I hope you read that rather than hearing it. Following on from an article yesterday about the nuisance value of being distracted by email, today IT Donut has published an article predicting the death of email. The most interesting point for me is made in the opening paragraph:

email hasn’t changed for 20 years, and we all know what happens to technology that doesn’t change. It dies.

This very point was made in a Forbes article last week, looking at why and how the three generations of internet have each given way to the next. Within my own experience, the younger generation view email as the the equivalent of snail mail. It’s dull and slow, taking at least a nanosecond to arrive, in which time they’ve updated their Facebook status and fired off 20 BBMs. Or maybe not – bearing out the Forbes article precisely, I know many people who are going off Facebook, some going to the extreme of deleting their account tho as we know, Facebook is the data that will not die.

Interesting points are made in the rather pro-Windows article – as the author fleetingly confesses, other instant messaging clients are available. We use Empathy. I quote:

Empathy is a messaging program which supports text, voice, and video chat and file transfers over many different protocols. You can tell it about your accounts on all those services and do all your chatting within one application.

Easy peasy. Like a Windows program but better, much, much better.

Green Office Week‘s Tip No 1 today is:

Tip 1:  Organise a stationery amnesty day and pool together surplus stationery supplies. You will probably find you don’t need to place so many orders for more stock! Co-ordinate your stationery orders with others in your company to reduce the number of deliveries.

Good idea, but this principle doesn’t apply only to stationery. How about taking away from Green Office Week a commitment to review all purchasing decisions and contracts? These days virtualisation and cloud services (which I’m not conflating but do have a relationship) really relieve the strain on computer kit, allowing it to continue functioning well for years.

How about reviewing your historical pattern of purchasing to break the ‘we buy a new X every two years because we always have’ cycle – perhaps you simply no longer have a need for a type of equipment. If you distributed less paper matter, would you still need a photocopier? Have you ever considered what goes into manufacture of a photocopier? The raw materials required for mobile phones, computers and other electronics is quite jaw-dropping, so at least think before buying.

Email. Gneeeurgh. Of course I don’t mean that, I couldn’t run my business without it (I think…fortunately, as we run email for a living, mine never goes down), but it can be a big distraction, especially with notifications coming in all the time from Twitter and LinkedIn. I have a strategy now though, and I thought I’d share it.

It’s fiendishly simple. If I need to concentrate on writing some web content (which I do directly into WordPress) or doing research or reading an article, I simply open a new browser session. Email stays tucked away along with other distractions like LinkedIn. I don’t have an audible alert for new email, so I can put my mind to the task in hand, then return to the email browser session when I’m ready. If you use an email client rather than webmail (I use Zimbra webmail) just turn it off – nothing will break, honestly. And if it does, you know who to speak to.

Talking of email, you might be interested to read this IT Donut article on how to stop email ping pong. Point no 2 wins my heart – make it clear what you’re expecting to happen next: do you need information from your recipient? Do you need them to do something specific? Keep email useful, rather than a net drain.

Right, I’m off to check Twitter…

Today’s Green Office Week 2012 theme is waste (hashtag #gow2012). The site offers the standard advice on ‘ARRRD – avoid, reduce, reuse, recycle, dispose – all of which is good advice, but there are Herefordshire businesses going beyond this in impressive style.

Aside from ourselves encouraging re-use of old computer kit by installing a fast, light open source operating system, businesses such as Cartridge World and Hereford Pedicabs are offering excellent services.

Cartridge World has outlets in Hereford and Leominster, offering consumers refilled printer cartridges together with service and support. Cartridge World tells it better than I do, so go visit the sites, but essentially consumers can save money and environmental resources by getting printer cartridges refilled rather than replaced. We’re sure, though, that Cartridge World would be the first to suggest you print out as little as possible…

Trailblazing Hereford business Hereford Pedicabs offers a trade waste recycling programme alongside its bicycle courier business. How ’bout this:

We are cheaper than the cost to send to landfill with the Council and we return the yearly Co2 savings to the customers so they can tell their customers. We service about 400 businesses and collect all the waste with emission free vehicles. We average a saving of about 1000 tonnes of Co2 per year collectively from all our customers.

Are you a Hereford business offering waste-reduction in some way, shape or form? If so please leave us a comment.

As we posted yesterday, this week is Green Office Week, and today’s theme is transport.

#gow2012′s No 1 tip is working from home, something we wholeheartedly support. We eschewed offices years ago, and this has given us a tremendous flexibility and efficiency. No 3 tip is using conference calls, something else we support. Not only does it reduce the miles people travel while still allowing vital human contact, but it allows several people to attend a meeting despite being on different continents, saving everyone headaches and continual rescheduling.

Tip no 4 is using a cycle courier, and we would have to recommend Hereford Pedicabs. Got a parcel needing delivery in Hereford? These are the lads for you.

Avery is sponsoring Green Office Week 2012, which runs all this week, 14th-18th May. Wouldn’t it be lovely if the eco-fairy could wave her magic wand and make every office an environmentally-aware green and lovely space? It ain’t gonna happen, but if a few little green balls get rolling, a small but significant difference can be made to people’s thinking, and in time that might translate into action.

The week has a different theme for every day of the week. Today’s theme is energy, so here is a link to our presentation from last year’s Energy Efficiency in IT workshop at The Courtyard. We have a variety of ways to reduce your IT-related energy consumption, and it reaches much further than putting your machine on stand-by at the end of the day. It might just make you think.

Tomorrow we’ll be blogging on Tuesday’s theme of transport. In the meantime you can follow @GreenOfficeWeek on Twitter.

This IT Donut post is one in the eye for the average IT department: “The trouble with geeks”. It looks at the “contempt” in which “IT people” hold users. We’ve all seen and heard it in action, whether as hideously embarrassed member of staff overhearing a colleague or a user feeling a complete twit because you don’t understand something someone else – far more experienced than you – thinks you should.

The author Lee Wrall makes a very good point towards the end of this brief article:

Business owners must find outsourced IT providers or IT managers that encourage the right attitude.

Don’t be afraid to outsource. Don’t be at the mercy of inflated egos in the IT department. Don’t allow your business to be held back by fear, or ignorance, or both. Talk to a friendly, open company that genuinely wants to understand your business and provide a top notch service. Okay, talk to us. There, I said it. Pick us! Pick us!