The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is asking CIOs to do something Jimmy Carter couldn’t convince consumers to do in the 1970s: curb their energy consumption. No, EPA head Christie Todd Whitman isn’t going to don a cardigan and ask CIOs to turn off their extra computers. Instead, the agency is campaigning to get CIOs to save energy and is offering free software that’ll make doing so a cinch.
Monitors and computers represent 1 percent of the country’s electricity use, according to the EPA, but about half of that output is wasted by computers and monitors that are left on overnight or that don’t use the sleep mode feature. Research by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in Berkeley, Calif., reveals that about 70 percent of monitors and 55 percent of computers used by U.S. businesses and government offices are left humming after hours, and that sleep mode has been disabled or is not functioning on 40 percent of monitors and 75 percent of computers. Steve Ryan, the EPA’s Energy Star Project manager, explains that because sleep mode can inadvertently disconnect computers from networks, CIO-types often turn it off, and he suspects some computer manufacturers do so as well to appease customers.
The EPA has posted free software at www.energystar.gov that lets administrators activate sleep mode on all of a network’s monitors in one fell swoop. The agency is focusing on monitors, says Bruce Nordman, a principal research associate at LBNL, for two reasons: Sleep mode does not affect network operations when used on monitors, and it saves more energy when used on monitors than computers?approximately 85 watts per hour compared with about 20 watts per hour.
"The network [can] run smoothly and operate properly while improving [the organization’s] bottom line," says Ryan. The EPA’s suggested practices can save 380,000 kilowatt-hours of energy per year for every 1,000 computers, or roughly $38,000, he says. That $38,000 may not get you far, but it’s a lot better than losing money?Palo Alto, Calif.-based Electrical Power Research Institute estimates California businesses lost $1.7 billion because of last winter’s demand-induced blackouts.
From: CIO.com
"Green IT": Save Power, Save Money
Yahoo! Taps Agencies for 'Green' Spots
Yahoo! is looking to capitalize on the user-created advertising craze by holding a contest for advertising professionals that mimics similar calls from brands for spots created by amateurs.
Yahoo! is soliciting from ad agencies "green" ads (30 seconds or less of multimedia content) that encourage people to make the world a better place, whether by conserving energy, recycling or protecting wildlife. Users will vote on submissions, with the highest-rated ones going to a panel of well-known agency creatives, including Ogilvy's David Apicella, Crispin Porter + Bogusky's Jeff Benjamin and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners' Jeff Goodby.
The "Big Shot in Cannes" contest (http://promotions.yahoo.bigshot) will reward the three top submissions with a trip to the International Advertising Festival held in Cannes, France, from June 17-23. At Cannes, winners will receive a Yahoo! Big Idea chair, have their commercials screened in the Palais and be entered into the 2008 festival. The contest kicks off today and runs through May 7.
The idea is to familiarize advertising professionals with the ins and outs of consumer-generated media, according to Jerry Shereshewsky, Yahoo's roving ambassador to ad agencies.
“In the last 30 days, how much have you seen about this thing called user-generated content?” he said. “One of the questions I’m constantly being asked is, ‘What is this stuff?’ It seems to me the best way to learn about something is to do it. If user-generated content is going to be part of what the advertising landscape looks like [in the future], doesn’t it make sense for the people who do the work to get their fingers dirty?”
The rise of YouTube and other Web creative outlets has led some advertisers to look to consumers for inspiration and creation of executions. Yahoo! partnered with Doritos to solicit commercials to run during the Super Bowl. Other brands, like Dove and the National Football League, have run consumer-created spots.
While the contest is geared to agency professionals, anyone can enter, Shereshewsky said.
From: Brandweek
