(re) blog: dialogue with Redemtech

We Need to Make Recycling Part of the Product Creation Process

Gadolinium, praseodymium, cerium, samarium, lanthanum, neodymium. These  are just a few of the 17 elements known as rare earth metals. So what do these elements have to do with the flooding in Thailand? Are the current high prices based upon a natural disaster or because of the limited supplies of rare earth metals?

Natural Disasters: A Balancing Act for Business, Or a Lesson Learned?

About the only thing you can guarantee in the event of a natural disaster is that it will be accompanied by complete chaos.

Does Your Blade Server have an Afterlife or is it E-waste?

We’ve got some hot debate going internally and with our analyst friends in high places: Do organizations apply their IT asset management, disposition and security policies to assets leaving the data center? The analysts, for the most part, are saying, “No, when it comes to the data center, people do whatever they want to do.” Sometimes it’s a “send it back to the leasing provider,” but it’s often whatever the folks in the data center feel like at the time – their focus is on keeping things up, and when old stuff dies, they’re more concerned about getting it out of the way than in keeping track of it.

How to Support and Manage Your Acorns

Not long ago, I wrote about what it’s like to take a mere concept of asset management to a fully realized IT Asset Management program, likening the process to nature’s journey from an acorn to a mighty oak tree. But there’s one major difference. While nature generally provides all the support any oak tree ever needs, your ITAM program will fail without plenty of ongoing management support.

Can Corporate IT Adapt to the BYOD Trend?

Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD, is one of the most intriguing trends in corporate IT today – and it has important implications for everyone involved in IT management, from procurement and finance to IT operations, security, IT asset management (ITAM) and sustainability officers. With the explosive growth of smartphones, iPads, netbooks and other consumer technologies, many companies are recognizing that policies that enable their employees to use their personal technology on the job can boost productivity and improve job satisfaction and efficiency.

Maybe It’s Time to Rethink Our Societal Economic Growth Metrics

With all this talk in the media lately about the possibility of a “double-dip recession”—that is, a return to hard times just as we thought we were climbing out of the last economic trough—I’ve lately begun thinking about how we perhaps need to begin rethinking our metrics as a society.

Earth Day at Boston Scientific

Last Friday I got to do my very own first show and tell on Earth Day. Thanks to a generous invitation from Boston Scientific to participate in their lunchtime Earth Day presentations, I got a first hand opportunity to speak with a lot of folks about e-waste.

Walking the Talk on Earth Day

I came back to work this week with an Earth Day afterglow, from a successful collection event for one of our customers. It had a high participation rate and featured lots of old technology (but then, what's really old in this fast-moving age of technology?)

Environmental Sustainability Shouldn’t Be a Once-a-Year Thing

As we come up again to Earth Day, I sometimes wonder if we got it wrong for the younger generation. America’s habit of turning Earth Day into some sort of celebration prevents it from seeping into everyone’s daily life. What I mean is that our economy survives by celebrating holidays throughout the year. Did you know that the Halloween celebration has currently passed the December holiday season as the top event for consumer spending?  Other than tax day in April, Earth Day/week has become the same sort of bland celebration as the other holidays. 

Earth Day May Be Worst Day of Year for E-waste

Earth Day is a terrific concept for increasing awareness of environmental issues, including the electronic waste crisis. Despite its obvious intent to benefit the planet, Earth Day may be the worst day of the year for e-waste.