Book Review – The Green Guide for Business: The Ultimate Environment Handbook for Businesses of All Sizes

The September 2009 book review brought to you by Arras People covers Chris Goodall’s book entitled, “The Green Guide for Business: The Ultimate Environment Handbook for Businesses of All Sizes.”

The Review

Many authors simply have a comfort zone in which they can write most effectively. John Grisham = Courtroom Drama. Nick Hornby = 25-34 Male Angst. Dan Brown = Church Bating. Chris Goodall clearly is vying for the role of Go-To Guy on Being Green.

Recent titles Ten Technologies to Save the Planet and How to Live a Low-carbon Life: The Individual’s Guide to Stopping Climate Change have gained relevant Amazon ranking traction and solid reviews from the likes of New Scientist and environmentalist author Fred Pearce. Goodall’s Green Guide is an up-to-date, recession-conscious follow-up to these volumes, but this time clearly targeted for business executives in both large and small settings.

No stone is left unturned for the responsible eco-businessman to explore: paper ethics, driving practices, office energy use, greening computers and servers, even company travel plans are turned over. But like other works of Goodall, the ideas are not presented to the sceptical without acknowledging the beliefs that source their scepticism. Goodall is pure journalism in presentation of the issues: objective, objective, objective. One chief criticism he is likely to hear is that in presenting both sides of an issue, he leaves the matter open-ended. Now, for someone looking to make the decision on their own, this is objective and sound. For someone looking for answers (or a quick-fix solution), this is frustrating. It’s a tedious nit to pick, but that’s Nitpicking 101 with the modern self-help audience: if a reader only has so much time to be impressed, then Goodall has to deal with the impatient and demanding as well as the thought-provoked and deliberate.

The most intriguing and objective passage for me comes from Chapter 1, when Goodall admits it is important in preparing for green initiatives to prepare also for a world where the climate does not change:

It is conceivable that temperature rises could reverse and wind and rainfall patterns stabilise. No sensible company of public institution should deny this possibility. Perhaps, as some climate change sceptics say, the earth’s cloud cover will increase as hotter temperatures cause more evaporation; increased cloudiness might halt temperature change. No careful business-person should run a company on the basis that the future is easily predictable. It may be as dangerous to listen to the most frightened of the world’s scientists as it is to ignore them. The right approach is to try to maintain the most flexible organisation – one that can respond quickly to any environmental or policy changes.

Ultimately, the idea here is for you to come to The Green Guide open-minded and ready to explore and determine with thinking, not to cogitate and solve with immediacy. It implores you to think about things going on in your office. Sometimes the facts are alarming: though air conditioning is common primarily in larger offices, it accounts for nearly 15% of the electricity supplied to all UK non-residential buildings. Imagine how much it will account for if British summers actually get hotter?

But its in the all important A-to-B goods transport chapter where solutions truly begin to capture the heart of the business executive’s priorities. These days, companies are looking at a variety of ways to cut yearly fuel costs: petrol to diesel, smaller vehicles, LPG fuels, hybrids and electricity are all offered as better company options. Most glaring is the savings of a switch to electric fuel: Goodall reports on the change by Office Depot to electric-fuelled vehicles from diesel. The fuel consumption of an electric lorry over five years totalled a mere £2,600; for diesel, the total was a much more staggering £15,500. Maintenance costs also totalled over £3,100 in savings for electric lorry users over the same amount of time. For individuals who have already explored travel & fuel savings (inflating tires, maintaining lower speeds), even the obvious is given a platform. But this title refers to itself as a guidebook, and the obvious is what a guidebook should include anyway. You can’t punish a writer for living up to the potential of their title.

These and other figures will always get the discerning businessman’s attention, and Goodall is all too happy to oblige in The Green Guide.

What Does Cloud Computing Mean to Project Managers?

I was watching an online video the other day where some IT industry experts were asked what cloud computing meant to them. It’s funny how it means something a little different to everyone and some of them were at a loss of words to describe which gives you an idea of how new it still is to everyone…and yet how simple the concept really is. And that’s mostly what it is…a concept. Like the flow chart that would have this big box that said “and something happens here” when no one could figure out the right process to show or how to solve the problem.

Defining Cloud Computing

Cloud computing isn’t quite like that…it isn’t something that just happens…but done right it is something that sort of “just happens.” Like the internet…you turn your computer on and there it is and your connected to information, networks, servers somewhere else, a remote printer, etc. You don’t really worry about it, it’s there. And that’s the concept of cloud computing.

Cloud means Internet. The computing takes place on the Internet – in place of the software you use executing on your desktop pc, it’s hosted on the Internet on a server installed in a data centre usually staffed by people who are experts in managing technology. This type of “cloud” software is sometimes called “on demand” or Software as a Service (SaaS).

After all, the cloud idea came from the image used to display the concept of the Internet in diagrams. Like a big cloud that we connect to not caring really what is in that cloud and how we get information and services from it. Back to the video I was watching…one individual described it simply as…”if you need more than your laptop and an Internet connection, then it’s not cloud computing.”

Cloud Computing and the Project

So what does cloud computing mean to project managers? What does it mean for our projects? At a minimum, this is what I believe it means to me as a project manager:

• New web-based testing processes (see my article on startup Skytap teaming with HP)
• Web-based project management software (ProjectOffice.net, Liquid Planner, MindManager, etc.)
• Greener project management
• Lower costs
• Elimination of unnecessary hardware
• Incredible scalability
• Ease of information sharing between delivery team members, customer team members and executive management
• Rapid dashboard info on portfolio of projects
• Information sharing through Wiki’s, etc.
• More remote management
• Meetings using web-based tools
• Add-on software part of the cloud and not a requirement for your customer to have loaded on his users’ machines

Summary

To me, as a Project Manager, cloud computing means a more green, less costly, and more carefree processing environment for the customer. Does this mean a more carefree and less costly implementation? Possibly less costly, but from the PM perspective I don’t believe it’s any more carefree. Everything must still be tested, everything still must work upon deployment, and everything must still be supported.