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How is Successful Marketing like a Successful 401K?
I was recently interviewed by Content Marketing Examiner on the topic of content marketing and in this interview you get to hear...
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Effectively Telling Your Product's Story
One of the most interesting aspects of my career is watching the thousands of companies I have met over the years make...
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Dialogic and Cisco Round Out Day's NFV News
It’s been a busy week regarding NFV and the software telco (R)evolution. First off Dialogic had some solid thoughts on six of...
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The Big Deal about Big Data Analytics
By Greg Owens, Senior Director Customer Experience Solutions Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent
The rise of big data is causing service providers to ask some big questions: How should we store our data? How long should we keep it? What parts of it are relevant to our business? Most importantly, how do we get value from it? To turn big data into a big deal, service providers need to extract insights that can help them make smart business decisions and improve the customer experience.
The value of big data is all in what useful and actionable information it can provide. I find it exciting to see how service providers use big data analytics to gain new insights and solve complex problems. With this post, I’ll look at some new research by industry analysts and three key opportunities that big data analytics presents to service providers.
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WebRTC: The Revolution Won't Occur Without a Media Server
Next Thursday at the WebRTC Conference and Expo, I’ll present a conference keynote that might not be exactly what attendees expect...
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Software Telcos Based on NFV Want Less Equipment Provider M&A
Mergers are nothing new but about a decade ago in the telecom market they reached a fever pitch when SBC purchased AT&T...
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Linux Foundation Embedded Solutions Director's Case for Open Source and Connected Car
The car of 2013 is different from the one I learned to drive, a 1974 Ford Maverick with rear federal bumpers, aluminum...
Full Story »Carbon Footprint Calculators
July 3, 2007
Here is a list of carbon footprint calculators. If you are interested, Nigel’s Eco Blog will be testing some of these over the next few weeks. I tried the BP calculator (Flash version) out and was pretty surprised at how large a footprint a single household can have. This is especially true as my business requires me to be on an airplane constantly.
Awareness is certainly something that will help reduce carbon emissions.
Big Green Day
July 3, 2007
It has been a pretty green day so far today with lots of news to keep our green loving readers on the edge of their carbon-free seats. For example, Cadbury Schweppes will be cutting its net absolute carbon emissions By 2020, the confectionery company famous for its Cadbury chocolate Easter eggs and other sweets intends to slash half of its net absolute carbon emissions, with at least 30 percent from in-company actions.
"We recognize that if we are serious about tackling climate change, we need to be 'absolutely' committed," said Cadbury Schweppes CEO Todd Stitzer in a statement. "This means re-thinking the way we do business, embedding sustainability into every decision we take." Salon has an article about carbon credits which explains a bit about how the system works and moreover talks about politicians and companies supporting such initiatives. Finally, here is a brief article with some links to carbon footprint reducing resources.
"We recognize that if we are serious about tackling climate change, we need to be 'absolutely' committed," said Cadbury Schweppes CEO Todd Stitzer in a statement. "This means re-thinking the way we do business, embedding sustainability into every decision we take." Salon has an article about carbon credits which explains a bit about how the system works and moreover talks about politicians and companies supporting such initiatives. Finally, here is a brief article with some links to carbon footprint reducing resources.
GM Goes Green with ecoFlex
July 2, 2007
GM is really pushing green with its ecoFlex line of cars. The first will be a Corsa with a 1.3L diesel putting out 119g/km of CO2.
Between now and 2012 GM will also introduce sixteen new engine families and ten transmissions as well as introducing flex-fuel engines in European Chevrolet, Opel and Vauxhall models.
The question is, will the company who sells us the Hummer be able to shake its fuel-thirsty, environmentally unfriendly image? The answer just may be yes as the company is said to be looking to put more economically friendly engines into Cadillacs to start.
Read more at Envautomental.
The Benefits of Green
July 2, 2007
If you are interested in seeing how companies are benefiting from the move to greener technologies, please read these quotes contained in an article on CNN.
"It's both great business and a good business -- great in that it is generating real orders and revenue ... and good in the burnishing effect our initiatives have had on both our brand and our business," says Peter O'Toole, a spokesperson for General Electric.
GE has doubled its research and development budget to $1.5 billion into technology to reduce energy consumption and waste products. The return on the company's investment appears to be high: Last year, GE's "Ecomagination" line of products generated $10 billion in revenues in 2005, and is on track to eclipse $20 billion by 2010. What this tells you is you can truly be green, help ensure a better future for your children and also find ways to save and make money. In addition you can improve your image in the world. The article is worth a read as it also details how retailers can lose customers as a result of the perception they don’t care about the environment.
