AiC Episode 81

In this episode, Teri welcomes Giles Rhys Jones, the CMO of What3Words, a 100+ person tech startup trying to change the world for the better by addressing it all with just three words.

Welcome, Giles!

Giles created the vision, positioning, identity and go to marketing strategy for the company. He took What3Words from a quirky idea to a globally recognized brand used by organizations, individuals and governments in over 170 countries.

What3Words’ technology helps people find locations on our entire planet using words instead of addresses. Giles comes on to talk about this technology and how voice technology is affecting the way locations can be found on planet earth.

What3Words

  • The company’s founder, Chris Sheldrick, used to organize music events around the world and was constantly frustrated with bad addressing. Band members and equipment would end up in the wrong place all the time. He used to use GPS coordinates but with GPS, if one mixed up just one number, they would get lost.
  • Chris and his friend Mohan (a What3Words cofounder), decided that words are much more memorable and easier to communicate, and so they came up with an idea to cut the world up into 57 trillion three by three meters squares (ten foot by ten foot squares), which needed a word list of 40,000 words, so they could give each one of those squares a three word address. That is what the What3Words system does.
  • They have given every three meters by three meters square on the planet a three-word address identifier.

Coming up with the 40,000 Words List

  • To come up with the words, they started with a dictionary. They took out rude words, hyphenated words, and homophones. They then thought about how to make it much easier to use and so they decided to use shorter more memorable words in places where there are people.
  • For example, London has short memorable words while the middle of the ocean has much longer English words.
  • They have also done it in 36 different languages and they are working on more.
  • They put similar sounding words really far apart, for example, table.chair.lamp is in America while table.chair.damp is in Australia. They did that so that when someone makes an error then it’s a very obvious error that the system can notify them of on the spot. That error detection feature is built into the system.

Voice Locations with Giles Rhys Jones of What3Words

Use Cases

  • They have a free app that anybody can download and use.
  • Different people are using it every day to meet up with their friends, specify the start of running trails, etc.
  • Photographers, painters, campers, and anybody who is interested in going outdoors is using What3Words.
  • Businesses and organizations are also using it, for example, it’s being used by emergency services in the UK and delivery companies all over the world.
  • People are even adding a three-word address to their existing street address.
  • What3Words is available through the app and their code. They generate revenue by licensing their code to other businesses.
  • To spread the word about What3Words for more widespread use, they have a B2B2C (Business to Business to Consumer) model. They are working with different brands. Travel companies use What3Words a lot.
  • Lonely Planet just produced their latest guide to Mongolia and they put three-word addresses next to every single listing.
  • People can use either the app or the website to get to whatever location they need to get to.
  • They are also working with car companies. Mercedes Benz, for example, is building this technology into their car and telling all their customers that they can use What3Words in their cars as a point of differentiation. They are pushing out adverts and content telling people that they can use What3Words.
  • The police services in the UK have built the What3Words software into their dispatch systems.
  • What3Words plans on becoming a global standard and being integrated into the most typical location finding apps that people use.

Embarking on Voice Technology

  • Voice recognition is improving and will keep getting better, but it won’t solve the underlying problem of very bad addresses.
  • Street addresses, postcodes, and zip codes were built to enable postal delivery systems, and are not accurate. They are also not good at spotting errors.
  • Entering an address into a vehicle is problematic, but now a person can jump into their car and say the three words representing the location they are going to.
  • They are in the process of developing an Alexa skill and Google action. They have developed some beta products, for example, a product that can enable someone to order an Uber to pick them up from a three-word address and take them to a three-word address. Their skill will be available to people and they have built voice into their own app so people can say a three-word address to the app. This is one of the services they sell through API or SDK.
  • They have worked with a number of voice suppliers like Nuance and SoundHound to build on top of their voice recognition.
  • Their system works offline so one doesn’t need a data connection for the system to work.

Having an Office in Mongolia

  • Mongolia is a very vast country with a nomadic population and they move around on a frequent basis.
  • Their government officials approved the adoption of What3Words and their postal service was the first in the world to use What3Words.
  • One can send a letter in Mongolia to a three-word address and the postal service will recognize that and deliver it to that precise spot.
  • There is a whole ecosystem growing up around What3Words, for example, one can get a taxi to their three-word location, Pizza Hut can deliver a pizza to a three-word address, and even Airbnb is using it to get the nomadic tribes on their platform.

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