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Quotes on the work at home population (or
“telecommuters”
if you’re a fan of John Naisbitt and George Gilder) vary
wildly:
I’ve read estimates at the low end of 11 million and at the
high end of “in excess of 42 million” but it’s
safe to say that the population not defined by the traditional
framework of
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- 8-5 (or at least regular day-shift)
- specific location
- widget-producing tasks
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is growing for a host of reasons. In this article, we’ll
discuss some ways to make your location, specifically your time
zone, work for you. |
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![[spacer]](resource/dot_clea.gif) Brown Bag Talks are short, informative pieces that serve to spark
conversations over lunch, dinner or whenever you gather with friends, for business or pleasure.
Brown Bag Talks are a
service of the Systems Thinking Institute, as
one of the many features that help you think “outside the
box.” |
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Time Zones
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Ever since
Christiaan Huygens invented the pendulum clock, it seems
we’ve been defined by time. The King’s
Singers famous number “TimePiece” puts Adam and Eve
in the garden with a wristwatch! Our planet is divided into 24 Time Zones measured
east and west of the “Prime Meridian” in Greenwich, England. While
the phrase “Greenwich Mean Time” has given way to
“Universal Correlated Time” for military applications, the rest of us
still can arrange worldwide travel or business plans more easily
with an understanding of what the hours “GMT+” or
“GMT-” tell us about afternoon sun shining on our
neighbors east while the cock’s yet to crow on our neighbors west. We’ll
limit ourselves to seven time zones, perhaps a more comprehensive
discussion in a future column if reader interest warrants (send your
comments to mattw@systhink-inst.com)
Matthew E. Weilert is the Eastern Division Manager of the Systems Thinking
Institute, a virtual company solving very real challenges
involving strategic thinking,
change management and organizational learning.
By Compressing the Learning Curve SM
STI helps groups & teams transition to a more integrated view of
the way they do business.
www.systhink-inst.com
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Manchester, NH 03102-2701 |
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Standardizing on the US Eastern seaboard as noon, we
find
| Atlantic Time |
1 pm |
| Eastern |
12 Noon |
| Central |
11 am |
| Mountain | 10 am |
| Pacific
| 9 am |
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Alaska
| 8 am |
| Hawaii
| 7 am
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except of course from April to October (spring forward, fall
back), when Arizona, Indiana and Hawaii don’t participate in
Daylight savings, making their times one hour earlier than this
chart shows.
In terms of phone rates, West is best:
If you were an industrious Hawaiian, you could shift a portion of
your workday to the middle of the night, calling on businesses
just starting their workday (assuming 8 am EST), for six whole
hours at the cheapest rates available! While the “standard”
network discounts from 11 pm to 8 am are becoming less standard,
with refreshing competition in rate plans and services; many firms
still abide by decades old thinking that starts their business in
the morning and ends it in the evening.
Update your thinking, update your income
The amount of “bonus time” this new perspective
generates obviously decreases with each time zone closer to
yours, zeroing out when you’re calling locally. Yet the converse
applies as well: after 5 pm, follow the sun and call East to West. Notice how we’ve
extended local to make your neighborhood mean your entire time
zone instead of just a few square blocks of physical real estate near
you. Update your thinking, update your income.
Another possibility
now with the increasing acceptance of remote service offices, e.g. having Dallas GTE
Mobilnet® customers serviced out of Tampa, is an adaptation for the small business open
during the
non-work times:
For instance, imagine the draw of a local pastry shop
open from midnight to eight in the morning with special features for athletes, commuters and
travelers. There are always naysayers that are scared by the idea that “lunatics are the
only ones out when
the sun don’t shine” and you’ll find as many barriers, in
any industry, as you have time to listen. One of the keys to updating
your income is the positive mental attitude promoted by Napoleon
Hill and Clement Stone through their “PMA Science of
Success”
course and best-selling books such as Think and Grow Rich;
and Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude.
Twenty-four hour
stores certainly fall under the timespan above since they’re always open, but if your area
isn’t serviced by a Denny’s® restaurant or a Kinko’s® copy shop and
you have the workforce to do it, ’round the clock availability opens up new markets.
Leverage is the point here. Leveraging your time by working
smarter not harder. To take a fresh twist on the old saw, busboys aren’t
billionaires because hard work, alone, isn’t the answer.
There you have it. Life, Liberty and the American Dream, all by burning the candle
brighter instead of just longer.
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STI