When technology meets sustainability

Welcome to the newest blog for CoBizmag.com. This blog focuses on the intersection of technology companies and sustainability. It looks closely at technology companies and their solutions, and how they are portraying their green-enabling products and services. The objective of the blog is to help readers better understand how technology can be used to assist in their own greening efforts without getting bamboozled by marketing and market messaging.

The focus of the blog is weighted toward technology companies. I will try to consistently address the question of: Why is this particular solution being promoted as sustainable? Often times, the marketing is more hype than business value. Just like politicians, firms with the loudest marketing are not necessarily the best solution. The blog aims to aid in mitigating caveat emptor!

I will look at the solutions’ ability to scale and add value to existing environments. The ability to integrate with an existing environment, or be interoperable with future IT project plans offers significant value to companies over rip-and-replace solutions.

The blog will explore specific companies and their acquisitions history, research and development investments, and other business considerations. Comparing and contrasting different technology firms provides insights into their different big picture strategies, enabling technology and sustainability buyers to select products and services from firms that best match their own long term strategies.

Finally, the blog will provide links and analysis to authoritative research. There are some terrific assets available to learn about technology and sustainability. We anticipate making your research life easier by having this blog be your first stop when looking for information.

I am qualified to write this blog for several reasons:

 I have been involved in high technology sales, business analysis, and market messaging for nearly two decades.

 I conducted and wrote some of the first research and reports on the emergence of outsourcing, and hosted and managed services. These services were the precursors to today’s virtual data centers, desktops, storage, applications, and the grossly overhyped cloud computing.

 I’ve written several books on the topic of business process virtualization; the first one was published in March, 2004. The bottom line, I’ve been looking at the intersection of technology and sustainability for a long time.

 All of my books include case study analysis. This means I have in depth conversations with companies of all sizes who are executing on elements of sustainability. My stories and examples are real world. We would like to hear where your firm has been successful with implementing technology to achieve both business and sustainability objectives, where you have hit hurdles, and what functions the company is aiming at changing going forward.

 I am involved in several lifestyle-centric sustainable organizations. This allows me to hear on-the-ground concerns of members. I’ll share these concerns in the posts. I’m seeking your feedback to gauge the barometer of criticality.

There are a few assumptions going into this blog:

 Every firm is working toward sustainable operations in an incremental, one step at a time manner, but it is not the highest priority of the company.
 Sustainable operations must bring incremental value to the company beyond the warm-fuzzy feeling of “doing the right thing.”
 When selecting products and services for the company, meeting the firm’s business goals and objectives take precedence over trying to reduce carbon footprints.

This blog is not:

 A stick for admonishing readers and their firms on the lack of environmental stewardship.
 A platform for haranguing the extraction industry, big business, public utilities, or local, state, and federal government.
 A place to grouse about specific companies and the decisions they make.

This blog is:

 A place to find information regarding technology companies and how they support sustainability initiatives.
 A place to learn how and why specific technology solutions and services support business’ sustainability objectives.
 A location to find measurable metrics for decision analysis and measuring sustainability initiatives’ success.
 A centralized source of information on technology companies’ strategies specifically related to supporting your firm’s sustainable business initiatives.
 A location with links to other resources and assets related to growing a business in an earth-friendly, sustainable manner.

For this blog to be beneficial to readers, we need your input and feedback. Tell us when you agree with posts. Tell us when you don’t agree with the post and why. Share your success stories. Share your trip-ups. We can learn from each other, though more importantly, possibly save a lot of time and money as we seek to maximize our business’ value at the lowest possible cost to the planet.

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