seems unlikely that carbon-intensive activities such as Formula 1 motor racing can ever credibly claim neutrality." Interesting that it slipped the word 'credibly' in there. And, to be fair, the FIA does not trumpet its neutrality, even if (judging from press coverage) it once used to. This is probably because offsetting is perceived by many as a kind of cheating. For organisations which are serious about genuinely improving the environment, offsetting is seen as a measure of last resort. But, there again, if a business like Formula One has to continue, offsetting is infinitely better than doing nothing at all.

Sticking with Formula One, it would be nice to think that all the teams' private transport between events is included. But what about all the people who drive to these events? Not to mention the masses of non-team suppliers and support services. I have no idea what's included in the offset calculations.

And this seems to be a general problem, not just for Formula One. Where does accountability end? Where should it end? The 'Getting to Zero' report offers some good answers and plenty of food for thought. It refers to the three types of greenhouse gas emission: Scope 1 is the onsite stuff - direct emissions from company-owned or controlled sources; Scope 2 is indirect emissions, caused by the generation of electricity consumed (actually, it can include other energy sources); Scope 3 includes other indirect emissions resulting from the company's activities. This stretches upstream to the production, processing and transport of raw materials. It extends corporate emissions to include business travel, employee commuting and outsourced corporate support services. And it includes downstream emissions in distribution, retail, product use and product disposal.

Currently, most concerned companies set their responsibility boundary around the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, with the addition of business travel from Scope 3. To strive for genuine neutrality, organisations would need to take all of Scope 3 into account. And, in the public eye, this is what they will be measured by rather than by their ability to meet regulatory obligations. If, as so many companies claim, they really want to address climate change, this is the only honest way to do it.

No-one's making out it's easy, but the 'zero' guide is a good place to start.

R. Todd Stephens on Enterprise 2.0

Sometimes it's easy to be overwhelmed by new ways of working. Enterprise 2.0, for example, has crept up on us over the past few years. Those who've tracked it from the start have something of an advantage in that they pretty much know what all the elements and issues are. Anyone coming to it cold might find themselves misled by evangelists or confused by the propellor-heads.

It's not easy to get on top of things and see all the elements in a sensible perspective. Three cheers then for R. Todd Stephens who is Senior Technical Architect of Collaboration and Online Services for the AT&T Corporation. He has been involved in corporate IT for 25 years with a high focus on enterprise information management since 1999. He has produced an Enterprise 2.0 Blueprint, a chart which can act as a checklist for all the elements of Web 2.0 for the enterprise.

Enterprise 2.0 Blueprint (click chart to get download)

The chart totally avoids product names, with the sole exception of 'Office', but even that is a functional description rather than an explicit plug for Microsoft. The chart is in five columns: Business Drivers (for investing in Web 2.0 technology); Actors (the people involved); Technologies (and related technologies); Methods (how the technologies are used); and Value-Add (to the employee, the department and the business).

The chart is enterprise-centric, in the sense that the final column doesn't mention value to customers. Or, for that matter, suppliers. Mentions of clients and customers are dotted around the chart, so it's not as if they're being ignored. But such an extension to the Value-Add column might help stimulate more consideration of who the business exists to serve.

Clues do exist in the minutiae of the chart. Sub-boxes contain items like Education, Training, Consulting, Self service and so on, but you sense that these are primarily seen as revenue or cost-saving opportunities. A box for 'Customers' has 'Consumers' and 'Producers' as sub-boxes. Quite often customers have their own forums where they help each other out. It costs the enterprise very little but is a tremendous value-add for the customers. But then again, you could argue that this drops the support costs for the company.

Perhaps I need to wake up to the fact that value-add for customers will nearly always brings a reciprocal benefit for the company.

The good thing about this chart is that it is pretty comprehensive in terms of identifying all the Web 2.0 elements and shows how they fit into an organisation's activities. While setting up an 'under the radar' blog, wiki, IM or whatever is a trivial exercise, to derive real business value someone somewhere has to look at the bigger picture and figure out how to turn skunk works initiatives into corporate processes while retaining the spirit that made them attractive in the first place.

I think it was Napoleon or Nelson who used to toss a coin when faced with difficult decisions. If, when the coin landed, he was disappointed with the outcome, he'd go with his instincts. A chart like this is similar. Without it, you'd be trying to make this stuff up. With it, you have a framework and if any of it jars, just alter it or extend it.

IMHO it makes a fine starting point.

