Do you know your four Global Time Quadrants?

There are 24 time zones.  There are six groups of Global Time Quadrants.   Truly orient yourself to the world. To do so, you need to be able to answer these key questions about the world's time zones:

1.  What time zone are you in?  It is an actual time zone number between 1 and 24.  You really should know yours.  Find out; click here.
2.  Can you name a country in the time zone on "the other side of the earth" 12 time zones away?
3. Can you name a country in the time zone six hours east of you?
4.  Can you name a country in the time zone six hours west of you?

These are the four time zones in your Global Time Quadrant (GTQ).  Within any time of the day, if you readily know what time it is, you can quickly figure the time in the other three major corresponding quadrants. Then, you can begin to figure out the time for all other countries and you will be dynamically visualizing the entire earth's 24 time zones.

As you get your GTQ bearings, be sure to learn some of the simpler things about those other three time zones. For example, what is the largest country and the largest city in the each of those three time zones?

Once you quickly and assuredly are able to visualize each of your four time zones -- your Global Time Quadrants -- you will have begun the process of being able to calculate and know the time in every country of the world.

Hattie and I spend most of our time in the USA.  The East Coast, from Maine to Florida, is within Time Zone 18.  Central Standard Time cuts a wide swath from Chicago to St. Louis, Dallas, Houston and New Orleans.  That is  Time Zone 19.   From Denver to Phoenix, Mountain Time is Time Zone 20.  From Seattle to Los Angeles to San Diego is Pacific Standard Time or Time Zone 21.  Juneau and Anchorage are in Time Zone 22.   Hawaii is Time Zone 23.   And,  America Samoa is in Time Zone 24.

Now our first office was in New Orleans; and now after 15 years, we are recreating a studio there.   It is within Time Zone #19 or TZ19.

The largest country that is on the other side of the globe is India in TZ #7.  Of course, if we take all of China, Tibet is also in TZ7, but China has designated every region including Tibet, in TZ #5.

Six hours to the east is Time Zone #13 which is also known as Greenwich Mean Time and now Universal Time Coordinate (UTC).   Of course,  there is England, but also Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, and many, many African countries,

Now, six hours to the west of New Orleans (TZ19)  is TZ #1.  Here you find Kiribati, New Zealand, Fiji and many others.

Once you have YOUR four quadrants defined, deep within your mind, you can then begin filling in the blanks by learning the locations of countries, time zone by time zone.  It is an excellent exercise that will continue to shrink this already very small planet.

By the way, we strongly recommend dropping the use of  the UTC designations.  It just complicates matters unmercifully.  We recommend that people adopt just the Time Zone numbering that begins with the International Date Line as Time Zone #1.  Use UTC as the time reference when you are visiting the International Space Station (ISS)  or when  you are otherwise outside of earth's atmosphere.

By the way, what time or whose time is it on  the ISS?

Help plan a 24-hour New Year's Eve Party !

We need to select a collaboration partner

Who are the players? Would any of them be willing to support a million people on an event at the same time?


Collaboration Platforms: Atlassian, Central Desktop, Cisco WebEx, IBM Lotus, Jive Software, Microsoft, MindTouch, Novell, Open Text, Socialtext, and Traction Software.   These are listed in a report by Rob Koplowitz  (August 6, 2009, The Forrester Wave™).

I would add to that list GotoMeeting by Citrix.

We actually did an episode about collaboration software back in 2001.  As a result I wrote up this little overview.  

In 2001, I was hoping that our sponsor, IBM, would entertain the idea of having an open collaboration event after each broadcast of the show.  We were much  too early in the adoption and development cycle!

In 2004, when IBM sold their PC Division to Lenovo, Microsoft became a sponsor of the show.  Their collaboration product, LiveMeeting, was being offered, yet the idea of a collaboration event after each broadcast -- there were at that time about 200 weekly broadcasts in the USA and about 4500 around the world -- was still just too daunting.

Now, however, in 2009, I think everything is on the table.  The possibility of pulling it off seems within reach.

So, to whom would you recommend that we turn?  Let me know!   -Bruce