Coffee Chat - "Why does no one in IT seem to care?"

Note: I will be at Mango Tree from 8 AM - 12 PM for networking, client meetings, etc. So this is more of an open forum event. Come for 15 minutes and grab a coffee, or come for the entire time, Please RSVP so I can get a bigger table if necessary. I will likely be sitting at a small table throughout the day.

Food for thoughts:
One of the topics I want to discuss is the following:

"Why does no one seem to care? And what can we do about it?"

I work with technology professionals daily. And either it's just never come up in conversation in 15 years (unlikely), or most people just see cloud and AI as this "infinite resource" that's highly available, highly cost efficient, and seems to never run out. Just throw it in the cloud, just run it by ChatGPT.

But, behind these services reside hundreds of data centers, and more are on the way. And no one seems to care about the "hidden costs" of this expansion except a select few.

When I supported the Microsoft practice between 2015-2017, I remember they were sharing how their zero-touch Azure datacenters were warehouses full of tractor-trailer sized server "blocks." Since human error was deemed such a high risk, their strategy was to let hardware fail on its own - without fixing - and once the "block" had 60-70% hardware failure, they would power the whole thing down and replace it with a new one. I suspect that the practice has evolved since then, but that kind of level of wastefulness still exists.

I'd love to explore:

• the reasons why sustainability considerations are rarely part of business decisions
• what business practices contribute to the problem that should be reevaluated
• how can we begin to change the narrative? how can we be the catalyst for change through our relationships and networks?

The focus is more business oriented (companies tend to consume more cloud and AI resources than individual consumers), but we can also explore the individual-use side as well, although I suspect most impact will be made at the corporation level.

This is a casual conversation and an opportunity to meet some folks, as well as explore if this time/day combination is accessible to people.