Sustainability winner: SOAK

I'm not totally sold on the Microsoft environmental story (hint: lifecycle costs of replacing kit) but you have to take your hat off to the company for selecting the theme 'a world where technology enables a sustainable environment' for its 2008 Imagine Cup for students. The winners were announced this week and one of them, an Australian team from four universities, came up with project SOAK - a way of managing farm water resources using, of course, Microsoft software.

SOAK, by the way, stands for Smart Operational Agriculture toolKit). It contains no particularly original components, but they've all been put together in an innovative way - a mashup of hardware and software to eke out water resources.

When IT, or ICT really, is allowed to be part of 'real life' like this, then all manner of things become possible and I think that many organisations forget this. Many still regard ICT as a bit of a pain rather than a potential partner in solving environmental issues.

Anyway, enough of that, let's get back to SOAK. It amalgamates information from a number of sources such as ground moisture, water supplies, rain, wind, temperature and weather forecasts and uses this to fine tune the crop irrigation. It means that the crops usually get the just the water they need. SMS messages can alert farm managers of problems and the whole farm can be monitored through a good-looking web-based control panel which combines Virtual Earth displays with statistical information. This can be viewed through a PC or a PDA.

With almost drought conditions, Australian farmers suffered a 59 percent drop in yield last summer, despite irrigation taking some 66 percent of the country's water. The SOAK team chose their project well and it's highly likely to move rapidly to commercialisation.

Because the team members (Long Zheng, David Burela, Edward Hooper and Dimaz Pramudya) were studying at different universities, they kept in touch largely electronically. Practical as well as green. And, judging from their email addresses, they weren't totally in Microsoft's thrall. If you want to sense the excitement, take a look at David Burela's Twitter page. Or, if you want more project details, try this blog post.

These guys are on a roll. Well done Microsoft for choosing such a great subject. And well done guys for winning the software category.

[BTW: a Singaporean team won top honours for  Embedded Development and Brazil for Game Development.]

How ICT can help broad environmental initiatives

For some time, I've been banging on about the opportunities for ICT to improve the environmental performance of organisations, even if it results in more energy use by the data centre. The whole point is leverage. It's like spending a few hundred pounds on new tyres to avoid an expensive accident. Probably a lousy analogy, but it's enough to introduce a report called The potential global CO2 reductions from ICT use. The subtitle is 'Identifying and assessing the opportunities to reduce the first billion tonnes of CO2'.

If that sounds dull as ditchwater to you, then all you need to know is that ICT, instead of being that perceived gobbler of ludicrous amounts of energy, can help us turn things around and save even more energy elsewhere. In fact, the report identifies and explains ten areas of solid opportunity. It looks at both savings and side effects, not all of which are good. But, in general, the good outweighs the bad, usually by a substantial margin.

The ten areas covered are: Smart city planning; Smart buildings; Smart appliances; Dematerialisation services; Smart industry; I-optimisation; Smart grid; Integrated renewable solutions; Smart work; and Intelligent transport. If, like me, you're puzzled by I-optimisation, it's about designing production plants.

The report was written by Ecofys for the World Wildlife Fund and was sponsored by Hewlett Packard. Ecofys made a substantial contribution (eleven authors) to the report from the IPCC which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.

This kind of backdrop made me nervous. Will HP force an IT industry view on the content? Will the authors be 'right on' environmentalists? Apart from a bit of a plug for HP's Halo teleconferencing, I've not read anything so far that makes me uneasy. Apart, of course from the obsession with greenhouse gases, and CO2 in particular. Judging from our (Freeform Dynamics) research, as long as environmental action improves operating margins and helps conform to upcoming regulations, then what's not to like?

The report (which, I confess, I'm still only two thirds of the way through) comments on, and draws from, all the important literature on the subject. It highlights the gaps in our knowledge, of which there are many. And it offers us an extensible taxonomony which will enable us to discuss and compare our information on the subject in a mutually comprehensible way. It also provides a number of tables for each application area with anticipated impacts under different scenarios. Where the future is concerned, some of it has to be of the best/worst/middle estimate variety. But, without question, this sort of thing provides a good framework for thinking about the issues clearly. And, indeed, for mapping what will probably be a growing body of ever more detailed knowledge on the subject.

Existing information ranges from the anecdotal to the specific. But each has its place - too much detail would be unwelcome if 'raising awareness' but vital if being used to set government policy. The report notes that most of the material (although not all - there's some good stuff from China) relates to the developed economies. Yet, many of the challenges and, indeed, the opportunities, lie in the developing economies. Cleverly-designed buildings can achieve zero or even a negative operational carbon footprint. But, of course, the construction materials cannot be side-stepped and both steel and concrete happen to be notorious contributors to CO2 emissions.

