I have an addressing problem. The apartment block I live in
has a rear entry for visitor parking. It doesn’t have a street number. I direct
guests to the right alley, and then make them call me, so I can tell them which
garage door to access. I am usually in the middle of cooking something complex
when they ring.
Until recently, the only alternative I had for directing guests
to the right spot was “-33.884891, 151.217647”, and hope they can remember and
interpret these numbers. Good luck with that. (I’m not even mentioning datums
or projections, or visitors who don’t know what to do with GPS coordinates)
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| Chris Sheldrick |
Three months ago I spoke with a young Briton named Chris
Sheldrick. He used to work as an event manager, organising festivals and the
like, and was paying people to meet delivery trucks at the edge of town, and
explain to drivers exactly where to park, drop the chairs, or unload the
catering.
Chris wondered why there wasn’t a simple, clear-cut, easy to remember system to communicate location in natural language. Addresses don’t
work if there isn’t a property or building to address, and coordinates are hard
to remember or interpret.
That’s why Chris created What3Words (http://what3words.com/; available for IOS
and Android),
and it’s now taking the world by storm.
