How Green Is My Media?

By Richard Romano on September 1st, 2009

A couple of months ago, a representative from some public interest group rang my doorbell and tried to get me to sign some petition or other and give them money. I declined, not necessarily because I disagreed with their positions, but because I refuse to encourage door-to-door canvassing. I told her this, much to her chagrin. I asked for their URL and said that I would investigate them on my own—and I even pointed out to her that print direct mail would be far preferable to someone coming to my door and interrupting whatever it was I was doing. (Those deep, utterly profound comments aren’t going to tweet themselves, you know.) She then quite haughtily said that they do not send out print mail because of their “commitment to environmental responsibility.”

So I ran back inside the house to get a glass of water solely so I could return and do a spit-take. Okay: what was the carbon footprint of the phalanxes of door-to-door canvassers who drove their cars, quite probably rather long distances, to suburban neighborhoods like mine? Is the environmental impact of a print campaign worse than all their cars’ carbon emissions and other negative environmental effects (for example, ever wonder where the rubber that wears off tires goes? As “Ask Marilyn” pointed out many years ago, it settles as rubber dust on the sides of roads and elsewhere in the environment)?

Granted, I don’t know for certain what these respective environmental impacts would be. But then I would imagine, neither did she. And there are far too many variables involved to quantify it with any reasonable accuracy. But it is by no means a clear case that print = evil. In fact, there is evidence that suggests that it may be quite the opposite.

I discuss this issue at length in a special WhatTheyThink report I recently completed called Printing Continues to Go Green: An Updated WhatTheyThink Primer on Environmental Sustainability in the Commercial Printing Industry.

I was reminded of this earlier today when Dr. Joe sent around a blog post from the New York Times that posed the question, “Are E-Readers Greener than Books?” citing the results of a Cleantech study that claimed that e-book readers such as the Amazon Kindle have less of an environmental impact than printed books:

The report indicates that, on average, the carbon emitted in the lifecycle of a Kindle is fully offset after the first year of use.

The report, authored by Emma Ritch, states: “Any additional years of use result in net carbon savings, equivalent to an average of 168 kg of CO2 per year (the emissions produced in the manufacture and distribution of 22.5 books).”

I did another spit-take about that.

First of all, we need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that pixels are somehow pure and and holy and that that paper is the spawn of Satan. (Although some mills do have a grade they refer to as Satan Uncoated, used for printing really evil documents like insurance forms and Ayn Rand novels.) Let’s be clear about this: electronic media do have a carbon cost. In fact, earlier this year, a Harvard physicist made headlines when he managed to calculate the “carbon cost” of a Google search. The BBC, among others, reported:

US physicist Alex Wissner-Gross claims that a typical Google search on a desktop computer produces about 7g CO2.

Furthermore:

The Harvard academic argues that these carbon emissions stem from the electricity used by the computer terminal and by the power consumed by the large data centres operated by Google around the world.

Oh, and a 2007 Gartner Group report warned about the “carbon cost” of all the servers that comprise companies’ intranets and the Internet in general:

The intense power requirements needed to run and cool data centers now account for almost a quarter of global carbon dioxide emissions from information and communications technology.

Then there are all the discarded computers, peripherals, cell phones, PDAs, pagers (does anyone still use a pager?), iPods, and so on. Says one of a brace of reports on the topic published in Scientific American in 2007:

Two years ago [2005], the U.S. generated an astonishing 2.6 million tons of electronic waste, which is 1.4% of the country’s total waste stream. Only 12.6% of this so-called “e-waste” was recycled. Worse, e-waste is growing faster than any other type of trash the EPA regulates, including medical and industrial waste. Unwanted cell phones, televisions, PCs (including desktops, laptops, portables and computer monitors), computer peripherals (including printers, scanners and fax machines), computer mouses and keyboards amounted to more than 1.9 million tons of solid municipal waste in the U.S.; of that, more than 1.5 million tons were dumped primarily into landfills, whereas the rest was recycled, the EPA says..

Still:

The EPA acknowledges that toxins in electronics are a problem, but says there’s no need to panic–at least, not yet. [S]ays Clare Lindsay, project director for the EPA Office of Solid Waste’s extended product responsibility program. “The presence of some toxic materials does not create a crisis. We believe that landfills can safely manage most of these waste products. Is it the best idea? No, the better way is recycling. But we haven’t seen any contamination of ground water associated with electronics discarded in landfills.”