I have to say that at one point, I thought the report did go into la-la land. It started speculating about a future possibility of private cars doubling up as public transport. Can you imagine the issues: public liability insurance, the nightmare of an accident, the danger of predatory drivers or predatory ride-seekers for that matter? I'll put that one down as a 'no', no matter how environmentally desirable.

Having said that, this was the only time thus far that I felt the report veered away from a pragmatic assessment of the possibilities that face us.

Anyone who has to consider environmental issues in the context of ICT will find this report helpful. It provides a baseline for thinking about how ICT can help organisations achieve their fiscal and regulatory obligations at the very least. We know from our research that staff will generally welcome such measures, a potential PR benefit exists in the short term and shareholder benefit in the longer term. And all this with an environmental by-product.

I think these authors have done a fine job of parsing the current state of our knowledge into identifiable and potentially measurable components. Were we to forget our knee-jerk instincts to reject NIH (Not Invented Here) and accept this as a basis for future discussion, it will have served its purpose and raised the level of debate.

Will software gallop to our rescue?

My first love, apart from my family and close friends, has always been software. I say 'always' but, in truth, it's only been since November 1965, when I got 100 percent in a programming aptitude test. "Good Lord," I thought in astonishment, "And I can actually get paid for doing this?"

Since then, software has been at the heart of my life. Along the way, other skills have been added to the portfolio, particularly writing and teaching. And these skills have taken me into other areas, such as environmental sustainability. First in 1973 but then in a much more substantial way in 2002 when I became closely involved with an exceedingly large sustainability exemplar project. And now with Freeform Dynamics, where I am the environmental specialist, among other things.

While the economic and environmental bad news whirls around our heads, the one thing I know for sure is that software will be a major contributor to overcoming our ills. Not a panacea, but a fine contributor.

As Nicholas Negroponte has been saying for 15 years, "move bits not atoms". And that is one of the major contributions that software can make. In fact, only software can make it. Whether it's Citrix Online style screen-sharing or remote access or full blown telepresence conference rooms, they not only cut the moving of atoms, they also accelerate business processes and cut travel bills.

The other good thing about software is that it is a product with barely any environmental footprint. It can be delivered as a stream of bits and be paid for with another stream of bits.

For those that don't know, I used to be a software publisher, banging out product in expensive boxes with clunky manuals and floppy disks. But since 2001, this very part-time business has been run wholly electronically from the corner of a server somewhere in America. The programmer and I meet rarely (once a year on average), but we're in intimate, friendly and fairly continuous, contact online. And, of course, all support, 'paperwork' and accounting is done electronically.

Our product was lovingly crafted in C++ (following my initial development using the 8080 assembler) and it is tiny for what it does.

I'm not trying to sell anything here, but I can't help noticing that, by contrast, most of the systems I see today are packed full of bloatware, along with programs and data files which have become moribund. But most users are incapable of dealing with such issues unaided. They need software tools.

If larger programs could be debloated and users helped (in plain English please) with program and file removal, we could stall the madness of buying new equipment just because our old stuff has become clogged up and slow.

As with the organisational benefits of 'atoms to bits', users will benefit from slicker running, gain a financial benefit and reduce their environmental impact all at the same time.

Now, someone tell me these things exist. Please?

Or, if not, why not?

Thank you.

FrEDI: Freeform's Environmental Discussion Image

We've just released a research report called ‘Green Computing: The role of IT in the push towards environmental sustainability’. While doing the research and validating the findings it rapidly became clear to me that few people are constantly aware of the big picture and their part in it. IT is, after all, just an enabling component in an organisation's strategy yet, to listen to some people, 'greening the data centre' is the start and end of its environmental contribution.

The report examines the broader role of IT and actually gets inside organisations and looks at the drivers for green (and 'green', incidentally, isn't high on the list), cultural issues - including attitudes to IT, where responsibilities for action lie, and how IT can support the organisation's sustainability objectives. The statistical content was based on feedback from 1474 IT professionals while the interpretation was a combination of experience and consultations following the report's first draft.

Anyway, the point of today's post is to introduce you to FrEDI, an illustration which reflects all the areas that need to be considered when participating in an environmental sustainability strategy. The acronym stands for Freeform Environmental Discussion Image although, in retrospect, perhaps 'Illustration' would be a better last word. Its purpose is to keep people's minds open to the bigger picture when discussing and planning their environmental activities.

As you can see, there's a certain amount of blurring between the various elements of the illustration, this reflects the fact that nothing happens in isolation except, possibly, the determination of the drivers which are best decided at board level, even if some of them are informed by others within the organisation.

You will also notice that the drivers are two-tone - one for internal drivers, such as budget or PR value, the other for external drivers, such as government regulation.

The only way for the drivers to be implemented is through people and they are reached and inspired through leadership. Which, of course, comes from people. Hence the blurring. You may notice that both drivers and leadership fade out at the bottom, leaving the field clear for people, processes and ICT to intermingle and bring about the necessary change.

People are on top of the stack, quite deliberately because nothing at all happens without people. Processes are created and carried out by people and most of them are intimately supported by ICT.

The bottom part of the illustration hints at sustainability in that equipment and resources have to be chosen, acquired, used then disposed of. They are split in two, to reflect the different nature of hardware and resources. Servers, storage, cooling, PCs, laptops, thin clients, mobile devices, printers, etc on the one hand and electricity, paper, ink, toner, water etc on the other.

We believe that it is useful to have an illustration like this to hand whenever debating environmental matters so that the bigger picture is never lost. Organisational and individual benefits will be maximised through harmony and environmental benefits will drop out as a by-product.

Do take a look at the report if this subject interests you. And, of course, your feedback is always welcome.

PS In case you were wondering, the fact it looks like a tree wasn't lost on us. In fact, it looks most like an Evergreen Oak, but we realised that if we called a tree, then this would lead to hierarchical expectations when, in fact, we're all in this together.

Decarb' the supply chain

Seeing the pictures of lorries blocking a main route into London as their drivers get themselves bussed in to protest against fuel prices made me realise that these poor people are a link in an unfortunate chain of events which is probably beyond their, or the government's, ability to change.

Sure the government can dish out tax breaks to protect the industry from fuel price increases, but it will not change the underlying problem which is that, one way or another, we're going to get clobbered for moving goods around in fuel consuming and air polluting vehicles. And the cost has to be borne by the people who want said goods. We are in for a structural readjustment, the like of which we've seen frequently in the past as industries change shape or even disappear. It's tough on the transport companies who can't react swiftly enough to the ever changing prices of fuel. They book jobs or secure contracts at one price and, by the time the work is done, their gross margins have been seriously eroded.

All this brings to mind some work that IBM Global Business Services and IBM Research has been doing on optimising the supply chain in order to balance cost, service, quality, and carbon. It has announced a 'Carbon Tradeoff Modeler' to help organisations assess their supply chains for optimal results. It, through the IBM Institute for Business Value, has also published a short (16-page) paper on the subject called Mastering Carbon Management which you may find interesting.

One of the hardest aspects of this whole carbon/green/sustainability business is to think about it in a clear and structured way and to find immediate sources of help. Fortunately, companies like IBM are beginning to step up to the mark and assist. Of course, it's not altruism, it's good business sense. IBM wants to be seen as a place to go for solid environmental consultancy. But at least it is getting to grips with the issues right now, enabling companies to act intelligently instead of waiting for regulation to force them into rushed decisions.

You may also be interested in IBM's simple framework for looking at your own organisation's environmental impact using its House of Carbon. This includes supply chain as part of the bigger picture.

Whatever you think of mad fuel prices and carbon as the enemy of mankind, the fact is we are on this particular treadmill and it's just not going to go away. The argument is "you wouldn't want to be seen to have done nothing, by later generations". And, of course, anything that leaves the world a better place for our descendants is good. And, at least high fuel prices and forthcoming carbon taxes are likely to accelerate the development of alternative power sources and carbon sequestration equipment.

As for the poor transport firms, I guess they will have to operate more like airlines and standardise on fuel surcharges until they can switch to more sustainable vehicles. Even so, with their customers looking at ways of slashing their supply chain carbon, it's likely that demand for haulage is likely to reduce in the developed countries.

Microsoft and EEA's environmental early warning system

Confession time: I get a horrible sinking feeling when I hear terms like 'EU', 'human rights' or 'observatory'. When they come at me all at once, my usual temptation is to run away. But, this time I didn't. Perhaps it was curiosity about Microsoft's involvement, perhaps it was the hint of democracy, but I stuck with it. The 'it' being a recent announcement by the European Environmental Agency (EEA from now on) that it had entered into a five-year alliance with Microsoft to create an environmental observatory.

