When I was 14 years old my family moved house to a place on the road into (or out of, depending on where you are heading) Shrewsbury, Shropshire. In my mind, I probably have a bunch of stories buried from that time. But one thing that sticks our from the first months (or maybe years) that we lived in Shrewsbury was how difficult it was for anybody – including, at times, the Royal Mail – to find our house.
We moved to a newly built house with an address supplied by the Royal Mail. But the building was in the grounds of another, much older and grander, house and our patch of land was out of view when looking from the main road. Although it was not squeezed in anywhere – the grounds of the old house were substantial – it was squeezed into the postcode and numbering system that existed along the road. It was 89a and, a few years later, we were joined by a second new build home imaginatively numbered 89b.
If we’d been dwelling in a property along the main road, perhaps a property split into multiple units, then I think that deliveries would have easily found us. But, being out of the way, behind the trees, it was hard for people to know we were there. When talking to visitors I was able to describe the post box on the street and the driveway to the right which needed to be followed. In the days of online delivery where every address is database-matched it was harder to leave instructions for somebody to actually locate the front door.
Last week I was introduced to a piece of technology and a mapping algorithm that would have solved all of that. In fact there’s a lot of problems this solves. For example, I work in a large building in central London. The main entrance in on one street while the goods entrance is around the back on another street. But they have the same address. Think about how many times your GPS has taken you to the front door of a building when you’re actually in a vehicle and need the car park at the rear. Or what happens if you need emergency help stuck in the middle of the countryside at a site devoid of postcode and building number?
I haven’t written about too many technologies recently but the possibilities for this one are amazing. If your shopping is to be delivered by drone then much better given them an address that is actually your roof terrace or your back garden rather than the pavement in front of your door.
So, do go and get what3words (there’s an app). They have divided the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and assigned each one a unique 3 word address which is easy to remember, clearly located and remarkably simple to use. You are able to talk about specific locations, in multiple languages, with real recognisable word sequences. Words are easy to remember and, usefully, are simple for voice assistants to understand.
But, I do have to wonder, if the Queen really uses Buckingham Palace’s entrance at turkey.rats.lobby: https://map.what3words.com/turkey.rats.lobby