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Innovation Blues

Cloud computing can cut carbon emissions by half, report finds | Environment | guardian... - 0 views

  • lue-chip companies could reduce their carbon emissions by 50% if they migrate their data storage operations to the cloud, a new study says.
  • Blue-chip companies could reduce their carbon emissions by 50% if they migrate their data storage operations to the cloud, a new study says.
  • The study conducted by the Carbon Disclosure Project in London focussed on large IT companies in France and the UK and found that they could achieve large cost savings and carbon reductions by 2020 if they moved their IT systems to shared data networks.
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  • For example by 2020, large UK companies that use cloud computing could achieve annual energy savings of £1.2 billion (€1.39 billion) and carbon reductions equivalent to the annual emissions of over 4 million passenger vehicles, the study says.
  • The Open Data Center Alliance, an umbrella group of more than 300 companies including global banks, released a statement last week saying they had planned to adopt cloud services much faster than thought.
  • In France, where nuclear plants generate the bulk of electricity, that figure was much lower.
Innovation Blues

Overview of Online Project Management & Planning Software | Clarizen - 0 views

  • All Together NowClarizen’s pure SaaS-based project execution platform goes beyond project management, giving your whole team a centralized environment to manage projects, tasks, resources, budgets – as well as associate emails, chat and documents - with in an intuitive, easy to use UI. Project managers and organizations get real-time visibility and clarity, enabling them to make decisions based on data, not guesswork.  Users of the system gain a flexible, task management tool to help them understand priorities and get the important work done on time.
  • The Project Software Your Team will UseClarizen has great adoption rates, because it is provides each user a personalized dashboard showing only tasks, conversations, and documents that are relevant to them. As each user updates their status, using email, mobile apps, or from within Clarizen, this data rolls up to the manager’s view. As a project manager or executive, you have full visibility to plan, delegate, and get real-time status into what your team is working on.
  • Real-Time Visibility to Your Projects' StatusGain real-time visibility to your project's status by empowering team members to take an active role in managing their own time and tasks. You can define your project's key deliverables and get immediate visibility about where you stand with Clarizen’s unique Roadmap view. Set your roadmap as an external widget, and share your progress with your team, your exec team, and even your customers or suppliers. Stay current through email alert notifications and easy-to-understand personalized dashboards. Know exactly what is new for you and what requires your attention, according to your role and responsibilities.
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  • Combining Project Structure with CollaborationClarizen marries project management with collaboration, ensuring that all email, chat and other unstructured communications are associated within the context of a project.  The result is a work management environment with robust simplicity: Clarizen is feature-rich and powerful enough for the most seasoned project professional, yet it’s easy for a novice to begin working more productively as soon as they begin using Clarizen.
  • Start Today!Online project management software offers many benefits. A pure SaaS model means rapid ROI, minimal IT intervention, and ensures users are always working with the latest version of the application. Clarizen’s flexible and simple pricing model – no up-front investment and no hidden costs, allows you to add or subtract users as needed, adjusting your investment to your project planning and business needs.Best of all, you can login and get started immediately!
Innovation Blues

jovoto / Homepage - 0 views

  • Cloudstorm. Collaborate with creators globally. At jovoto ideas compete while talent collaborates. Inspire others, submit your idea and get inspired. Unleash the creativity of the cloud for your brand and organization. Start now – let us be your guide.
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    A global platform to enable creative excellence through mass collaboration. Get challenged by contests for big brands, international companies and NGOs. Work in an inspiring environment with thousands of other talented creatives. Get into a sustainable deal: fair copyright handling, high prize money and the community decides who wins the prizes.
Innovation Blues

WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM by Steven Johnson - YouTube - 0 views

  • One of our most innovative, popular thinkers takes on-in exhilarating style-one of our key questions: Where do good ideas come from?
  • What kind of environment fosters the development of good ideas?
  • Most exhilarating is Johnson's conclusion that with today's tools and environment, radical innovation is extraordinarily accessible to those who know how to cultivate it.
Innovation Blues

Arctic warming even faster than predicted, scientists say: Climate change | Alaska news... - 0 views

    • Innovation Blues
       
      Unfair to say records began in 1880 due to climate data actually spanning millions of years. 
  • Surface temperatures in the Arctic since 2005 have been higher than for any five-year period since record keeping began in 1880, according to a new report from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, an international group within the Arctic Council that monitors the Arctic environment and provides advice on Arctic environmental protection.
Innovation Blues

Forget Mother Nature: This is a world of our making - environment - 14 June 2011 - New ... - 0 views

  • Forget Mother Nature: This is a world of our making
  • Humans have transformed Earth beyond recovery – but rather than look back in despair we should look ahead to what we can achieve
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    A nice one to try and disperse the sure impact of Humans causing climate change. Limestone releases CO2 Antarctica once had palm trees growing. How sure are we that climate change is caused by humans. But really the point is how to deal with it and prepare for man made climate change or natural change.
Innovation Blues