Less than 20% of electronic devices discarded between 2003 and 2005 were sent to recycling facilities; the rest were dumped and mostly ended up in landfills. In 2005 about 61% (107,500 tons) of cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitors and televisions collected for recycling were exported outside the U.S. for remanufacture or refurbishment, the EPA says. That same year, about 24,000 tons of CRT glass—which is filled with lead to protect viewers from the x-rays produced by the monitor—was sold to markets abroad to replace damaged CRTs in various countries, and North American waste and recycling companies recovered about 10,000 tons of lead (meaning it was not placed into landfills or incinerated).

An added benefit of recycling electronic materials—be they copper, lead or silicon—is that we will not have to mine as much from the earth, says Bob Dellinger, the EPA Office of Solid Waste’s director of hazardous waste identification. “In essence, recycling stretches the raw materials we have available,” he says. A lot of energy is wasted in the mining and refining of raw materials. For example, only 4% of copper ore is usable, the rest is waste.

As for the e-reader business, yes, it’s becoming more and more common for print-based media to come under fire (fire which pollutes) for being environmentally irresponsible. I think it’s rather a silly argument; sure, paper cuts down trees, but trees are a renewable resource. It also bears mentioning here that one of the driving forces behind the various “Do Not Mail” bills coursing like a bolus through various state legislatures is the spurious claim that printed mail is environmentally unfriendly. See, for example, the ornery http://donotmail.org that claims that “It takes more than 100 million trees to produce the total volume of junk mail that arrives in American mailboxes each year.”

However, the paper and pulp industry plants 1.7 million new trees per day, which equals 620.5 million new trees planted per year, for a net gain of 520.5 million trees annually. That’s a lotta trees. So I’m not entirely certain what the problem is. And even vegetarians—and vegans—kill plants. I mean, who hears the cry of a carrot? (I do; is that weird?)

Let’s also not forget what is used in the manufacture of e-readers. And come to think of it, what is used in the manufacture of e-readers? And how many first/second-generation Kindles are going to end up in landfills in the next few years where, unlike paper, there is no possibility of their biodegrading (not that paper always does, but at least it’s physically possible). And depending on the batteries, they may also leach toxins into the groundwater. At least with printed books, all you really have to worry about is toxic prose (oh, but I kid Dan Brown).

I also love the line, from the New York Times post:

Cleantech’s measurement “takes into account the fossil fuels necessary to deliver to the bookstore and the fact that 25–36 percent of those books are then returned to the publisher, burning more fossil fuels.”

Well, you know, I used to work in book publishing, and I can safely say that nothing would please publishers more than reducing the number of books that are returned. In fact, what would eliminate bookstore returns? People buying more books!

My point is, all human activities have some kind of environmental impact. To single out print as being especially heinous is not fair, when an argument could be made that all media negatively affect the environment in one way or another. The decision to use any given medium is a function of a variety of decisions, and the transition from print to electronic media began long before environmental issues took center stage. For all the palaver about companies adopting digital media to be environmentally responsible, in most cases, it’s little more than an economic decision (i.e., e-media are cheap or free; print is expensive). There are also issues of timeliness, relevance, personal preference, and all the other usual suspects that drive media and communication trends.

But it’s the perception that print is environmentally irresponsible that hurts the most.

