Especially when it’s something clever and simple.

I have a few very basic gadgets that do one job, one job alone and do it really really well all of which I love.

I love quality and simplicity.

The first time I wrote about a great idea I was really impressed about was the Million Dollar Homepage. Respect to Alex Tew for coming up with that idea and making it a success. Genius.

I also kind of like that others have tried to copy Alex’s idea but without the same success. Alex’s website was the first, the original and imitations only serve to dilute the idea and are therefore unlikely to be successful. Alex deserves all the success from his idea – because it was his idea!

Now for this next thing I want to tell you about…

This Great Idea in Action

I recently agreed to go on a walk with a friend. He texted me and asked ‘Where should we meet?’. I texted him back:

waged alright gravy

about 40 mins later we met at that part of Dethick Lane where there is a little lay-by for parking your car and went on a nice walk.

Those 3 little words told my friend Ashley exactly where we should meet on that long lane, no chance of any confusion.

Introducing what3words

In case you’re not already aware of it, I am of course referring to the superb what3words which I used to send Ashley very accurate co-ordinates for where to meet. A postcode would not have done it any where near as effectively.

What3words divides the entire planet into 3m x 3m squares, each one having it’s own unique 3 word combination.

How cool is that?

I’ll tell you… keep reading.

I actually listened to the founder Chris Sheldrick being interviewed recently and he said in that interview that to cover the entire world you’d need something like 57 trillion (yes, trillion) 3m x 3m squares and the number of combinations from all the various 3 word combinations (something like 37000 words in general use in most languages) is just short of that – he also explained that a lot of the world is covered by the sea so that isn’t an issue, the populated surface of the planet, including some of the sea, is more than covered.

No More Wrong Addresses?

I’m not sure if it’s the nature of my address (a small cottage in the Derbyshire countryside) but I have often had parcels delivered to very strange places and ended up literally wandering the streets and asking neighbours trying to track down parcels. The annoying thing is that delivery drivers trying to hit their targets often mark these items as delivered and the wonderful tracking technology which is supposed to stop these things getting lost or help find them breaks down when ‘cheated’ like this. I have seen pictures of other people’s front doors with my parcel outside them recorded as evidence of a successful delivery (even though they clearly weren’t) – then it’s a case of trying to find that door. Sometimes though, no photo, just guesswork where the driver has mistakenly delivered to.

It’s not like I don’t have a street name and a number on my front door either (though that is admittedly quite small). So I will use what3words whenever I can to give a very precise location for the drivers to deliver to. In time I’m sure they’ll all be insisting on this anyway. Far more reliable than traditional addresses.

Use in Emergency Services

In the interview I heard, a rather harrowing but ultimately uplifting recording was played of an elderly lady who was having an asthma attack in her car and didn’t have her inhaler with her. She had managed to call 999 but was struggling to speak and tell the emergency services where she was. Her 7 year old granddaughter was with her and the emergency services sent a message to the phone and asked the 7 year old to read out what she received. Two words later (they didn’t even need the third) the responder said ‘got you’ and in a matter of seconds they had located the lady and her granddaughter and were on their way to rescue her.

Police have urged people to download the app which can obviously save lives.

There are other examples of people lost, hurt, stranded etc where the app has saved them.

Adding it to my List of Great Websites

This is a Note to Self really, I’m going to add what3words to my list of 365 Great Websites. How could I not do that, what3words is obviously a superb website and app so it should be on there. I just need to go through that list as I do periodically testing them all to see if any are no longer working and I can therefore find a spot for it.

If you’re reading this, you obviously don’t need the 365 Websites article to learn about it because you’re learning about it here!! Obviously do feel free to go there later and check out some of the other sites though (and the point of that article which was that on any given day you can go there and learn a new site for that given day – to avoid information overload trying to read through 365 of them (or 20 of them, or 50 of them, or any other number, that’s why I chose 365)). Did I digress a little? Sorry.

It’s Got To Catch On

It’s such a brilliant idea, in my opinion it can’t help but to catch on and be the new norm around the world. The simplicity of it is amazing and extremely effective.

Go on the app now and see what words your front door has. Then do your back door (they’ll be different, unless you live in a really tiny house and your back door is within 3 metres of your front door lol).

Some people have made plaques of their what3words addresses.

Mongolia has adopted what3words for its postal service, while Lonely Planet’s guide for the country gives three word addresses for its points of interest.

Mercedes Benz has also included its system in its cars and what3words is now being used in 35 languages.

If people do not have the app, the emergency services can send a text message containing a web link to their phones. That does require a signal but once downloaded, the app doesn’t need a signal to tell someone their three-word location. Awesome.

Hats off to Mr Sheldrick for coming up with this idea. I think it’s huge and set to be one of the greatest inventions of all time.