The CR4 Admin Blog

EAST GREENBUSH, N.Y. -- IHS may have a global presence with 6,000 workers in 31 countries, but the company was concentrating on its local impact when IHS Globalspec colleagues organized an electronics recycling event scheduled for April 26 at the East Greenbush Technology Park.

Beginning on Friday at 10 a.m., JGS Recycling trucks circuited the tech park to collect electronic refuse that is not accepted in household waste collections. This included small and large appliances, cell phones, computers, office equipment, and other miscellaneous metal items. All of the companies within the tech park were invited to participate.

"Everyone is excited to be a part of this," said project leader Tomer Danon. "It's not just our environment that benefits from sustainability."

Since 2011, IHS has challenged its employees to excel in corporation-based sustainability, and it has empowered its workers with the tools to raise environmental awareness, give back to communities and lead healthy lifestyles. Friday's e-waste recycling drive is the product of IHS GlobalSpec's sustainability team - a group of colleagues who outline the sustainability agenda for each of IHS's regional locations. Notable efforts include raising donations for the Holiday Hope Fund, sponsoring American Cancer Society events, and in May the team plans to build a bird-friendly garden at a public school in Troy, N.Y. All colleagues are offered volunteer time-off, gym discounts and fitness challenges amongst a number of resources.

These initiatives have enjoyed the support of upper management. CEO Jerre Stead has stated he wants IHS to be recognized as a leader in corporate sustainability by 2015, as measured by the Sustainable Asset Management survey. Each year 2,000 companies are rated on their efficiency in areas such as community and environmental influence, profitability, customer satisfaction and employee investment. Companies that score well on the survey are typically industry trailblazers, and include brands such as Adidas, BMW and PepsiCo.

"Knowing you have leadership buy-in only encourages your colleagues to do more," stated sustainability team leader Karen Kenyon. "We all gain from the experience and carry it forward into our personal lives."

It's a sentiment shared by all of the 68 IHS sustainability teams worldwide. From Moscow to Munich, and Oslo to East Greenbush, IHS colleagues are making local efforts that have a global impact.

"It's important to all of us," added Danon. "It helps us maintain our well-being on a global level."

CR4's newest section, the Aerospace section, is getting visits from some true professionals in the field.

Keep sharing your aerospace-related questions and discussions on CR4!

Traffic information via Google Analytics.

If you're curious about the posts on CR4 (Who's talkative? Who's helpful? How many posts are there on CR4?) then read on - this infographic has some answers!

Hello! This post is a quick update explaining a few small changes that went live on CR4 today:

• By now I think everyone has noticed CR4's new look. The team has been hard at work squashing the bugs that popped up after the blue carpet was rolled out on February 20. They've done a great job of getting everything back to normal. Some things are still a little weird in Internet Explorer, but that browser seems to have its own set of quirks.
  
  
• Your mailbox should load faster and there are some new options related to displaying messages in your inbox. The default is "Showing recent messages." Other options include "Show unread messages" and "Show all." If you're in a mode other than the default, click "See inbox & sent mail" to show your sent messages. (If you belong on Mailbox Hoarders and would like to de-clutter, please PM me about temporarily removing site limits for doing so.)
  

• Some users have been poking around in a new group that has a place for off-topic chat. (Note: While off-topic discussion is allowed in this forum only, all other site rules still apply, so please be respectful of others. Moderators will pop in from time to time but we hope participants will self-moderate.)
  
  
• Some back-end changes have been made to user groups. This mostly included making the invitation system work properly. New user groups may be popping up in the future - and we hope that some of them will have their own forums!

That's it for now. Enjoy trying out the new features.

During your next log-in to CR4 you may notice that things look a little different. CR4 has a new color scheme! Not to worry, though, the changes are only cosmetic. CR4's functionality remains the same.

GlobalSpec and CR4 became a part of IHS in July 2012. One part of integrating CR4 into IHS involved creating a consistent look and feel between the sites. CR4's logo and color schemes were red from day one. IHS uses the color blue and so CR4 is hopping on board with a new blue color scheme and logo.

The merchandise in the CR4 Store is still available with the old logo. If you're partial to the red bubble letters I'd recommend picking up your favorite items while they are still available. New merchandise will debut soon - watch for another announcement!

Other recent things that might interest you:

• Electronics360 is a new IHS GlobalSpec site that provides electronics industry news and editorial.
• New section - Aerospace! (Plus, Automotive was expanded to include all of Transportation.)
• A new blog, the IHS ESDU Blog, launched last week. The goal of this blog is to discuss topics of interest to engineers and technical personnel involved in developing new products and solving design/engineering problems.
• Notes & Lines is another fairly recent blog that you may want to check out if you're interested in the intersection between science and the arts.

Note - the new color scheme should be live sometime on the evening of February 20. If it doesn't load correctly, try refreshing your browser and maybe clearing your cache/cookies.

You asked, we (finally) answered. There is now an Aerospace section on CR4! It's the place for stories about aircraft, spacecraft, and all of the "space" surrounding them.

Check out the new Aerospace section which has been populated with some old threads. Feel free to add new discussions about this topic to the new section.

While you're there, check out the Aerospace Blog. A new blog devoted to aerospace is in the works. An announcement about that will posted at a later date.

You may notice that the Automotive section seems to have disappeared. You're still welcome to discuss cars in a newly expanded section called Transportation. It's the place for stories about non-flight methods of transportation including cars, trucks, trains, and ships.