Microsoft Word sale prohibited as of Jan. 11, fix promised

> Microsoft Word sale prohibited as of Jan. 11, fix promised
> Tue Dec 22, 2009 2:23PM EST
>
>
> Office workers of America, enjoy your Christmas break. Because come
> the new year, things could get a little hairy around the office.
> Microsoft Word is now scheduled to be prohibited from sale beginning
> January 11, 2010. That's less than three weeks away. The good news:
> Microsoft has promised a fix, one which will be rolled out before
> the deadline arrives.
>
> If you don't understand, you might have simply missed this story, or
> dismissed it as something that Microsoft would ultimately use its
> considerable clout to have pushed under a legal rug.
>
> But it's no joke. In August of this year, a court sided with a small
> Canadian company called i4i that holds a 1998 patent on the way the
> XML language is implemented, finding that Microsoft was in violation
> of that patent. The result: Microsoft was told to license the code
> in question from i4i or reprogram it, or else Microsoft Word would
> have to be removed from sale in the market. The original ruling gave
> Microsoft until October to get its legal affairs in order, but
> appeals pushed that out a bit.
>
> Now a federal court has upheld that original ruling -- plus a fat,
> $290 million judgment against the company -- imposing the new
> January 11 D-Day on the matter. Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office
> will both be barred from sale as of that date -- though naturally
> you'll still be able to use copies of Word and Office that you
> already own, and Microsoft will be allowed to keep supporting those
> copies.
>
> Unless Microsoft ships the promised technical workaround very
> quickly, things are going to get extremely dicey in the computer
> world, and fast. Not only will retail outlets selling shrinkwrapped
> copies of the software be affected, computer manufacturers (who
> complained loudly about this injunction when it was announced) who
> bundle Word and Office on the computers they sell will also be
> seriously impacted by the ruling.
>
> There's always a chance things will change again as the January 11
> deadline approaches, but if your company requires Word or Office to
> keep operations running, it might not be a bad idea to stock up on a
> few extra copies now.
>

Fanky Christian
Business Development Director
PT. DAYA CIPTA MANDIRI SOLUSI
IBEC Building 2nd Fl
Jl. KH Wahid Hasyim No.84-86
Jakarta Pusat, 10340, Indonesia
SMS: 62-21-98054359
Telp: 62-21-3924716
Fax: 62-21-3923432
mobile: 62-812-1057533
www.dayaciptamandiri.com

Online Store: www.tokofc.com

visit:
- dayaciptamandiri.blogspot.com
- fankychristian.blogspot.com
- www.facebook.com/fanky.christian

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IT shops weigh Microsoft buy of Opalis Software

By Mark Fontecchio, News Writer
16 Dec 2009 | SearchDataCenter.com

IT pros using Opalis Software have strong opinions on the pending
Microsoft acquisition of Opalis, depending on how much they use the
data center automation software. The deeper they are into Opalis' run
book automation and job scheduling features, and the more they lean on
support, the more concerned they are.

James Hankey, vice president of IT and director of operations at
financial investment firm John G. Ullman & Associates (JGUA) in New
York, professed shock at the news announced late last week.

"I'm afraid we're going to have to end up paying more money," he said.

JGUA has been an Opalis data center automation customer for about 10
years. In 2000, the company needed to streamline processes required to
produce client reports. Hankey said JGUA spent a lot of money paying
people overtime for processes that the Opalis software performed using
run book automation. Now JGUA uses it primarily to monitor those
processes.

"Microsoft is lousy in terms of support," he said. "Other Microsoft
products we use we have to pay $250 just for a call, and we use the
support lines heavily with Opalis."

Victor Martinez, director of information systems at Kawasaki Motors
Corp., USA, has a different take on the deal. Kawasaki started using
Opalis Integration Server software to help run its online commerce
site. Most data the site needed -- including catalog, dealer and
pricing information -- sat on the company's mainframe. Kawasaki needed
an automated way to manage the transfer of that data to and from the
staging and production servers that ran the site. They used Opalis'
data center automation software to do it.

The company has since scaled back its e-commerce site, and now uses
Opalis for job scheduling process management and automation. Martinez
said he was happy to hear about the acquisition, and hopes Microsoft
bundles Opalis software up with other products so that Kawasaki has to
pay even less to use it. The company rarely uses Opalis support lines.

"Anything Microsoft gets their hands on, they commoditize," he said.
"From our standpoint, that's positive. If we were really using Opalis
in creative ways, I might have some concerns around it. Custom things
might not be built or I might not be as creative with the product as
in the past. But for us it's been kind of a sleeping giant that does a
lot of good stuff for us without a lot of work."

That seems to be the direction Microsoft could take Opalis, according
to Microsoft channel partners. The thought is that Opalis software
will be sold with Microsoft System Center, the company's Windows
management products. Partners also said Microsoft's purchase of Opalis
is a way for it to push harder into the cloud computing space.

Mark Fontecchio can be reached at mfontecchio@techtarget.com.

Masa depan Digital Signage

Janji datangnya sang prospek klien pada jam 11 terlewatkan sampai jam
14, tapi saya senang menerima kehadiran mereka di kantor kecil kami.
Dalam diskusi singkat mengenai perusahaan, kami mengakui bahwa kami
memang memiliki fokus untuk mengembangkan Digital Signage di
Indonesia.

