I hope you are all gearing up for Power IT Down Day, taking place this Friday, August 27. This is the third annual event, which seeks to get enterprise IT managers to commit to turning off their PC fleets before heading home for the weekend -- often the simplest high-impact green IT project that most companies can undertake.

In case you've not yet signed their commitment, or in case you're still getting up to speed on PC power management, this week we've got a handy list of 10 things you can do on Power IT Down Day, and for more on the topic you can of course revisit my article from earlier this year on the 10 things you should know about PC power management.

Although I wouldn't quite call power management a defensive move, Chris Mines this week writes about how the IT industry is by and large stuck in a defensive posture, touting its work on energy efficiency while ignoring the many huge opportunities that await companies that go on offense instead, like multi-billion-dollar smart grid projects. Read Chris's thoughts here: "How to Move Green IT From Defense to Offense."

Also this week, we've got two green data center stories: CapGemini has opened what it calls the "world's greenest" data center, and BNY Mellon lands the third Energy Star for Data Centers rating. And a survey of office workers in the U.K. finds that they're addicted to paper and suffering from green fatigue.

Symantec's annual report found that mid-sized enterprises, rather than large or small-enterprise organizations, are vanguards of the data center, leading in new technology adoption, data center change, and focus on staffing.

The Danville Green IT Economic Summit looks at the latest breakthroughs in energy efficiency from the desktop to the data center, and covers everything from green hardware to green software technology, and the power of the Internet.