Secure

It's a very common site in business now to see MP3 players plugged into computers. Most business owners see this as a relaxing perk for their employees without realising the implications.
If the employee is loading unlicensed music onto the business computer the company could be liable for any copyright lawsuits.
The biggest threat to security though is that these devices act as removable hard drives and can be used to copy and remove company information. This threat is becoming so widespread it has been given a name all of it's own - Pod Slurping. The links below have more information on the dangers of this activity.
Description of Pod Slurping
Story from BBC News
Article on ContractorUK Site

Protect

According to the Carbon Trust, on average, offices waste £6,000 each year by leaving equipment on over weekends and bank holidays. This ranges from computers and monitors to TV's, radios and lights. Some of the websites devoted to providing tips on energy reduction for the business are listed below, please find the time to read them.
PC Pro Switch It Off Campaign
Carbon Trust office equipment guide
Technology has a great potential for reducing the environmental impact of our everday life, but only when used with that in mind. It is all too easy to leave the PC on over lunch instead of putting it on standby. Reducing energy saves money and helps the planet by reducing the CO2 produced.
A large number of organisations are looking at becoming Carbon Neutral which helps offset any CO2 emissions.

Automate

Getting the opinions of individuals can be a time consuming process. Paper based questionnaires have been the traditional method of obtaining information from people but now web based questionnaires are becoming more popular.
The work involved in setting an online questionnaire up has significantly reduced over the past few years. You no longer need to install software onto your website or ask a web designer to design one for you, hosted surveys are available from a number of providers (a sample list is below).
The subscription models for online surveys can be quite complex, but most providers offer a free option with a limited number of questions and responses. Some providers also offer a monthly fee, but you only pay in the months you want to send a survey, but be careful because you may lose access to results if you don't pay for a month.
Instant Survey
Advanced Survey
Question Pro
Survey Monkey
Zoomerang
Mamut Online Survey

Deliver

Since we started doing this newsletter a number of people have asked how it is sent and how easy it is. Taking into account we are a fairly technical organisation the longest job in producing a monthly newsletter is deciding on and writing the content.
The layout and design of the newsletter was done by a graphic designer and, because it uses a simple css layout, each month all we have to do is change the content.
To avoid any copyright issues any images used are purchased from IStockPhotos which has a huge range of images and photos. Any content based on another story is credited by a link to the website.
The newsletter is done in HTML and then upload to Campaign Monitor where the list of subscribers are kept. Using Campaign Monitor to send the newsletter means we get information about who the newsletter is sent to, who opens it and what articles are read. We also get information on who unsubscribed so we can be sure we don't e-mail them again.
There are other e-mail newsletter providers other than Campaign Monitor, including:
Constant Contact
IntelliContact
Campaigner

Empower

For those people who spend a lot of time going to meetings, brainstorming or preparing information for presentations a technique called Mind Mapping (created by Tony Buzan) could be the answer. It uses both sides of the brain and allows creative input to help organise and remember information.
Based on what are commonly called spider diagrams Mind Mapping can be done using paper and pen. The introduction of computer software has turned the technique into a more widely used one.
The main concept of Mind Mapping is to draw a diagram showing the core information and to use pictures to help prioritise and remember the information. It is quite possible to summarise a meeting that normally creates 4 pages of minutes into a single A4 diagram.
Some of the software available for Mind Mapping is below, Freemind is an Open Source package so has no licence fee.
FreeMind
MindJet
MindGenius
Books on Mind Mapping are available from Amazon.