thanks for the comments GecT
so I applied the texture of monitor screens to incandescent channel,
definitely brightened them up a lot, but now they also seem too bright
and as there is a texture applied I see no options to reduce the brightness as they now seem "washed out"

for the lights with the decay, I am presuming? you mean angled away from the screens to simulate the light thrown off to desk and nearby objects?
I had originally tried lights pointing to the monitors to brighten up but that didn't work...
A ton of learning in this - modeling tools, texturing,uv'ing, and mental ray rendering
more than once I felt I was on overload

will definitely come back to this in future when I have more experience/knowledge
to add bits-n-bobs into scene, and try to get a better render
the lighting tutorials really confused me and I think I spent as much time tweaking lights/render as I did in all of the modeling and uv'ing , but I definitely won't give up