Yang menarik bagi saya, Digital Signage ini bukan barang baru, tapi
teknologinya terus berkembang. Secara umum terbagi menjadi 2, yaitu
hardware Digital Signage dan software Digital Signage. Kami terus
terang, lebih berfokus kepada Digital Signage berbasis software karena
lebih luas dan fleksibelnya pengembangan yang dapat dilakukan.

Digital Signage sekarang dengan mudah ditemukan dimana-mana. Di jalan,
diatas pos polisi, persimpangan jalan utama, hingga di depan lift
gedung perkantoran, ada beberapa di apartemen. Konteksnya tetap sama,
yaitu memperkenalkan atau memvisualisasi dengan menggunakan media
digital, khususnya adalah teknologi display. Teknologi ini konon
adalah teknologi yang paling mudah menyerap perhatian orang, membuat
orang teringat tentang apa yang disampaikan, tetapi juga bisa menjadi
terlalu cepat untuk dilupakan.

Oleh karena itu, visualisasi, penampilan dalam media display, yang
mungkin hanya dilihat sebentar saja itu, menjadi sangat penting. Kami
dalam beberapa tahun ini mengembangkan aplikasi finosMDS sebagai
pilihan, khususnya industri perbankan untuk menggunakan media digital
signage menggantikan media tampilan kurs berbasis led atau manual.
Tapi toh, tetap kurang maksimal. Kami sempat beralih ke industri lain
beberapa tahun yang lalu, belum mendapat respon. Tapi sekarang, luar
biasa. Dimana-mana kita temukan, bahkan ada yang menggunakan mobile
unit untuk membawa display yang luar biasa besar, guna mempublikasikan
iklan mereka.

Belakangan kami tertarik dengan Navori, perusahaan berbasis di
Switzerland yang memiliki fokus di Digital Signage Software. Kami
sedang menggodok beberapa strategi membawa produk tersebut masuk ke
Indonesia dengan mudah, meskipun cost nya tidak sedikit. Beberapa
peluang pernah hampir kami raih dengan menggunakan software ini,
tetapi belum ada yang gol secara maksimal.

Navori menawarkan konsep yang menarik tentang Digital Signage
Software, yang tentu saja, balik ke konsep awal saya, dengan mudah
dikonfigurasi, dibuatkan template, sehingga saya dapat mengganti-ganti
dengan cepat. Navori juga menantang untuk dikoneksikan dengan aplikasi
lainnya, seperti queuing system yang telah kami miliki sejak lama.

Digital Signage, mungkin suatu saat tidak hanya kita temui di media
luar ruang, atau dalam ruang yang kita masuki, tetapi mungkin juga
dalam pesawat mobilephone Anda. Who knows? Yang penting tetap sama
yang dimaksudkan menyampaikan pesan secara lebih menarik. Bahkan, ada
demand dari beberapa prospek untuk membuat Digital Signage interaktif,
jadi bisa berkomunikasi, kita bisa memilih apa yang ingin kita lihat,
kita dapat merespon. Dalam konsep kiosk, hal ini telah lazim
digunakan. Tapi dalam digital signage mungkin akan jadi hal menarik.
Belum lagi, apabila bisa dipersonalisasi. Contoh, adalah saya yang
masuk ke ruang lobby kantor saya, maka tampilan digital signage nya
adalah khusus untuk saya. Wow. unlimited ideas khan.

Ok, kita lihat saja,apakah kami berhasil memperkenalkan Navori di
Indonesia dengan lebih baik pada tahun 2010.

ICT INDONESIA - JCC 14-16 Des 2009

Kepada seluruh rekan-rekan,

Bapak dan Ibu, anda semua diundang untuk dapat menghadiri acara ICT
EXPO yang di selenggarakan di JCC dari tanggal 14 - 16 Desember 2009
(09:30 - 17:00), dengan cara melakukan pendaftaran secara online
GRATIS di: http://www.ictindonesia.com/reg/ yang mana selain anda akan
mendapat kesempatan memenangkan undian berhadiah, Bapak dan Ibu juga
akan memperoleh sebuah buku catalog pameran senilai Rp. 50.000,-

Untuk mengikuti ICT FORUM 2009 silahkan klik di:
http://www.ictindonesia.com/2009/forumreg.htm