Lego makes Long Term Investment into Sustainable Legos

Most if not all of you have grown up playing with Legos.  Those pieces of plastic that you diligently followed the directions or creatively made things.  I don't know about you, but many times when looked at large sculptures it is easy to think about all that plastic.

Lego has realized it needs to change the way it makes Legos to be something not built on fossil fuels.  Lego announced its new environmental effort.

“The LEGO Group establishes LEGO Sustainable Materials Centre and expects to recruit more than 100 employees in a significant step up on the 2030 ambition of finding and implementing sustainable alternatives to current materials.

Today, the LEGO Group announces a significant investment of DKK 1 billion dedicated to research, development and implementation of new, sustainable, raw materials to manufacture LEGO® elements as well as packaging materials.

Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO and President of the LEGO Group, says:
“This is a major step for the LEGO Group on our way towards achieving our 2030 ambition on sustainable materials. We have already taken important steps to reduce our carbon footprint and leave a positive impact on the planet by reducing the packaging size, by introducing FSC certified packaging and through our investment in an offshore wind farm. Now we are accelerating our focus on materials.””

VMware recently created a Lego DC.  One of these days maybe someone will build a Lego DC with Wind Farms and/or Solar panels.  Problem is the area of the power generation would dwarf the DC space. :-)

Summer Camp, Skiing and Cool Pics

Summer is here and it is standard practice for the kids to go to summer camps.  We live on a lake so swimming, stand up paddle boarding, jet skis, tubing they can do at home.  So my kids go to camps they can't do at home.  Below is my son in Pink.

And here he is in a picture with Ted Ligety

3.0 Stage of Life, working on some of the Best Stuff

In the book Becoming Steve Jobs is a point I remember well.

“I wish I could have seen Steve Jobs 3.0. Seeing him from age fifty-five to seventy-five would have been fascinating. If you’re in good health at that age, 3.0 should be the best.
”

— Jim Collins. Schlender, Brent; Tetzeli, Rick (2015-03-24). Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader

I quit Microsoft 9 years ago at 46.  Spending 26 years at Microsoft, Apple, and HP I was done.  Part of quitting Microsoft is I realized it was better to quit before I turned 50 to think about what I wanted to do next.  There is very little chance I would have made it at Microsoft for the last 9 years and make it to 55.

Now I am 55.  Well tomorrow I am.  My health which includes physical, mental, and social aspects of health are so much better than 9 years ago.  And, the ideas of what is a 3.0 version of life are coming together nicely.  Working at great companies like HP, Apple, and Microsoft were valuable, but I've realized there are so many other things I can do that are so much easier when not being constrained by corporate managers.  I can blog and write whatever I feel like.  I can research ideas.  Challenge the status quo without being reprimanded by my boss.  

Ironically the ideas I am working on have corporate managers as the users, but probably less than 10% see the true value of the service as it works for those who want to transform the way they run operations, but it requires a different way of looking at things. 10% of the users is still plenty big and we'll help them out compete the rest.

A lesson I learned taking a break when quitting Microsoft is to focus on your social health.  Who your friends are.  With great social health your mental health naturally improves.  Feeling better socially and mentally, then your physical health wants to catch up.  Looking at problems in different ways is the luxury of the 3.0 stage of life.  On the other hand I think there are plenty of people who think the 3.0 stage of life is about endless vacations and hobbies like playing golf.  Is that how you think you'll improve your social, mental, and physical health?

Intel's Video on Reusing Water in Fab Facilities

Intel has a nice video with 19,000 views after a month on water reuse in its wafer fab facilities.

Published on May 12, 2015
Meet Geetha Shankar, Environmental Health & Safety Engineer at Intel. Her job is to manage water treatment facilities that recycle and purify the water used during the manufacturing of silicon wafers within Intel Fabs.

City water is used to clean silicon wafer during the production process at Intel, that water is then filtered back to drinking water standards and re-used, or filtered to gray water standards and re-used throughout the community in a variety of forms. Geetha and her team insure that the water treatment facilities run correctly, thereby providing the necessary water for production while also providing usable water back to the community in which Intel is a part of.

Meet Geetha Shankar, Environmental Health & Safety Engineer at Intel. Her job is to manage water treatment facilities that recycle and purify the water used during the manufacturing of silicon wafers within Intel Fabs.

7x24 Exchange Spring Conference Publishes its Attendance and Updates its Mission to include Sustainability

How many people attending a conference can be hard to find.  The staff at 7x24 Exchange make it easy to know as they share the current and past attendance numbers.  (Note: SC is spring conference and FC is fall conference)

This sharing fits with 7x24 Exchange updating its mission to include sustainability and social responsibility which is built on being open and transparent.

As you look at what data center conferences to attend look for whether they disclose past conference attendance to gauge whether the conference is appealing to its user base.

7x24 Exchange has been discussing energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other sustainability ideas for years.  And, now its part of their official mission statement.