Technical progress has spurred some wasteful use of resources; but it’s also key to green thinking, argues Andrew Donoghue.

Switching PCs off at night and sensible recycling are just some of the ways to tackle climate change, we are told. But if, as a society, we are really concerned about global warming, surely some more radical action is called for?

For example, why not just ban progress? I mean we’ve got garlic crushers, iPods, electric cars and SuBo on Britain’s Got Talent – how much more progress do we really need?

We could simply decide that all the current designs for cars, washing machines, medical endoscopes and wind turbines actually work pretty well thank you very much; so let’s just stop developing any new ones.

If your toaster breaks down, don’t buy the latest Toast-amatic 3000 with self-levelling Bagel cradle; just fix the one you have. Or if you really must consume, order exactly the same model again.

Sweat those assets

A ban on all thing new would go down well with environmentalists, who are very keen on the idea of using things for as long as possible, otherwise known as “sweating assets”. Their reasoning is that everything comes with an in-built carbon debt accrued during its production.

For more go to my Green Scene Column

Companies appear to be changing the way they operate vehicle fleets in response to the recession and climate change but if the economy improves, will the trend towards greener fleets go into reverse? By Andrew Donoghue.

For more go to: HR Magazine UK

The Home Office is now talking less about counter-terrorism and more about easing travel in Europe

The UK government appears to have changed tactics when it comes to the roll-out of its controversial ID Card with the idea that it will make it easier for Brits to travel in Europe without having to lug about a bulky passport and will simply be another plastic card for people to carry about.

Mock-ups of the card have been made public before, but this week the government announced the final look of the plastic card at events in London and Manchester this week. The card design includes “the Royal Coat of Arms on the front and features a floral pattern representing the four floral emblems of the UK: the shamrock, daffodil, thistle and rose”, the Home Office revealed.

But in a rather downplayed statement on the benefits of the card, Home Secretary Alan Johnson opted to avoid the rhetoric about preventing acts of terrorism which have previously been attributed to the ID Card and instead appeared to argue that citizens already carry around plenty of pieces of plastic already and the ID Card was just another, albeit important, addition.

“Given the growing problem of identity fraud and the inconvenience of having to carry passports, coupled with gas bills or six months worth of bank statements to prove identity, I believe the ID card will be welcomed as an important addition to the many plastic cards that most people already carry,” he said.

For more go to: eWeek Europe UK

Latest piece for SC Magazine:

On a visit to the US shortly after the civil war, Oscar Wilde was asked why he thought the country was so violent. “I can tell you why America is so violent,” Wilde replied, “it is because your wallpaper is so ugly.”

That might sound like a typical Wildean witticism, and it is, but what Wilde was really expressing was the importance that he and others in the aesthetic movement attributed to beauty and good craftsmanship and its impact on how people behave. To be surrounded by ugliness, the Irish writer believed, led to ugly thoughts and ugly actions.

It might sound like a stretch to apply this philosophy to the current popularity of devices such as the iPhone, but there is a link between good design and productivity, according to some experts. “Although it would be difficult to quantify through a cost-benefit analysis, a happier user is generally considered to be more productive,” analyst group Gartner claimed in a 2008 report on employee-owned technology schemes.

At least some of the momentum driving staff to want to use consumer technology in the workplace is that on the whole it not only looks better but, crucially, is a lot more user-friendly than the “good enough” approach taken by many business-technology makers.

For more go to: SC Magazine UK

My latest interview piece for I Magazine:

The idea of being outside of the system – not part of the establishment – must be high on the list of reasons why the open source movement attracts so many devoted, often fanatical, followers. Rebelling against the perceived control that proprietary software (most notably Microsoft) and closed standards yield is exciting and just a little bit dangerous.

It’s not hard to understand, then, why a country such as France, whose national identity is so closely tied to rebellion and revolution, would find a natural affinity for this community-developed software. Open source embodies the idea of people uniting around a shared belief to achieve a goal.

While creating an open source database might not be quite as dramatic as beheading aristocrats with the guillotine, there is at least some common ground with the French revolutionary motto of liberté, égalité, fraternité.

With a zeal that could almost be described as revolutionary, France’s public sector has taken to open source and open standards like few other governments around the world. From the Ministry of Finance to the military, free software and open standards have not only been accepted, they are actually stipulated.

For more go to I-CIO.

Although the European Commission might be proud of its record of hitting Microsoft with fines that dig deep into Redmond’s seemingly bottomless coffers, the fact is that for many European countries, Microsoft is still the first and sometimes only choice when it comes to government tenders.

As last week’s Switzerland example showed, some government’s operate on the basis that IT is basically another word for Microsoft. That means tenders that specifically call for Microsoft products as if no other alternatives exist. Hungary – where I am currently based – only a month ago agreed to put open source options on the tender list for government tech projects. Previously, government tenders would simply state, “Microsoft or equivalent products”. Microsoft has splashed its cash around the country both in terms of marketing and lobbying that it has much of the public sector sown-up, as open source guru Richard Stallman remarked on a recent visit to Budapest.

And let’s not forget that the UK only just agreed to “level the playing field for open source” software – basically admitting that up till now the game has been firmly rigged against non-proprietary software. That said – that doesn’t meant that all UK government projects are considering open source all of a sudden. The head of IT for the Olympics told me at a recent green IT conference that he had more or less ruled out open source because it was “high risk” in terms of issues such as application compatibility.

