Help plan a 24-hour New Year's Eve Party that goes around the world!

Can we create a 24-hour party every December 31st?
Can we celebrate the New Year by time zone (TZ),
from the International Date Line (TZ #1) to TZ #24?

Today, with all our technology, it is entirely possible.   Along the way, as the world turns, we can all visit every country of the world within 24 hours!

• Why not? Every country. By time zone. Within the first time zone we'll go north to south, then in the next, from south to north.
• We can actually do it.  There are only 195 countries.  In 24 hours there are 1440 minutes so each country can be be given at least five minutes. Regions of a country uniquely within a time zone could also be given that time as well.
• We can be "live" and on line.  We could be collaborating about the meaning and value of life as everything from professional broadcast cameras to web cams open up. We can have some fun. Meet the people who make the best food in a region. The best drinks! And, we can visit the best places to celebrate the New Year. One of the goals for this blog is to have this celebration fully active by 2011. By that time we can have many prizes from the travel professionals from every country around the world. People can go from the virtual world to the really real world.

Such an event could become one of the largest collaboration events in history.
Help. Prepare. Participate. Host. Partner.
Get your 24-hour orientation.

• What would happen if millions of people around the world celebrated New Year's Eve together?
• What if the party lasted at least 24 hours -- possibly 26 hours to open-and-wrap up the event? What if we celebrated the best within each country?
• What if every country, and every time zone had their own host to take us on a tour, a virtual event of the best of their country and then we all voted to determine the best within that time zone?

Let's visit the best restaurants in each country and get their best traditional New Year's recipe for their country. By the end of the celebration we each could have 218 new recipes (195 plus nine more regions in Russia, two more in Australia, two more in China, one more in India, one more in Mongolia, four more in Canada and the USA, and two more in Brazil).

• Let's go to the favorite hot spot  and learn the mix for their traditional New Year's drink.
• Then, let's go where the big action is -- to the country's favorite place to celebrate New Year's Eve. 
• Maybe we'll open it up so the head of state can bring greetings on behalf of the country (or region). We can begin to get to know everyone, country-by-country in every time zone.
• Each country's host would be in charge of their few minutes. Live cameras everywhere could open it up to real time views and spontaneity.

We could start and end in Kiribati, a country of islands on the International Date Line, Time Zone #1. Some of their islands are also in Time Zone #23 and Time Zone #24.  All are spread out from the equator. Now, there are many people in high places in Kiribati already on board for this celebration to begin.

• In each time zone in the final minutes before their midnight, we can zoom into the country with the most people on line at that time. We could all quickly mix up their country's favorite New Year's drink, and then together bless their country and their people. Perhaps we can all listen as their National Anthem plays as the clock strikes midnight -- then all move into Time Zone #2.

• In the 5th Time Zone we'll be visiting all the usual places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Jarkata, and Beijing, but we'll also be going to Bandar Seri Begawan, the Buryat Republic (Russia), Kuala Lumpur, and so many others.

• In the 10th Time Zone we'll drop in on Moscow, visit Tehran, Baghdad, and more right down to Antananarivo in Madagascar.

• By the 14th and 15th time zones we get to relax a little. We will have gone from the most populated time zone on earth, the 5th, to  the least populated which include Greenland, the Azores, and Cape Verde.

• Yet it picks up quickly in the 16th in Halifax (Nova Scotia), Hamilton (Bermuda), and Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires.

Who will be standing in the 18th hour as we finally reach New York City?

• Who will be standing as we enter the 20th hour in Denver and Calgary? ...as we visit the city of Angels in California and Vancouver on 21st hour? A lot of people will have fallen asleep, but new people will have joined us along the way.

• It is a 24-hour party that will be at least 25 hours long, maybe even 26, before we all begin our recovery programs (sleep). We will have visited every country on earth. We'll have heard at least 24 National Anthems. We will have lifted the glass and said, "Cheers" to the best of the past and our hopes for the future at least 24 times.

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