Not just for profit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • The concept of NJFP draws heavily on the outcomes defined and measured through triple bottom line reporting - demanding that a company's responsibility be to stakeholders rather than shareholders. In this case, 'stakeholders' refers to anyone who is influenced, either directly or indirectly, by the actions of the company. According to the stakeholder theory, the business entity should be used as a vehicle for coordinating stakeholder interests in a sustainable manner, instead of maximising shareholder(owner) profit. "People, Planet and Profit" are used to succinctly describe the triple bottom lines and the goal of sustainability.
  • Profit Profit is an aspect shared by all commerce, conscientious or not. Arguably, from the perspective of sustainability, profit is the most critical part of the triple bottom line. If a strong focus is not maintained on the value proposition for the product or service for sale, profits will be affected and consequently a business’s ability to have any impact through its purpose (people and planet) will be eroded.
  • People "People" (human capital) pertains to fair and beneficial business practices toward labor and the community and region in which a corporation conducts its business. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has developed guidelines to enable corporations and NGO's alike to comparably report on the social impact of a business. [edit]
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  • Planet "Planet" (Natural capital) refers to sustainable environmental practices. Generally, sustainability reporting metrics are better quantified and standardized for environmental issues than for social ones. A number of respected reporting institutes and registries exist including the Global Reporting Initiative, CERES Community Environment Park, Institute 4 Sustainability and others. [edit]
  • In terms of a long-term investment proposition, socially responsible investment (SRI) funds are one of the fastest growing prospects in the City of London. This is important not only because blue chip stock valuation is biased two-thirds towards long-term prospect, but also because the City of London is home to many of the world’s largest institutional funds. The City is now managing institutional SRI assets, for the UK market alone, of around $1trillion and it continues to grow fast. When Friends Provident launched the first UK ethical unit trust 'Stewardship Fund' in 1984, city analysts predicted that consumer SRI funds in the UK would eventually (within 20 years) reach a maximum size of £2 million. By 2001, consumer SRI funds had reached to over £4 billion and over £6 billion in 2005 – 3,000 times the original estimate.
  • . This increased awareness has promoted SRI and ethical activity amongst consumers, spurring the success of ethical corporations, such as the Co-operative Bank and the popularity of fair trade and organic products.
Innovation Blues

Economics: An ordinary Joe | The Economist - 0 views

  • o Mr Stiglitz, this inequality is the result of public policy being captured by a
  • To Mr Stiglitz, this inequality is the result of public policy being captured by an elite who have feathered their own nests at the expense of the rest. They have used their power to distort political debate, pushing through tax cuts to favour the rich and adjusting monetary policy to favour the banks. Many of the new rich are not entrepreneurs but “rent-seekers”, he says, who use monopoly power to boost profits. Mr Stiglitz's views are representative of clever, leftish America and Mr Stiglitz is (mostly) skilled at making his argument. Imagine, he says, what it would be like if the world had free movement of labour, but not of capital. “Countries would compete to attract workers. They would promise good schools and a good environment, as well as low taxes on workers. This could be financed by high taxes on capital.” The result would be a much more equal society. Mr Stiglitz's argument would benefit, however, from a better sense of history and geography. He points to the period between 1950 and 1980 as one where inequality was much reduced. But that was a highly unusual time. For much of recorded history there has been a huge gap between a wealthy landowning class and the rest; the Rockefellers and Carnegies were much richer (in real terms) than any modern plutocrat. Mr Stiglitz also views the housing boom and bust as another result of misguided American policy, but Spain and Ireland had property bubbles too—and they are much more equal societies.
  • When it comes to solutions to the inequality problem, Mr Stiglitz wants a top income tax rate of “well in excess of” 50%, targeted fiscal stimulus and greater bank regulation. Here, perhaps, he might have been more open about the trade-offs. Controls on bank leverage, caps on interest rates and greater protection for bankrupts are all likely to reduce bank lending at a time when there already is a credit squeeze. He admits that the 2009 fiscal stimulus was “not as well designed as it could have been”, but blithely hopes that the convoluted American budget-setting process will result in much better stimulus packages in future. Whether or not he has the right answers, Mr Stiglitz is surely right to focus on the issue. Across the developed world, the average worker is suffering a squeeze in living standards while bankers and chief executives are still doing very nicely. This dichotomy is bound to have social and political consequences.
Innovation Blues

OpenBuildings | Archiving the World's Built Environment - 0 views

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    OpenBuildings is a community-driven directory of buildings from across the globe; it enables a more open way to share historic, contemporary or conceptual architecture. This openly editable encyclopedia of buildings is accessible through multiple platforms:
Innovation Blues

Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste: Scientific American - 0 views

  • Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste By burning away all the pesky carbon and other impurities, coal power plants produce heaps of radiation
  • December 13, 2007
  • The popular conception of nuclear power is straight out of The Simpsons: Springfield abounds with signs of radioactivity, from the strange glow surrounding Mr. Burn's nuclear power plant workers to Homer's low sperm count. Then there's the local superhero, Radioactive Man, who fires beams of "nuclear heat" from his eyes. Nuclear power, many people think, is inseparable from a volatile, invariably lime-green, mutant-making radioactivity. Coal, meanwhile, is believed responsible for a host of more quotidian problems, such as mining accidents, acid rain and greenhouse gas emissions. But it isn't supposed to spawn three-eyed fish like Blinky. Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts.
Innovation Blues

BBC News - Fossilised pollen shows palm trees grew on Antarctica - 0 views

  • Fossilised pollen shows palm trees grew on Antarctica Palm trees grew on Antarctica during the Eocene period Climate scientists have found evidence in fossilised pollen that palm trees once grew on Antarctica. The 50 million year old samples, taken from seabed sediment, show the continent was once home to lush forest with summer temperatures reaching 21C.
  • "The biggest threat lies in the fact that Antarctica today is covered with ice, enough to potentially raise global sea-levels by 60 metres if the continent once again reaches Eocene temperatures, which would have devastating effects all over the world."
  • Detailed analysis of this period was previously impossible as Eocene sediments were destroyed by glaciation or covered by thousands of metres of ice. The sediments collected contained tiny fossils and chemicals that gave an insight on the climate at the time they were deposited.
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  • Pollen from both environments indicates that temperatures on Antarctica reached up to 21C in summer and were warmer than 10°C even during the coldest and darkest months of the year.
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