Yep – it seems that while the Olympics might carry lofty ideals of international cooperation and openness – that doesn’t actually carry to the software running the event. And it’s not like the Olympics has money to burn – the event is way over budget already by billions of pounds – you’d think that the organising committee would be looking for the most cost-effective options available. Time’s are tough it seems but not tough enough for some

Piece I did for CIO Magazine has just gone live online:

Planning for a server outage, a power cut or half your staff being taken ill from a rogue batch of sushi at the company party are all probably within the ability range of most competent managers. But if things escalate, it’s time to call in the professionals.

The comfort and confidence that knowing the police, ambulance or even military are there to help if things take a real turn for the worse is just as vital to oiling the wheels of commerce as an effective regulatory or financial system. Luckily, as recent history has shown, the systems underpinning the police and military are more robust than those found in some areas of the City or Wall Street. A global financial crisis has been punishing enough, but imagine a similar meltdown in health provision, law enforcement or even the army.

The perception that law-enforcement agencies and the military adhere to more rigorous standards than the average citizen goes a long way to explaining the swathes of ex-army and law-enforcement types in the upper echelons of business. In the IT sector, companies including Microsoft, Unisys, Verizon and Xerox have all hired former military, intelligence or law-enforcement personnel. Tracking down exact numbers for how many IT professionals have come from law enforcement or the army is not easy but, for those personnel with technical experience, the computer industry is a natural progression. However, it’s not only technical skills that make these individuals attractive; the abilities to stay calm in a crisis and deal with pressure are also highly valued.

For more go to CIO.co.uk

Just got back from a pretty hectic week in London trying to see everyone I needed to for work and friends too. Two days was spent at the Green IT Conference ’09 in the Business Design Centre in Islington. Some people thought it was much smaller than last year – which I guess is not surprising – but still managed to attract some good speakers including Paul Coby, BA’s CIO and several government bods too including the rapacious Catalina McGregor – a government IT champion no less.

You can check out all my reporting on eWeek Europe UK (yes it is a long and unwieldy name but at least its descriptive)

Government Demands Green IT Metrics As Standard

The UK Department for Work and Pensions says it won’t pay extra for information about the carbon impact and efficiency of IT products and services

Suppliers who try to charge end-users extra for supplying metrics about the carbon impact and energy usage of their equipment will get short-shrift from government departments such as the Department of Work and Pensions.

More…

UK Will Get Tough on “Sweating” IT Assets

Green IT is not just about energy efficiency, the length of time that equipment is used is also key to improving sustainability, according to the government

Government IT departments could be asked to use some IT equipment for up to ten years and avoid unnecessary refreshes according to the body leading green tech regulation in the UK.

More…

UK Claims World’s First “Mandated” Green IT Targets

An update to the Greening Government ICT strategy this July will include 10 “mandated targets”.. but will that mandate be backed with penalties?

The UK has become the first country in the world to have mandated green IT targets for government CIOs, according to the Cabinet Office deputy champion for green ICT.

More…

BA: Too Much Vendor “Bollocks” In Green IT

The chief information officer of BA defended the airline’s green efforts – while sniping at “greenwash” from IT vendors

Vendors need to provide clear advice to companies around sustainable technologies and less hype and spin according to the chief information officer of British Airways.

More.

(I did loads more but that should do for anyone who’s interested.)

Another recession focused piece for Silicon.com…

Times are tough. Yet while IT budgets are tight, most companies still expect their systems to carry on delivering and supporting the rest of the business. In fact, the more progressive companies are even looking at ways to use IT to help them get ahead during the downturn.

While it may make sense to try and innovate right now, for many IT departments doing so will feel like a strain on already thin resources. According to research from analyst Gartner, IT spending is set to drop by around 3.8 per cent this year to just over $3.2tr.

Gartner predicts that in 2009 the IT market will decline by more than 2.1 per cent – the drop we saw during the dot-com bust of 2001.

On the positive side there is still more than £2tr sloshing around the global IT industry – so what can companies do to make the most of the resources they have?

For starters, businesses can’t afford to waste money on failed projects. So assessing and measuring risk must form a key part of any IT planning in this downturn

For more go to: Silicon.com

Temporarily based in Hungary as I am – been here in Budapest for a couple of months – anything Hungarian in the news gets my attention. 

Right now it’s mostly how the Hungarian economy is in meltdown – the PM quit on Saturday – but every now and again there is a bit of good news. A lot of that happens when I find another famous person who turns out to be Hungarian. 

There are loads of them from obvious ones such as George Soros to Tony Curtis and Jerry Seinfeld. 

But the most newsworthy at the moment is Charles Simonyi who has just blasted into space for the second time on a Russian Soyuz space mission – with a bit of help from the US. While a lot of Hungarians might be justifiable proud of Simonyi – swathes of the open source community might not be as well disposed to the creator of Microsoft Office. Wikipedia has all the skinny.

Interestingly from an open source perspective – I saw free software campaigner and GNU Founder Richard Stallman speak in Budapest recently. Stallman was on fine form as usual criticising everything from EU adoption of open source to the links between green and free software – but he missed the chance to berate the Hungarians for Simonyi’s Office development. But then again Simonyi did all his work in the US so guess Hungarians can just take the credit for the good stuff 😉

You can read the Stallman interview here: