Simeon Brody
I was reminded by the Community Editor of Community Care that the most popular blogs are those which refer to the working practices and concerns of social workers, and this seemed to fit in well with an email I got from one of York's Green Councillors about 'e-democracy' and online participation. I wondered if this subject would resonate with social workers employed by local authorities?
The information had come from an organisation called Delib which offers several interesting products which enable organisations to widen participation and engage citizens. These include a budget simulator, where the user can put in their preferences into a website and see how this impacts on the local authority's finances, an 'ideas tree' where a virtual tree can have ideas (leaves) added by users to have them recorded, and other online polling products.
The Delib blogger was happy to report that several local authorities were enabling communication with their 'stakeholders' though YouTube and Facebook. Northamptonshire County Council and Hammersmith are both forward-looking authorities who are using these tools to get messages out and to find out peoples' views.
Telling people what you do
I wondered if Social Work departments could use this type of communication to tell the population about what they do, and to find out the concerns of users and potential users? It is known that some of the more 'difficult to reach' people, such as young people and those with disabilities are more likely to be computer-literate and therefore potentially easier to reach using electronic media.
But is using the computer 'green'? Well they use plenty of energy in your office, use energy at the servers and the equipment has 'embodied energy' and lots of resources going into the construction. If your office uses an electricity supplier which offers a renewables tariff, that will make your office energy use a bit greener, how much depends on the exact supplier and their policies.
At the servers and web-hosts, they may also use renewable energy, or buy carbon credits or pay for carbon offsetting. The greenest are those which use solar and wind energy to power their equipment, and my favourite, from a 15 minute trawl through a pile of websites, is www.lightbeingcreations.co.uk, as they use renewable energy and contribute to a permaculture project in Devon.
Greening your computers
There are other ways which users of computers can be greener. Obviously, switching off the equipment when not in use is a good way of reducing electricity use (renewable or otherwise, it'll save money!) and I've discovered a nifty download offered by www.localcooling.com which shows how much power your equipment is using and somehow minimises this by, apparently, switching it off after a certain length of time not in use. I've only just installed this so don't know how effective it is, or whether it's 'greenwash'.
This week I could have written about Fairtrade Fortnight (ends on 9th March) or International Women's Day on the 8th, both of which are good solid 'green/ethical' subjects... but I hope a few paragraphs on computers was appropriate and green enough!
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