All Things Location

My post is a result of being unable to get an issue fixed for a few years now.  I've asked our county who assigns addresses and the USPS over the years with no luck.  Maybe some of the Community members here can provide me with some ideas on where to go next.  Maybe there are a handful of address data point managers that I need to reach out to directly to correct this?

The latest frustration is within the Zillow real estate site and specifically the usage of Great Schools who provides the site's information on school locations.  Specifically, Great Schools is who referred me to Pitney Bowes when I said there was an issue in that our school didn't show up on our property listings in this area and after I provided the information, they still did not/could not fix the issue. 

Up front, I acknowledge this may seem trivial to some reading this, but what if you live next door to an awesome one room public school with less than 20 students, located right in town, and yet, it does not come up on a search for your town?  This should be a fantastic selling point, but when someone searches, they are not provided the information.  What if, when you put in your zip code for your town, it default maps or places your town in the middle of "no where" instead of your town located right on US Highway 40, an [almost] cross country road?  What if every time you go to purchase a new cell phone or work with a tech support they tell you "oh you live in the middle of nowhere and we don't provide services there."   What if almost every time you ordered something to be shipped to you, your address came back as "unable to verify"  to the vendor and you and the vendor have to play address semantics to get an address combination that would work to get the package to you?  (Thank goodness for FedEx and UPS drivers who stick with the companies long enough to know their customers!) 

Specifically, our town has a Post Office, a library, a grocery store and gas station, a town park with RV spaces, a cemetery, a wonderful river, a restaurant that needs new owners and a seasonal locker plant.  Not quite the middle of no-where, more specifically, about half-way between Denver, CO and Salt Lake City, UT!  How do I proceed to get the data points of 81640 and Maybell, CO to link up ALL the time?  I know it will take time and updates of data to achieve this, but I need starting points please!

------------------------------
MG Kinnett
Knowledge Community Shared Account
------------------------------

Let me refer this to one of our data product managers for review and comment.

------------------------------
Joe Francica
PITNEY BOWES SOFTWARE
BOULDER CO
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-01-2019 18:12
From: MG Kinnett
Subject: Correcting inaccurate/misleading data in maps?? Looking for ideas...

My post is a result of being unable to get an issue fixed for a few years now.  I've asked our county who assigns addresses and the USPS over the years with no luck.  Maybe some of the Community members here can provide me with some ideas on where to go next.  Maybe there are a handful of address data point managers that I need to reach out to directly to correct this?

The latest frustration is within the Zillow real estate site and specifically the usage of Great Schools who provides the site's information on school locations.  Specifically, Great Schools is who referred me to Pitney Bowes when I said there was an issue in that our school didn't show up on our property listings in this area and after I provided the information, they still did not/could not fix the issue.

Up front, I acknowledge this may seem trivial to some reading this, but what if you live next door to an awesome one room public school with less than 20 students, located right in town, and yet, it does not come up on a search for your town?  This should be a fantastic selling point, but when someone searches, they are not provided the information.  What if, when you put in your zip code for your town, it default maps or places your town in the middle of "no where" instead of your town located right on US Highway 40, an [almost] cross country road?  What if every time you go to purchase a new cell phone or work with a tech support they tell you "oh you live in the middle of nowhere and we don't provide services there."   What if almost every time you ordered something to be shipped to you, your address came back as "unable to verify"  to the vendor and you and the vendor have to play address semantics to get an address combination that would work to get the package to you?  (Thank goodness for FedEx and UPS drivers who stick with the companies long enough to know their customers!)

Specifically, our town has a Post Office, a library, a grocery store and gas station, a town park with RV spaces, a cemetery, a wonderful river, a restaurant that needs new owners and a seasonal locker plant.  Not quite the middle of no-where, more specifically, about half-way between Denver, CO and Salt Lake City, UT!  How do I proceed to get the data points of 81640 and Maybell, CO to link up ALL the time?  I know it will take time and updates of data to achieve this, but I need starting points please!

------------------------------
MG Kinnett
Knowledge Community Shared Account
------------------------------

Thank you Joe!  Any leads towards answers are appreciated.
m-

------------------------------
MG Kinnett
Knowledge Community Shared Account
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2019 10:18
From: Joe Francica
Subject: Correcting inaccurate/misleading data in maps?? Looking for ideas...

Let me refer this to one of our data product managers for review and comment.

