Darrin Johnson's Weblog: Need for speed...

While cleaning out my office (see previous blog) I came across a stack of periodicals that I haven't gotten around to, nor will ever get around to, reading. It was pretty clear to me that from an eco-responsibility perspective that it didn't make sense for me to get "hard copy" versions of these because I had clearly demonstrated that I wasn't going to read them. Additionally they are a relatively inefficient (e.g. low signal to noise ratio) way to get the information that I am interested in. So instead it makes much more sense to get e-subscriptions via RSS/XML feeds (see previous blog) to stop wasting paper while tailoring the information to my needs. Network World is a great example of a weekly periodical (fortunately they went to smaller magazine size) that also has a robust set of available RSS feeds to select from. Channel Reseller News is another example of a weekly magazine that has very good selection of RSS/XML feeds at http://crn.com/rss/rssSignup.jhtml. The updside is less clutter, less wasted paper, and better tailored information. The downside though is that diameter of the information fire hose only gets bigger.

The blog action day on the environment earlier this week got me thinking about my work office which is, as my mother would say, a "pigsty". The clutter is largely a result of giving higher priority to working (e.g. meeting with people, dealing with email, etc.) rather than taking the time to sort through the mess to clean it out. However I have taken a different look at my office by putting on my eco-responsibility hat and thinking in terms of the eco opportunity cost of not cleaning it. What outdated and unused documents sitting there could be recycled for a better use? What piece of equipment could be passed to somebody who could actually use it rather than it gathering dust and eventually being e-waste? These are some of the simple questions I asked myself.

Although it is a work in progress here is what I have done so far:

• Recycled an equivalent of two reams of paper
• Returned five or so VPN Token Cards to be refurbed/recycled
• Passed a set of Solaris Internals books to an engineer who could use it
• Gave an Intel Developer Forum backpack from a recent conference to a colleague whose son could use it
• Gave away a fiction book that I will never get around to reading
• Cleaned out partially filled boxes to recycle/reuse the boxes and distribute the equipment in the boxes to team members to use
• Took home eight or so lunch bags to reuse (Note: Starbuck's bags are great for this)
• ...

There is no need to calculate carbon offsets, watts per hour saved, etc. to see the obvious eco-benefit of taking the time to do something as simple as cleaning your office.