Daylight Savings has had a significant impact upon my blogging activities.
A few weeks ago we put our clocks backward forward an hour to get an extra hour of daylight over our upcoming Summer. The same weekend much of the Northern Hemisphere put their clocks forward backward (signifying the end of their warmer months).
An hour here – an hour there – it doesn’t really make much difference does it?
Initially I didn’t think it did but today I realized that there are quite a few people who I used to regularly talk to on IM that I haven’t seen or heard from in weeks. That hour or two window of opportunity in the evenings or first thing in the morning has now shifted.
It also impacts my blogging rhythm in other ways including a new time of the day to check earnings stats (instead of Adsense starting a new day at 5pm now it’s at 7pm – other stats packages have shifted from a last thing at night check-in to a first thing in the morning one).
It’s not really a big deal – but enough to put me a little out of whack and become even more aware of my location in the world.
I was listening to an interview with Richard McManus a few days back and he talked about a trip he did to Silicon Valley earlier in the year. One of the things that he said that he found surprising was the amount of real life contact some of the Web 2.0 people there had with one another. A lot of it seemed social – but the opportunities that must come from such interactions, from actually knowing those you work with, must be significant.
As much as people talk about how the web is making the world a smaller place and that it breaks down the barriers to opportunity in business (and it does in so many ways), I’m still keenly aware of how distance impacts those who are not physically at the centre of the action. While I can think of places that are a lot more isolated than Melbourne – I suspect there are quite a few bloggers around the world who from time to time feel the isolation from the rest of their species.
It’s a pity we can’t all meet up on some tropical island once a year for a year’s worth of networking, BBQ’s, parties and talking about the Pro Blogger life.
You book a tropical island, and I’ll be there ;)
Actually Darren you are to be commended for having achieved so much despite that isolation.
And for anyone who doesn’t understand how that isolation works Toni and I have had a very similar experience. We have been online in marketing since 1998 and providing written work for webmasters since 2001.
At that time we were living in Tasmana – even further south than where Darren is now – and we basically struggled for work. It was almost as if people didn’t want to deal with us because we lived somewhere that they had never heard of.
Within weeks of moving to Queensland and people finding out that we were somewhere that they knew about our work started to increase and every month has been bigger than the one before.
It’s a strange situation but one that is very real and does affect a lot of talented people who just happen to live in the wrong parts of the world.
Yeah, yeah, yeah….
You guys got it easy, try getting people to listen to you when they find out you live in the uber seclusion of…Kentucky !
I’m with Cary, let’s get together someplace nice, like Wichita !
Hm, I don’t know what they did in Australia, but here in the U.S., we set our clocks backward one hour….
Darren
you’re getting your clocks confused, US put their clocks back, you put your clock forward
LOL….maybe that’s why I don’t see anyone any more – including my wife!
will rectify that in the post :-)
Moving those clocks an hour the wrong way would really make communication difficult Darren.
Seriously, time zones (and various daylight savings schemes) really do add unnecessary difficulty to international trade, on line commerce included. And then we have (I believe one or more Australian States with one of those 30 minute time zones and if I recall correctly there’s a plus 45 minute time zone as well, India perhaps?
I know they did it as a marketing stunt but couldn’t we all adopted the Swatch Internet Time system?
The US is going to make it even worse in 2007 (not to mention the US states that do not change along with the others and the US states that are in two different time zones … it’s silly indeed. Several large, civilized countries are smart enough to leave the whole darn mess alone .. China and Japan spring to mind … I’m in favor of dropping the whole shifting time zone nonsense world-wide.
Personally I have never found any on-line stats that have ever matched corretly the concept of stats for today/yesterday here in the UK as they alwys seem to be hosted in the States.
Dude, I’ve been thinking of the same thing. I’m in Japan now and with the US Savings time, there is a 14 hour difference as compared to the usual 13 hours.
Which screws up my screwed up schedule even more as my mornings here (which usually start around 10 am, but started at 7 am today with the mini-earthquake) usually are spent catching up on news which happened during the day in the US and trying to catch West Coast readers before they get off work.
Then I tend to emails, contracts, non-time restrictive blogging, hit the gym, take a bike ride, go grocery shopping, time with the wife …etc.
Then, about 9 pm Japan time I’m back on the computer again, working/blogging till about 12 pm or 1 am here – Catching the (US EST) morning scoops and attending to new morning emails, interviews, phone calls… afterwards some TV, a drink and a shower, then off to bed around 3 am Japan time (unless I check my noon time US EST emails).
Yikes.
I’ve always wondered how Eastern Hemisphere bloggers divide their time when they plan IM’s with Western Hemisphere residents, and it’s always nice to publish some posts between US EST 9:30 am and 11:30 am, when folks are checking their RSS before meetings.
Oh, and isolation… I’m fairly isolated here too, in Mito – a small city about 2 hours north of Tokyo. I am, however, going down to Tokyo on Friday to visit Ask Jeeves Japan and then again next week for Yahoo Japan interviews. Which will be quite nice. Plus there are the Search Engine Strategies Japan and China conferences I’m planning on attending.
Hey Darren, any blog or search conventions coming up in Australia?
Just on Dave’s comments, Australian time zones are the biggest joke on the planet. 5 different time zones on the main land during summer (its about 8 or 9 once you include the territories), and of course I live in a state that believes that Daylight savings fades the curtins and makes milk go sour so I’m even further behind at this time of year. I’m not sure about Dave’s suggestion about Swatch time but there is some credence in reforming time zone management, at least here in Australia.
Hi Loren, Nice to see another foreigner in Japan! I like listening to the Spoonman on Triple M radio Australia while I work on my sites, but now with daylight savings time I miss half the show.
It also makes it hard to call my family in Oz since it is now 2 hours difference, instead of the usual 1 hour.
Japan needs summer time too!
There is supposed to be a PubCon in Sydney in February which I am hoping to get to.
They havn’t released any details yet but it’s supposed to be happening.
I hate daylight savings – it always comes just when I’ve gotten myself trained into getting up earlier which could make the adjustment easier of course, but then if I want to keep an early start to my day have to start again. Plus it can be a pain to get kids to sleep at night “But it’s still light outside!”
Also on time zones, do other Aussies find that their blogging week is more like Tuesday to Saturday? I find Monday’s my quietest day, as roughly speaking, it’s Sunday in the US, where most of my information sources are.
Wow, it’s already tomorrow where you are – LOL
Can you tell me the lottery numbers for Tuesday?
Sorry old joke, couldn’t help myself. Getting silly from winterizing here.
{Middle of USA/Central Time Zone/No Daylight Savings Time/November 14, 2005/8:45 AM }
First snowfall expected today.
Cheers Mike,
Your site will come in handy for my trip on Friday, as I do not really know too much about Tokyo, except for the subway system.
BTW, I really like the placement of Google AdSense under the photo on your site’s homepage. Looks like a photo caption, excellent.
Marti, I read one of Charles Schultz’s philosophies was “Don’t worry about the world ending today – because in Australia, it’s already tomorrow.” :D
Loraine, If you would like to have a chat about blogging, tokyo, japan or whatever, please drop me an email through my site. I also like taking people to my favourite izakaya on the weekend if you are ever free.
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