Each quadrant equals 30° (click to enlarge)
A given latitude at the equator extends from 0° to 180° (either W or E) with two posters on both ends. A given longitude (0°) equal to the latitude and extending from one pole to the other with two poster at both ends. The conscious day begins for all four with the two posters on the latitude exchanging posts between each other and the two posters on the longitude exchanging posts. What is the relative frequency of the posting cycles on each line?
I say that given any two longitudes and latitudes of equal length (or arc), with two posters posting between themselves from the extremes, that the two posters on the longitude will have a higher frequency of post exchanges between them throughout a conscious day.
On the map, place two posters at the extremes of a longitudinal area. Place one poster at the tip of Cape Horn, South America and the other poster in New Brunswick, Canada. Place two other posters at the extremes of a latitude equal to the length of the said longitude, one at French Guyana and the other in the Philipines. All other factors being equal (purpose, interest, speed of connection, etc.) the two on the longitude will have a higher frequency of exchanges than those on the latitude.
Let's form two groups of equal numbers and spaced evenly apart from one end to the other, one group on the longitude and the other on the latitude. The group on the longitude will have more opportunities for exchanges and will have more options to organize temporally and ordinally with greater facility than the group on the latitude.
What is the "comfort zone" of any one poster? If I live in one time zone, the further away another poster is from that zone, the more inconvenient it is to meet together. I guess that, of the 360º on the globe, the comfort zone is just about 180º (90º on either side of the longitude I reside upon). The window begins closing then.
120º allows a greater window of opportunity for meetings. I can divide the 360º of the entire globe into three zones of 120º each, and I will call them:
The Americas Europe, Middle East and Africa Far East and South Pacific
The geographical distribution is incidental because anyone sharing the same conscious day with a zone is qualified for membership in a group in that zone. In this blog, I am treating time as if it were a geographical limitation. If I do this, I can easily translate the organizational structure of the traditional service club to online communities of practice, with democratic forms fully intact. Nothing need be lost.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Think Globally, Act Locally.Large clickable detailed world map 2.3MB with cities, longitudes and latitudes.
On any day at noon, using a table globe, find the longitude that you reside upon. Place your finger on the longitude and run it over the pole until it arrives at the opposite longitude. Almost everyone is awake and conscious in your longitude and almost everyone is unconscious in the opposite longitude. As far as we know, it is impossible for conscious people to communicate with unconscious people. This is the Blind Spot, a total of 120º, a full third of the globe is unconscious at any time that the other two thirds is conscious.
"Online communities, like any community need to have something in common, something needs to bring people together" - Trishus. I think that most people first think of purpose, but it might be better to first identify the natural physical connections that people have on the Internet.
I think Bee is also referring to this when she speaks "the commonality" but again we are not quite at the roots of our physical connection.
ElderBob uses a phrase that strikes me - "A common ground" This is antecedent to any purpose. Traditionally communities were first tied together by geography. The geography determined the purpose. Also separated people from eachother.
We should understand more clearly what our common ground is and what it isn't, what unites and what divides and how or why it is so natural physical laws that you can't be in two places at one time now we have overcome geographical barriers but we must recognize that we are still bound by the physical laws that govern time and consciousness. The unconscious and the conscious cannot communicate on the web Any longitude at noon extended beyond the pole is an opposite longitude midnight that longitude is the Unconscious Web The same time that unites people also divides them as if it were a geographical limitation.
Let's say a community travels in their wagons to a place they want to settle. The common ground unites them before the purpose. Once the common ground has been surveyed, the purpose arises in relation to that common ground. Let's say they arrive at a river and decide to settle there because water is essential for life. The river unites all of the communities upstream and downstream and it unites the people who share resources on both sides of the river, but it also divides them.
This rule holds for all communities. The boundaries that unite, also divide. Once we organize according to the natural limitations of time we can use proven traditional systems for self-propagating community. We sere the natural self-propagating effect in the need to split the meeting into two meetings. But since the demographics must be substantially different (otherwise, why split the meeting?) the two meeting constitutes two separate groups of clubs with the same purpose. They never divided over the purpose but the common ground that unites and divides.
