The green agenda – Achieving carbon peace of mind

The introduction of the Carbon Reduction Commitment has put ‘green’ back on the agenda. But Chris Gabriel, director of marketing and solutions at Logicalis says a low-carbon outlook can also bring efficiency and financial benefits.

As of April this year, the prospect of real financial penalties stemming from the introduction of the Carbon Reduction Commitment (recently renamed the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme) means the board will be paying closer attention to IT’s power consumption than ever before, placing carbon reduction strategies at the forefront of all IT manager’s minds.

While the initial phase of CRC is only compulsory for large ‘low energy-intensive’ private and public organisations, the cost and resource efficiency benefits of going green reveal a compelling case for change as we move toward economic recovery; green is firmly back on the agenda for businesses of all sizes as we enter this new decade.

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Putting the user at the centre of things

A strategy that puts the user in control at the centre of things is, according to Zabisco director Hammad Khan, the principal benefit of a user-centred approach.

Have a conversation with almost anybody and most would agree that making your end-users perspective a leading factor in how you approach your business makes sense. So why is it that when you look closely, so many businesses (and non-profit organisations and public bodies for that matter) don’t actually adopt this seemingly obvious idea?

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Social network security

Simon Morris, founder and R&D director of Pentura looks at how best to manage the security issues social networking brings to business and if a company decides to stop staff using social networking how can it monitor this and avoid security breaches from threats left behind by computers that have been used to access social networks in the past.

Social networks can simply be described as people having conversations online using a range of communication tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo and Twitter. A social network is exactly what it says on the tin, it’s a communication network of social contacts which seems to have become the most popular way to stay in touch.

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Engaging the bored board

Why is it so difficult to sell service management and the ITIL framework? After all it’s just about common sense. Michelle Major-Goldsmith, head of service management training at Sysop and head of professional service, David Stephens offer some advice.

Imagine your typical IT manager, he is focused on the IT infrastructure and therefore engages in conversations about IT in a technical way, proudly vocalising about what the hardware and applications do, how they do it, at what speed and for how long.

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