GE has doubled its research and development budget to $1.5 billion into technology to reduce energy consumption and waste products. The return on the company's investment appears to be high: Last year, GE's "Ecomagination" line of products generated $10 billion in revenues in 2005, and is on track to eclipse $20 billion by 2010. What this tells you is you can truly be green, help ensure a better future for your children and also find ways to save and make money. In addition you can improve your image in the world. The article is worth a read as it also details how retailers can lose customers as a result of the perception they don’t care about the environment.
Green Credit Card to Help Reduce Carbon
July 2, 2007
Barclaycard has launched the “UK’s first credit card aimed at helping to tackle climate change and promoting greener spending.”
That’s a lot to put on the back of a little piece of plastic.
In fact, it’s no longer even old-school plastic — it looks like Barclaycard Breathe will be made of a new material called PETg – rather than the PVC currently used for credit cards.
On the upside, Barclaycard promises to donate £1 million towards environmental projects in the first year of the card’s existence.
After that they will hand over 50% of all profits to be used to fund projects dedicated to reducing the amount carbon being released into the environment. Two of the first projects tabbed for funding include Solar4Schools which supplies and installs solar panels for schools, and Renewable Energy & Forest Preservation, which is a Brazilian project to promote using sustainable wood sources for fuel, aimed at reducing carbon emissions by 145,000 tons per year.
Barclaycard is also working with retailers to offer discounts on environmentally friendly products and services, such as wall insulation, eco-friendly electrical products, bike purchases, and more.
Check out more details here.
How Green Is Your Utility Company?
June 29, 2007
I was just surfing around, looking for green goodies, and I came across this site called The Daily Green, The Consumer’s Guide to the Green Revolution, that featured a link to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tool called Power Profiler that you can use to compare your utility’s carbon footprint with that of the national average.
It’s as simple as entering your ZIP code, selecting your utility company, and clicking “Next.”
The results are two charts:
- The first chart compares the fuel mix used to generate electricity in your region of the power grid to the national fuel mix.
- The second chart compares the average air emissions rates in your region of the power grid to the national average emissions rates.
Green Theme at France Investment Confab
June 29, 2007
This just in from EuroNews.net…
Apparently the environment is a major theme at an annual investment conference going on in France.
The report says that the 900 business leaders taking part in this year’s “La Baule World Investment Conference” are jazzed about the green opportunity. Billed as “An executive Platform for Attractiveness Key Players” the goal of the conference is to find a shared response to the many challenges facing Europe.
Going green is indeed a challenge and an opportunity, and goodness knows green can be very “attractive.”
One of the more interesting comments is from Jacque Guer, head of Xerox in France, who told EuroNews.net that his firm is constantly working on new and revolutionary developments.
Said Guer:
“We’re developing technology that lets you print a document in the morning, and you can read it during the day, and then 16 hours after you printed it, the paper becomes blank again so you can reuse it. So, you see that behind this green technology there are real business and competitive advantages, and it’s not just something that’s trendy.”
The word from France is that we are on the cusp of the next big environmental sales opportunity — green power for businesses — with the opening up of the French and Italian energy markets on 1st July.
Check out the report for yourselves.
eBilling Incentive Program
June 28, 2007
It turns out that my utility company, Orange & Rockland (O&R) has an electronic billing incentive program.
For every customer that signs up to receive their monthly utility bill via e-mail,O&R will plant a tree.
According to the O&R site:
If all U.S. households viewed and paid their bills electronically, we would save 18.5 million trees, avoid 2.2 billion tons of toxic air pollutants and 1.7 billion pounds of solid waste, and save 15.8 billion gallons of precious water.
Waste Management To Create Renewable Energy
June 28, 2007
Waste Management today announced a major initiative to expand its roster of landfill gas to energy (LFGTE) facilities.
The goal of the program is to create 60 additional renewable energy facilities by 2012, and to generate approximately 700 megawatts of clean renewable energy. That’s equivalent to over 8 million barrels of oil.
They hope to bring 10 more facilities online in 2007.
For more information, check out this article.
Halestar Intros 'Green' Remote Access Solution
June 28, 2007
‘Green technology’ can be defined in a variety of different ways, because there are different methods for reducing the impact of human activity on the environment. The term in the context of this blog generally refers to technology that itself directly reduces environmental impact—by, for example, using less power or being manufactured out of reused or recyclable materials.
Another way that technology can be ‘green,’ though, is indirectly helping people walk lighter on the earth by reducing their need to use natural resources like fossil fuels. One company that’s taking this approach to ‘green tech’ is Helestar, a security engineering company based in Connecticut and southern Virginia.
Halestar on Tuesday announced a new solution designed to let employees work from home without losing access to the corporate system.