From the same coordinates on the globe, run your finger West or east along a latitude. The further away from the longitude the conscious the connection, the fewer are the conscious people of a population until you get to the opposite longitude. Moving your finger back East or west from the opposite longitude, the closer to primary longitude, the more conscious the zone, so that the most conscious connection is on the longitude itself.
United Time and the Time Divide
must determine the physical limits of time online as if they were geographical limitations. It is the primary physical tie, the common ground, the commonality, as if it were a geographical tie. It's also what divides us like an ocean.
Spanning the Time Divide Leigh separated the community into three "meetings". I call these three meetings, "groups" or "clubs" and they have been logically divided according to the common ground of the conscious day.
The Time Divide means that posting frequency is highest on a longitude and decreases between the area of two longitudes according to their distance apart. The easiest way to form a cohesive group is to find people who reside on or in the neighborhood of your longitude. This is a rough guide because the longitude is personal. Someone who is working the night shift in China and is online may have a time zone residency equal to your own. So how do we qualify them for membership in a group according to their personal time zone residency? By their frequency of posting. By "Frequency" I mean the time it takes for one complete cycle of stimulus-response-stimulus. Those posters on a common longitude have a higher frequency than those on the opposite longitude. An opposite longitude is the given longitude extended beyond either of the poles. That opposite longitude has the lowest frequency. Any area between any other longitude other than the opposite longitude has a higher frequency. Obviously, the closer each of the members are to a common longitude (in personal time zone terms), the greater options there are for scheduling an ordinal meeting. do the members of Rotary all communicate and meet daily? neither should people who are in distinctly separate time zones. Why and how can we separate the time zones? We divide the community in order to bring it together in an organized manner. We can do this division in nearly the same way that geography is divided. geography is continuous, it's not actually divided. But we divide it anyway in a large organization such as rotary. Likewise, time zones are not really divided. They are continuously connected. We divide them nearly the same way as dividing geographical areas. we divide them by where the people actually are. Let's take a look at the map and see how this fits. "A centralized outcome through decentralized means" - George Siemens
In a word, we can bridge the Time Divide by dividing the community by time.
must determine the physical limits of time online as if they were geographical limitations.
Historians tell us that one of the causes that brought about the civil war was the fact that most railroads were built to span the divide from East to West with little investment in the South to North rail lines. The telegraph system lines (the first digital communications technology) were installed running along those lines. This approach emphasized East-West communications while neglecting the South-North connections.
How big should a group be? http://www.seanpmckee.net/blog/
A useful nuance from the statement is the absence of any mention of quantity or percentage of community members who should be fully engaged. However, a community can only have so many voices and members before it reaches an unmanageable size. I believe that size limitations apply in both the online and physical worlds when talking about community effectiveness.
I wonder what people are thinking? can they really bring all of the world together into one global community without proper organization? The time it takes to absorb. Never more than the average person can absorb. No matter how many people you meet with a whatever level the best group size is about 10-12. 5 small groups in neighborhoods of a town 15-20 people meet every two weeks area meeting of all town clubs and surrounding area meet every 2 months 50% turnout = appr. 40 people Statewide of 25 areas meets every 4 months 25% turnout = 250 people It doesn't bring everybody together but the more interested but it works because community involves different levels of interest and participation, and this form serves well.
There should seldom be a problem attending a meeting. It should be a given that everyone will be there and the exception when people are absent. This can happen if small groups of 10-20 members organize around a longitude. There is no reason to be juggling to set the meeting time. Just as if I were to attend a meeting of Rotary in my town. I would have a choice of several clubs in different neighborhoods of my town. I would attend that one regularly and visit the others occasionally, attend a gathering of all neighborhood clubs about every two months, a regional every six months and a national every year. This is structure is completely translatable to time zones.
nucleus club
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