Green IT Event - Cheltenham 26th Oct 2011 - Report & Feedback from Green IT Talks

This was an very early start, the whole family arose before 6am to get the car loaded and off to set up for the event.
We actually arrived quite early, but I've always said its better to be early rather than late.

Altogether there were about 60 delegates and 10 exhibitor stands will about 15 exhibitors, maybe more, but we digress.
I only attended the first four sessions of the event, this was the introduction, a chap who was talking very generally about Green IT and then a lovely Irish lady who works on a project for JISC, to do with the measurement of the financial benefits of moving to a Greener IT estate, rounded off by the IT manager of Gloucester College who gave us a run through on what they were doing, quite impressive if a little cautious in their approach.

We had a very long conversation with somebody from the rather large government organisation that is based in Cheltenham about Green IT, they did mention a few things which I was quite surprised at, but given their needs it makes sense for them to go down this route rather than adopt more conventional methods.
We also had a talk with representatives from the Environment Agency who were very interested in our PC power management solution and the low carbon, low energy compute solutions from Very PC, not for themselves unfortunately, but to advise their clients that such products are available.

We recognise that we are very knowledgeable about Green IT and what purports to be Green IT but isn't, but we are always surprised at the lack of knowledge in the general public and for that matter in some IT professionals so we like going to these events to catch up with Colleagues and to cascade our knowledge and thoughts around to others.
And on that note we've been very pleased we some of the feedback we've received as a result of our Green IT talks to BCS and UKITA branches over the last few weeks, we contacted a few of the people that gave the comments and requested their permission to quote them so heres a brief selection of them:

"Hi John,

It was great to see you at the UKITA CSW meeting last week.

I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your presentation. It was genuinely one of the most interesting talks I have been to in recent years. Hearing some of the facts and statistics you put forward was extremely thought provoking and has really prompted me to now consisder more carefully the energy and enviromental aspects of the work I do with my clients.

I know some of my voluntary sector clients take the environmental side of things quite seriously, so I shall certainly pass your details on to them as and when appropriate.

You mentioned that the slides were available?

Thanks again.

Kind regards

Martin Bird, B.Sc.(Eng.) Hons.
C.Eng MIET

Engineering and IT Consultant

Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
Quality approved member of the United Kingdom IT Association

Tel         0845 200 8540
Mobile  07770 660918
Email    contact@martinbird.co.uk"

"Listened to you talk on Green IT at the Hampshire Branch AGM, very good and very interesting. I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn."

Paul Shonk BSc (Hons) MIfL MBCS Teacher of IT at Alton College

John for his helpful ideas for speakers for the February meeting and his excellent talk on Green IT."

Flick Wheeler UKITA Interim Chair CSW Branch

"many thanks for an excellent presentation - the feedback was great"
Margaret Ross, Chair of BCS Hampshire branch"

"Hi John,

Thanks for coming to give the talk and forwarding the slides. Some of the students are investigating Green IT as their dissertation, it’s good that you have given them some insight."

David Liewe BCS Cheltenham & Gloucester Branch Chair & IT lecturer at University of Gloucester"

Thank you all for inviting me to talk on this subject to your members, I find it very enjoyable and look forward to updating the talk in 2-3 years time, hopefully the doom and gloom would have lifted a little or I'll be able to report exciting new developments in either energy or IT that will go some way to allievate the problem.