------------------------------
Joe Francica
PITNEY BOWES SOFTWARE
BOULDER CO

Original Message:
Sent: 05-01-2019 18:12
From: MG Kinnett
Subject: Correcting inaccurate/misleading data in maps?? Looking for ideas...

My post is a result of being unable to get an issue fixed for a few years now.  I've asked our county who assigns addresses and the USPS over the years with no luck.  Maybe some of the Community members here can provide me with some ideas on where to go next.  Maybe there are a handful of address data point managers that I need to reach out to directly to correct this?

The latest frustration is within the Zillow real estate site and specifically the usage of Great Schools who provides the site's information on school locations.  Specifically, Great Schools is who referred me to Pitney Bowes when I said there was an issue in that our school didn't show up on our property listings in this area and after I provided the information, they still did not/could not fix the issue.

Up front, I acknowledge this may seem trivial to some reading this, but what if you live next door to an awesome one room public school with less than 20 students, located right in town, and yet, it does not come up on a search for your town?  This should be a fantastic selling point, but when someone searches, they are not provided the information.  What if, when you put in your zip code for your town, it default maps or places your town in the middle of "no where" instead of your town located right on US Highway 40, an [almost] cross country road?  What if every time you go to purchase a new cell phone or work with a tech support they tell you "oh you live in the middle of nowhere and we don't provide services there."   What if almost every time you ordered something to be shipped to you, your address came back as "unable to verify"  to the vendor and you and the vendor have to play address semantics to get an address combination that would work to get the package to you?  (Thank goodness for FedEx and UPS drivers who stick with the companies long enough to know their customers!)

Specifically, our town has a Post Office, a library, a grocery store and gas station, a town park with RV spaces, a cemetery, a wonderful river, a restaurant that needs new owners and a seasonal locker plant.  Not quite the middle of no-where, more specifically, about half-way between Denver, CO and Salt Lake City, UT!  How do I proceed to get the data points of 81640 and Maybell, CO to link up ALL the time?  I know it will take time and updates of data to achieve this, but I need starting points please!

------------------------------
MG Kinnett
Knowledge Community Shared Account
------------------------------

Hi MG,

Great to hear from you and to understand more about your particular corner of the planet.   I see Maybell has held the record for the lowest temperature ever recorded in the state of Colorado at -61F!  That makes the -50F record low at the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire (my home state) seem almost mild in comparison. Hopefully your hardiness and persistence getting Maybell on the map will have paid off to at least some small degree with your post.

I am the product manager at Pitney Bowes who is responsible for the schools data.   I asked the team last week to look into what we had for schools in the Moffat County school district.  Turns out we did not have the Maybell elementary school - which is listed on the district page - in our dataset.  It has now been added as a school point.   This will still take some time to make its way out to our customers as we release our data products every 3 months and then it becomes the responsibility of our customers to use the latest data in their applications as/when they see fit.  So your note did indeed get the Maybell school on our map and that will certainly help to ensure it gets on many others as well!

I also manage our postcode boundary and point data here at Pitney Bowes so I wanted to briefly comment on the 81640 postal code and why you might be seeing the town represented inaccurately at times.  Some applications might be using a centroid ( a point calculated in the geographic center ) of the ZIP code 81640.  If you look at the screen capture I've attached the yellow points represent mail delivery associated with postal code of 81640.  This does cover much of the northwest part of Moffat county.  Even though the post office in your town of Maybell is in the far southeast corner, there appears to be mail being delivered from that post office up Highway 318 past Sunbeam further northwest.  Placing a point in the center of the postal code would put it well away from the town.  The US Census Bureau does have a rather precise and local boundary available for Maybell so there are ways for the town to be located more precisely on the map, it just depends what any given company's application is using to determine the location of your town.

In the case of Pitney Bowes, we have the postal code of 81640 as a boundary and a centroid point.  We have that census place boundary for Maybell, along with a number of Points of Interest for the town as well.   Now, we will soon offer the elementary school in our schools product.   Thanks for reaching out to us and best of luck going forward.


John Tagliaferro

------------------------------
John Tagliaferro
PITNEY BOWES SOFTWARE, INC
Maitland FL
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-04-2019 20:59
From: MG Kinnett
Subject: Correcting inaccurate/misleading data in maps?? Looking for ideas...

Thank you Joe!  Any leads towards answers are appreciated.
m-

------------------------------
MG Kinnett
Knowledge Community Shared Account

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2019 10:18
From: Joe Francica
Subject: Correcting inaccurate/misleading data in maps?? Looking for ideas...

Let me refer this to one of our data product managers for review and comment.

