Green Consulting

I noticed over the weekend that my laptop case isn't really that full of paper... I have two folders one for each of the clients I'm currently focussed on and my notepad for general stuff.

The two folders mainly have documents that we don't have the electronic versions of or that have been "hand-annotated" with useful stuff...

Basically, at my last place I was printing a lot, white-papers, customer docs, project plans, presentation slides etc... and now a couple of months later I'm killing a whole lot less trees...

So what's really apparent is that I'm on the road a lot more, working at customer sites a lot more (which is great for the customer intimacy thing that I used to say was soo important but nnever really got a chance to exercise) and basically I don't have acces to printers while I'm out...

Also, being part of a team of Strategic Consultants that are spread across the four winds, reviewing docs, commenting and collaborating always happens electronically (as it should) as i don't get to see the people to pass hand-written comments too. So, what I say is chuck most of the printers in your organisation a way, we don't need them:

• Don't print emails... they're on your laptop and/or mobile device anyway
• Most customer docs get emailed, the really important ones "packaged" by Marketing so let them have one printer
• Electronic collboration is far more prevalent than locking-people-in-a-meeting room now
• Customer info should be available electronically, if its "too sensitive" to give you an electronic copy then why give us a paper one, we could scan a paper doc if we so desired and distribute it to our collegaues anyway..

Now these are just a few points around printers and paper etc.. but seriously we all need to think more about the environment, we dont need to print most things (we have multiple copies on our, we need to travel appropriately (mileage vs home vs office), car-share (discuss the meeting, get ideas, innovate) and of course collaborate electronically. Now, what I don't mean is that we shouldn't interact with each other, face-to-face meetings, discussions, white-board sessions etc are all very valuable, but get those notes up onto the collaboration platform quickly and appropriately...

Right, I'm gonna get on with what I'm doing and find the "don't print me" email footer strap-line..

BTW - Don't ever print my blog(s) 'cus they really ain't worth killing trees over :-)

software strategy strategy applications strategy innovation Green Consulting
Green Consulting