The BetterWorld Voice — November 2008 Issue

Obama Campaign Calls, BetterWorld Answers

While it is our policy as a company not to endorse political positions or candidates, we are excited to have found a new application for our virutal PBX and unified communications technologies in political campaigns. As we have been touting these technologies as enabling greener solutions and more democratic solutions for the workplace (see previous BetterWorld Blogs on our project with BGI, and partnership with WorldBlu), we truly made a difference deploying our virtual PBX and unified communications platform for the battleground state headquarters in the "Obama-Biden Campaign for Change," including campaign offices in Nevada, Colorado, New Hampshire, Montana, Wisconsin, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

As the presidential election hit the homestretch in these battleground states, the Obama campaign required a system with quick deployment (most sites were tuned up in just days or even hours in a few cases), as well as a flexible platform that can virtually handle hundreds or thousands of calls at once which was also configurable to specific call trees and local requirements. Working closely with our technology and network partner, Aptela, we were able to ramp up a number of locations connected to different phone banks to help the campagin ease the rush of calls that escalated as election day approached. Well, the rest is history!

 

Better World Club, Kicking Asphalt

When former Working Assets Mutual Fund President Mitch Rofsky learned that AAA actually lobbies against environmental efforts such as higher fuel standards and alternative transportation, he founded Better World Club, the nation's only environmentally-friendly auto club.

Better World Club provides carbon offsets for travel, gives discounts to hybrid auto drivers, surcharges gas-guzzlers, and dedicates one percent of gross revenues to environmental protection efforts. Better World Club also offers an option for bicycle roadside protection, and gives family membership status to domestic partners as well as married couples.

It's not only because of its very similar company name that we count BetterWorld Club amongst our most valued customers here at BetterWorld Telecom. And it's because of that admiration, we're putting our money where our mouth is by putting in place an employee program so that all of us will be BetterWorld Club members in the coming months; we encourage you to do the same!

For more information, go to www.betterworldclub.com or contact Erik Nelson at 866.238.1137 | enelson@betterworldclub.com

 

Support the Green Collar Economy: Green For All

Last month, Green For All Founder and President Van Jones released his first book: The Green Collar Economy.  The book is a powerful argument for a national commitment to green economic development as a way to address our environmental and economic crises at once. On the heels of sky-high fuel prices this summer, a massive financial crisis has sent the economy into a tailspin this fall. Fortunately, Green For All's Van Jones is proposing a powerful "green cure" for the present mess.

www.vanjones.net/book | Order the book  |  Share it with friends 

Jones and Green For All believe that a "Green New Deal" can jump-start the economy and restore the Earth. As Al Gore says, "Van Jones demonstrates conclusively that the best solutions for the survivability of our planet are also the best solutions for everyday Americans." From a distance, it appears that these two problems are separate, but when we look closer, the connection becomes unmistakable.

Green For All is a national organization dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.

By advocating for local, state and federal commitment to job creation, job training and entrepreneurial opportunities in the emerging green economy – especially for people from disadvantaged communities – Green For All fights both poverty and pollution at the same time.

Real Solutions for Both Planet and People

More than ever, our country needs real solutions to our energy, economic and ecological crises. Those solutions are between the covers of  The Green Collar Economy:

• How can the next U.S. president create millions of new green jobs?
• How can we can lower energy prices without drilling our shorelines and burning up our planet?
• How can the government help create energy independence – at practically zero cost to the tax payer?
• What is eco-apartheid? What is eco-equity?

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BetterWorld's Green Telecom Project in Partnership with the Bainbridge Graduate Institute

Many companies and industries have taken up the cause of sustainability and are helping to lead us into our next phase of evolution. Out front is the building/construction/design industry, behind the work of the UG Green Building Council and the LEED standard, successful, pioneering companies such as Patagonia and REI, as well as Clean Tech, alternative power and alternative fuels.

Far behind in the debate is the telecommunications industry, at least in the U.S. – its leaders barely showing up on the radar if at all. While the EPA's recent report indicting data centers as one of the most concentrated hogs of energy, this only begins to scratch the surface of devices, wires and switching centers that all add up to a much higher and more concentrated figure than the EPA estimate for just co location /data center facilities. .

At the intersection of new technologies and our desire to codify methods, techniques and corporate practices that can start to make a dent in this huge footprint is where BetterWorld Telecom have begun to focus our efforts. We will be devoting many of our donation dollars, time and energy in the coming months and years towards developing a green standard in the telecom carrier marketplace, in partnership with the Bainbridge Graduate Institute ( www.bgiedu.org ) as part of BGI's ongoing student Action Learning Projects.

Specifically, we will capitalize on sociological trends such as remote workers, virtual offices, decentralization and democratization of the work place, alongside newer technologies such as virtual PBX, unified communications, integrated voice and data networks,and integrated video/voice/web conferencing to create best practices and a new category that professionals can now include in the list of possibilities for making their company or project more green.

This project is a key element in documenting and researching this area of sustainability. We hope to document best practices in capturing baseline data of an organization's telecom environmental footprint including firm recommendations on sociological solutions that can actually save money, reduce footprint and create a more flexible and functional communications solution at the same time.

We will make this first phase publicly available to companies nationwide and around the world and it is our hope that it will actually serve as a catalyst to help start pulling our industry towards a more sustainable stance. In addition, we will be working with our partners to create the first telecom offset that those not able to change out their practices can at least offset their usage and the downstream power that is used to support phone and Internet services. Stay tuned to the BetterWorld blog for updates.

 

New Customer Focus:
The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights

BetterWorld is pleased to welcome the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights as a new customer and partner this past month. Ella Baker is a strategy and action center working for justice, opportunity and peace in urban America. Based in Oakland, California, the Center promotes positive alternatives to violence and incarceration through our four cutting-edge campaigns. Decades of disinvestment in our cities have led to despair and hopelessness. For poor communities and communities of color, it's even worse, as excessive, racist policing and over-incarceration have left people even further behind. We now face a cycle of violence that makes everyone less safe.

Together, we need to break the cycle of violence and reinvest in our cities. Ella Baker Center offers smart solutions and uplifting alternatives to violence and incarceration. The safest neighborhoods aren’t the ones with the most prisons and the most police. They’re the ones with the best schools, the cleanest environment, and the most opportunities for young people and working people. That’s what Ella Baker and is fighting for every day and what we all want for urban America: justice in the system; opportunity in our cities; and peace on our streets. For more information and how you can join the mission: www.EllaBakerCenter.org

 

Product Highlight:
Web Conferencing

Reduce your organization's carbon footprint while improving corporate communications: Reducing travel reduces carbon emissions. Less carbon emissions mean less damage to the environment. But, how do you conduct day to day business and reduce travel? One solution is BetterWorld's integrated Web Conferencing suite, which can create a virtual meeting with the impact of being there in person. .

If you're like many people who cite ease of use as the biggest reason for not using web conferencing, you'll like the simplicity of LiveMeeting™ and Web Visuals™. It eliminates the intimidation factor by presenting you and your participants a familiar interface. Whether you are reviewing contracts, demonstrating software or editing project plans, it is easy to involve everyone in the meeting and truly collaborate. For more information, please contact John McCormick: jpm@betterworldtelecom.com .