Circadian Search is here

Circadian rhythms are the 24-hour cycles that operate in our physiological background, orchestrating essential functions and processes within our bodies. For example your sleep-wake cycle is synchronised with your biological clock, and it responds to environmental cues, especially light.

Sure, but "What does that have to do with searching for a coach or a growth and development professional?", I hear you ask!

Professional Directories have uses - and limitations

When we designed our professional directory, we were aware of both the positives and the negatives that such features offer.

For example, being listed in a professional services directory is great for clout, for validation and for search engine optimisation (SEO).

But there are some gotchas that users and providers of these features can struggle with. Most don't put much effort into solving them. But we did.

For example, how should the members listed in a directory be presented? By name (A-Z)? By country? By recency of update? While all of these are potentially viable, the initial state - default "list of coaches" that a site visitor sees - has to be sorted somehow. And that default view, the initial way a visitor sees the members of the directory is SUPER important.

Think about Googling something. You get your search results. And they're in some sort of order. That order is decided by Google, and while it's pretty much impossible to know what Google did behind the scenes to order your results, one thing you are supposed to be confident about is that your results are relevant.

Relevance, redefined

So relevance is key. In fact it's so important that a multi-billion dollar industry - SEO - exists to support business as they race to remain relevant just in Google Search. That's crazy, right?

We wanted to be sure that our professional directory delivered the most value possible, both to the members listed in it and to the end user visitors looking through it.

We wanted our directory to adapt, dynamically, in real time, to the visitors who encounter it, wherever they are in the world.

It's about time

Here in New Zealand as I write this it's 11AM. If you know your geography you'll know that just across the pond from here is Australia. A couple of hours different in terms of its nearest time zone. Let's say 9AM.

Here's where it gets interesting. Most people would follow the clock around the world from there and say, yup, and it's 5AM in Singapore, 3AM in India, etc. Our calendars work this way. We're indoctrinated into think of time going forwards (and yes, it does). But we live on a ball of rock and time of day being what it is, we can also say that when it's 11AM in NZ, it's 12 noon in Hawaii. So time, from the circadian perspective of a human "in the moment" is pretty close to the same in Hawaii, Auckland and Sydney.

Take look at the directory here, and see how we present you with professional people closest to you (filter to suit your needs is also supported).

If we ignore the date, and just think about when someone's body is aligned with yours in terms of your sleep-wake cycles, we see a new way to build relevance - a relevance that tracks around the world and adjusts according to the time of day of the site visitor who is looking at our index of professional service providers.

If a visitor is in the UK and lands on our directory, they'll see professionals in the UK first - but also, professional throughout South Africa, and France and similar time-zone countries whether "yesterday", "today" or "tomorrow". We de-amplify the relevance of the date and amplify the human-centered relevance of the participants' experience of wakefulness.