The project that our students in Creating Infectious Action are currently doing focuses on ways to reduce energy consumption, and thus the carbon footprint, created by the production and use of computers. We are working with a group called Climate Savers Computing, a consortium of over 150 companies. Pretty much every major computer hardware and software firm is involved except Apple, and we are working directly with people from Google and Microsoft -- which is kind of amusing to see because, although they are competitive in many other ways, the two companies are remarkably cooperative around this issue.
Frankly, getting people to focus on how much power an idle computer is using, or to use settings that reduce power isn't easy. Our students are finding that even the most "green" and cost conscious folks often don't devote attention to this source of energy use and cost. As such, I find the indirect path taken by a team that have named themselves "The Green Blood Project" does a clever job of approaching the problem indirectly. They argue -- and show evidence -- that leaving your computer on all the time increases the chances of getting a virus, and along the way, they provide a link to software you can download to set the power savings settings on your PC.
I also like the name of their website www.shutdownandprotect.com. They do a good job of following the advice given by Huggy Rao at our conference on creating infectious action: Identify an emotionally "hot' problem (viruses and hacker attacks in this case) and a "cool" or rational solution (shutting down your computer and downloading the power saving software in this case).
Check it out and pass it along. Also, you might contact the students directly with suggestions about ways to both craft their message and ideas about how to spread their solutions.
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