We Know Where You Are…

gazumped
gazumped
Sep 3, 2018 · 3 min read
A spot in the North Gibson Desert, to the North East of Nyirripi

If you recognise the distinctive /// icon, welcome to the growing number of fans of this rather impressive company who know exactly where you are - even if it’s totally off the grid.

What3Words divides the world into 3-metre squares, and using their quaint, but very effective three-word identity system, can translate photographer.shot.still into an pretty unfriendly-looking isolated bit of central Australia.

This is important, even to my much more local situation. My house has three very obvious approaches. Unfortunately one takes you to a car-park that involves a fair walk back to the front door. Another comes to our back door — and the way around to the front is not obvious. The best option is the least apparent — but it means you can park directly outside. Which is really good if you’re delivering food or something heavy.

My postcode gets you to the right street, but in the average Satnav it’s pot luck which entrance you find. My W3W address is at the front door, and you’ll go there direct if you follow the app.

Plus I take photographs. Every so often someone will find a good spot for waves, or sunsets or a photogenic old building, or we’ll meet up at a historical site — most of which will involve directions like “take the narrow road just past the pub for a mile or so, then park and use the footpath…”

Now. Suppose you want to meet up on Pendine Sands for a photo shoot (for the geographically challenged, that’s a big Welsh beach). There are no signs, no pubs, no footpath… but you can get there with directions to ///stunner.desiring.rivals on any internet connected device.

If you’re familiar with Satnav, you’ll know there’s always a problem if you can’t get a signal or download a map. But W3W thought of that — their system works offline.

(In case you’re wondering, I may have chosen my examples with a teensy photography bias…)

And for those visiting Conventions, Exhibitions and Festivals — have you ever tried to find a particular stall or stand in a big hall or a tent in a field? It’s pretty impossible… especially with a few thousand people in the way; but you can get within 3 metres with (random examples) ///given.human.skill which is somewhere at the back of Hall 5 of the NEC Birmingham: or ///shades.volume.soonest which is “somewhere in a field” at Glastonbury. (Random examples, honestly.. )

W3W is being added to some car navigation systems, and is being used by some big companies (and the odd government) plus more than 500,000 downloads for Android users. There’s also a photo app that will take a picture and add the location address.

The service is a boon to companies and travellers of every type, from conference and exhibition organisers, to delivery and cab companies, to visitors to anything.

I’ve been going on about this for ages, and I’m still having to explain things to those who give me ‘turn left at the pub’ directions. So I’ll post this to give me a standard explanation to send them; and anyone who doesn’t like the idea can just go to https://w3w.co/snug.archduke.dugouts -which is near a shed in a field.. at Purgatory, Chipping Norton, UK. (It was the closest I could find to You Know Where.)

Happy Trails!

gazumped

Written by

gazumped

Organizational expert in IT, finance, law and CS. Keen photographer. SciFi fan. Science nerd. Evernote superuser. Voracious reader, Quora contributor. Old Guy.

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