The observatory's purpose, as the name implies, is to gather information about local environmental conditions and share this with any interested party, including members of the public. The data will come from a multitude of sources including data satellites, NGOs, ornithological and wildlife organisations and the hoi polloi. Much of it will be real-time and it will be aggregated, analysed and presented back to enquirers in an appropriate form. That can include data tables for further processing or geo-spatial images in Microsoft's Virtual Earth. The hope is that such information will lead to rapid local action such as when a factory is spotted polluting the air or soil.

Microsoft will be playing its part in each of these elements: collecting, storing, analysing and sharing the results. It has been working with the EEA since the summer of 2007 and has gone public on the five-year agreement which it believes is entirely complementary to the company's own commitment to environmental sustainability.

Suspecting the worst, I investigated Microsoft's environmental credentials. After all, in cahoots with Intel, it did spend a lot of years more or less enticing people into equipment upgrades. My conclusion is that the company is sincere in its intentions and has already made great strides in dealing with its own environmental footprint, especially with regard to cutting travel and single occupant vehicle usage. It even runs a huge bus fleet for its staff which aims to reduce car traffic in the Redmond area by more than 250,000 miles per week. Not to mention saving the Microsoft campus land area needed for parking and garaging facilities. This is one of the sad aspects of environmental actions, they often save the company money so bragging runs the risk of appearing somewhat two-faced.

But, returning to the EEA project, Professor Jacqueline McGlade, its executive director, suggested that, "To sustain the improvements in the environment made over the past few decades, everyone needs to be involved and understand the consequences and impact of their actions." She added, "The only way to do this is by reaching out to the widest audience. This collaboration with Microsoft is a groundbreaking approach to bring environmental information to as many people as possible." This rather assumes they have a) access to a suitably equipped computer and b) the will to look. I would have thought that traditional media will be the best way to reach these people. The other issue with this statement, taken as a whole, is that she refers to improvements made over the past few decades. This suggests that the actions required are already understood and merely need communicating.

It seems to me that although this project is being billed as a citizen information system, it is actually much more of a citizen spying system. Most people would be more interested in snitching on local sources of pollution than in logging in periodically to check local environmental conditions. However, you can be sure that certain powers-that-be will be very keen on this sort of real-time information. It's a chance for them to swiftly crack down on miscreants, for which we should all be grateful, assuming that things don't get too petty.

In the end, I remain puzzled by the publicity exercise around this. I suspect that Microsoft considers the EEA to be a good notch to have in its corporate social responsibility stick. And maybe the EEA wanted a bit of profile and Microsoft provided an ideal delivery vehicle.

But I'd like to think I'm wrong. Perhaps you see it differently...

Be heard. Be seen. Be green.

The push for environmental sustainability must have been music to the ears of those involved in videoconferencing and its many derivatives. It provides another strong weapon in the vendors' sales armoury. Now, not only can organisations save staff time and reduce travel costs, they can also cut the use of fossil fuels into the bargain.

Add a couple of other things into the mix, like the growth of IP-based broadband and the advent of high definition screens, and the scene is set for an explosion of online face-to-face activity ranging from top-end lifelike telepresence systems right down to desktop applications using webcams. Each plays its part in an organisational collaboration strategy, depending on who the users are and what they're trying to achieve.

Task-oriented people who work together and who know each other can probably put up with lower fidelity or less comfort than strangers who might feel more at ease if they feel they're 'sitting around the table' with other participants. Broadly speaking, the environments could be summarised as boardroom, meeting room and desktop. Although you could add venues such as hospitals and police stations for remote consulting and interviewing, respectively.

As you might expect, you can pay from very little to a great deal depending on the level of sophistication you need. The major vendors are Cisco, Tandberg, Polycom, Teliris and Hewlett Packard. You can get a specially fitted multi-screen room, a 'room within a room', facilities added to a room, a deskside system, a desktop system or, at the lowest level, something that will run on your laptop or other mobile device.

Some services are managed, so you have no technical hassles. Others are provided as equipment to be managed by IT or whoever. At the bottom end, the user is in charge. In terms of hard ROI, Teliris claims that its payback period can be as short as 28 days. In one particular example, 52 business trips between Sweden and Japan were cut to eight or nine. Bingo! Every trip saved from then on is a bonus. Apart from the monthly management fee, of course. Mack Treece, Teliris president, said "Every customer has paid back their room in under twelve months."

