It's not easy being green......
Posted by Mark Peterson on November 06, 2008
In this day and age, many of us spend at least part of our mental bandwidth worrying about global warming, recycling, carbon footprints, carbon debts, and greenhouse gases. It's amazing to think that, only a few short years ago, most of these terms weren't even part of our vernacular and now they're part of our daily lives.
When thinking of ways to make ourselves more eco-friendly, software isn't usually the first thing that springs to mind. However, using the right software as part of your work and personal routine can indeed reduce your carbon footprint. How so? Mainly by reducing your need to travel.
We, here at Riverock Technologies (RRT), use our product, OnePlace, to collaborate on a daily basis. All RRT employees work remotely from the office a substantial portion of the time, but we're able to collaborate just as efficiently as if we were face to face using the power of OnePlace features like Team Central and discussions.
Team Central lets us know what each team member is up to in real time. It's also a great place to post a quick question and get a quick answer. Discussions let us have running topical dialogues around our various projects and also serve as a great archive for past decisions and threads of thought. Our workflow is managed through OnePlace workplaces, projects and tasks. One great feature of OnePlace is that when I begin or complete a task, a notification is automatically posted to Team Central keeping my co-workers up to date on my progress.
To add a personal touch to our collaboration, OnePlace allows us to upload avatars (usually photos) into the system. These are displayed in various places in OnePlace to help associate faces with the names. OnePlace also supports emoticons (smiley's) in various places so that we can convey our moods in ways that plain text can't accomplish.
Without OnePlace, we'd have to collaborate the old fashioned way and all of us would have to be in the office during the week. In addition, our interactions would be no where near as efficient.
Viola! Fewer trips to the office, less gas burned, lower carbon footprint made possible by software.
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