What3Words – The biggest disruption since Google Maps?

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)

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.

Perfect storm of exciting Geo-events surrounding GeoNext in Sydney

If you are interested in all things to do with geographic and location-based technology trends, you'd want to be in Sydney 25-27 February, where no fewer than five key events are converging on the city: the SSSI "Remote Sensing and Earth Observation" Seminar on the 25th, the NGIS Google Maps User Forum and Bootcamp also on the 25th, the third annual "why location matters" GeoNext conference on the 26th, and finally the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network's e-Research workshop on the 27th.

All events are either free or very affordable, and better still, with minimal overlap timewise, the truly committed could attend four out of five of these. Geo-overload at your own risk!

The highlight is undoubtedly the 3rd annual GeoNext conference, with a better program than ever, covering a myriad of applications of location data, including innovative transport solutions, hyperlocal wearable technologies, indoor positioning (where you can try out a pair of Google Glass!), the future of retail, and much more.

And don't forget the GoGet Hackfest prize winners, and GeoRabble drinks to conclude the day!

GeoNext – Why ‘Where’ Matters

I am proud and pretty pumped to be on the advisory committee for the first ‘GeoNext’ conference, to be held in Sydney on 29 February.

As I’ve written before, what I’ve been missing in Australia/NZ is an event that bridges the gap between the ‘traditional’ geo-community (read: surveyors and spatial analysts) and the neo-geographers: the (young) upstarts who’ve discovered new and wonderful things to do with location, such a location-based marketing, web 2.0 and gaming.