Phone numbers, emails, addresses, etc
There is a problem with the way people connect with each other. If I move house and my phone number changes I have to try to find everyone who may have my number and address and let them know. If I’m working at a company and keep in contact with my friends using my work email or if I’m with an ISP and am using the email address they provide and want to change providers I have to go through the same hassle of contacting everyone to let them know of the change.
So, how about having it that every person in the world is assigned a unique identifier and depending on the method of communication it is routed to where ever they are. An example of an identifier could be lastname.firstname.chosenname. The chosenname could be your middle name or a nickname. That way I can be living in the UK and all someone has to do to phone me is dial (not using numbers) peterson.damian.charlie. They can use exactly the same identifier to email me or to send a letter.
When I work for a company I would use the company email which would be a role, not a person, i.e. com.nice.designer or something. When I leave the company clients can continue to send email to that role because it’ll soon be filled by another person.
Notice that I’ve gone from big.to.little in my naming because I feel it gives better perspective. I also think that our date system should be 2007.4.8 rather than trying to guess if 4/8/07 is American or British.
I’m not sure what would happen with women when they change their names in marriage. Perhaps they get two addresses once they’re married? I would think that it’ll be a thing of the past within 100 years anyway. Seems a strange tradition when you think about it.
Anyway, so one identifier and some kind of background lookup for routing. I think it’s the way to go.