LifeSize can supply room systems, at a cost, but it takes a more relaxed approach than some others. A couple of screens hung at the end of a meeting room is good enough. One can be used to check what your end looks before using it for presentations, shared whiteboarding or whatever. As the name suggests, the screen image is life size, but the fact that it's halfway up a wall doesn't seem to matter much. Once the conversation is under way, you tend not to notice. And eye contact, as with the central zone of most systems, is fine.

Some systems require some hefty dedicated bandwidth. LifeSize can do a reasonable job across a conventional broadband line. Most, if not all, high end vendors will adapt to the available bandwidth, losing high definition along the way if necessary. When I finished a recent conversation with Texas-based LifeSize CEO, Craig Molloy, one of the UK distribution people turned to me and said, "That cost us nothing, that call." That's because the company already had a megabit available in each direction on its DSL connection. Bear in mind that each participant was using just one screen/camera combination. It is theoretically possible to scale LifeSize to twenty screens or more.

Before long, we won't be speaking of these things as separate systems. They'll become as much a part of the organisational make up as the furniture in the boardroom, a whiteboard in the meeting room or the phone on a desk. Large organisations will probably install a few top-end systems in their main offices, complemented by larger numbers of the more traditional in-room systems and tiny systems that run on laptops or PCs. At this level, expect a great deal of blending with other collaboration and communication systems such as those provided by IBM/Lotus, Microsoft and Adobe, for example.

On our desktops, it will become quite natural to flick from looking at each other, to sharing screens, to presenting, to whiteboarding to IM, for example. The work itself will take over from the need to see each other although the option is there if visual contact is needed.

Possibly the biggest downsides at the moment concern interoperability and the local loop. Although lip service is usually paid to standards, some systems still do not play nicely with others. And, if reception flickers and stutters, you can almost certainly point your finger at the local loop. But, weighed against the alternatives, the odd glitch is a pretty good trade-off.

Some reflections on Green IT 08 day 1

Today saw the start of Green IT 08 at the Design Centre, Islington. It's a combination mini-exhibition and conference. It was interesting to see a mix of customers, vendors and analysts sharing their views. And, my, how the field has consolidated in the past year or so.

Then, a lot of IT people were discovering green issues for the same time. Waves of evangelism ensued and, indeed, are still washing over us. But what I found interesting is the stage we seem to have reached with green, or climate change, or carbon - take your pick. I hesitate to mention that I was in IT when decimalisation came along, when VAT came in and, of course, when we had Year 2000. Like 'green' all of these created huge amounts of heat and steam followed by action in the IT world, especially since all three had a specific deadline. Green doesn't really have a deadline but the pattern is being more or less repeated. Lots of confusion, lots of explanation and, perhaps now, a more or less common understanding.

Most of the speakers today were agreed on what needs to be done. I liked the Highways Agency idea of dividing the actions up according to whether they're down to the individual, the ICT department or the Enterprise to take them.

With few exceptions, money was declared the number one driver. Regulation was up there. And green was usually seen as a useful by-product. Nothing new there. Although some people suggested that green was the primary driver - but it seemed to me that, while this might be true among some staff, it wouldn't normally get buy-in from the boardroom.

I liked JP Rangaswami's (MD of BT Design, which embraces ICT) fairly hard-nosed message of, essentially, "cut the carbon" (my words, not his) and cascade the authority for doing so from the board down through champions. These are senior departmental "go to" people who advise and encourage, act as a sounding board and, when necessary, veto things like unnecessary flights. He doesn't believe that all answers are known yet but he does believe in avoiding dithering because this leads to inaction.

I also liked the plain speaking of Her Majesty's Government's CIO John Suffolk. He doesn't like having his agenda driven by IT people who advocate the latest technology without being able to explain what benefits it delivers. He'd rather copy someone else's success. He has adopted the champion/challenger approach in which he champions what he thinks is good and will only consider a challenger if it wins by a sustantial margin.

His bottom line is, "know what good looks like" and challenge suppliers to meet these requirements. To give an example, he mentions people who are pleased that servers are being 30 percent utilised. He asks, "would you run an office that's only 30 percent utilised? He seems to see some of the madness in the IT industry for what it is and continually questions "Why?".

Perhaps the sheen is beginning to go off green and it is heading to becoming part of business, just as has Quality, which was quite a fashionable topic some years ago. This has to be for the good. A green thread which runs through everyone's thinking is probably the best way to impact an organisation's environmental footprint.