------------------------------
Joe Francica
PITNEY BOWES SOFTWARE
BOULDER CO

Original Message:
Sent: 05-01-2019 18:12
From: MG Kinnett
Subject: Correcting inaccurate/misleading data in maps?? Looking for ideas...

My post is a result of being unable to get an issue fixed for a few years now.  I've asked our county who assigns addresses and the USPS over the years with no luck.  Maybe some of the Community members here can provide me with some ideas on where to go next.  Maybe there are a handful of address data point managers that I need to reach out to directly to correct this?

The latest frustration is within the Zillow real estate site and specifically the usage of Great Schools who provides the site's information on school locations.  Specifically, Great Schools is who referred me to Pitney Bowes when I said there was an issue in that our school didn't show up on our property listings in this area and after I provided the information, they still did not/could not fix the issue.

Up front, I acknowledge this may seem trivial to some reading this, but what if you live next door to an awesome one room public school with less than 20 students, located right in town, and yet, it does not come up on a search for your town?  This should be a fantastic selling point, but when someone searches, they are not provided the information.  What if, when you put in your zip code for your town, it default maps or places your town in the middle of "no where" instead of your town located right on US Highway 40, an [almost] cross country road?  What if every time you go to purchase a new cell phone or work with a tech support they tell you "oh you live in the middle of nowhere and we don't provide services there."   What if almost every time you ordered something to be shipped to you, your address came back as "unable to verify"  to the vendor and you and the vendor have to play address semantics to get an address combination that would work to get the package to you?  (Thank goodness for FedEx and UPS drivers who stick with the companies long enough to know their customers!)

Specifically, our town has a Post Office, a library, a grocery store and gas station, a town park with RV spaces, a cemetery, a wonderful river, a restaurant that needs new owners and a seasonal locker plant.  Not quite the middle of no-where, more specifically, about half-way between Denver, CO and Salt Lake City, UT!  How do I proceed to get the data points of 81640 and Maybell, CO to link up ALL the time?  I know it will take time and updates of data to achieve this, but I need starting points please!

------------------------------
MG Kinnett
Knowledge Community Shared Account
------------------------------

Hello and Thank You John. 

Yes, we do have some cold temps here but since we have such fresh air, blue skies, and a bit of altitude, we hardly notice!!  And, with a vast "neighborhood" of ranchers, we are hardy souls.  :)   

I sincerely appreciate you for getting a fix in to improve the mapping yet understand it will take time to fully achieve based on participation of updates.  Your efforts are outstanding and PB's willingness to listen was refreshing.  There is so much to offer in this part of the state and this is one step towards recognition.  I uploaded a couple pictures of one of the big spring kickoff events which is a large horse drive from winter pastures to summer locations throughout the state.  Fun times for all when the horses trot for miles west to east on US Hwy 40 and the town holds it's Heritage Days.

Enjoy that Florida sunshine; our spring is turning out to be a beautiful one!
MG

------------------------------
MG Kinnett
Knowledge Community Shared Account
Shelton CT
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-13-2019 15:56
From: John Tagliaferro
Subject: Correcting inaccurate/misleading data in maps?? Looking for ideas...

Hi MG,

Great to hear from you and to understand more about your particular corner of the planet.   I see Maybell has held the record for the lowest temperature ever recorded in the state of Colorado at -61F!  That makes the -50F record low at the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire (my home state) seem almost mild in comparison. Hopefully your hardiness and persistence getting Maybell on the map will have paid off to at least some small degree with your post.

I am the product manager at Pitney Bowes who is responsible for the schools data.   I asked the team last week to look into what we had for schools in the Moffat County school district.  Turns out we did not have the Maybell elementary school - which is listed on the district page - in our dataset.  It has now been added as a school point.   This will still take some time to make its way out to our customers as we release our data products every 3 months and then it becomes the responsibility of our customers to use the latest data in their applications as/when they see fit.  So your note did indeed get the Maybell school on our map and that will certainly help to ensure it gets on many others as well!

I also manage our postcode boundary and point data here at Pitney Bowes so I wanted to briefly comment on the 81640 postal code and why you might be seeing the town represented inaccurately at times.  Some applications might be using a centroid ( a point calculated in the geographic center ) of the ZIP code 81640.  If you look at the screen capture I've attached the yellow points represent mail delivery associated with postal code of 81640.  This does cover much of the northwest part of Moffat county.  Even though the post office in your town of Maybell is in the far southeast corner, there appears to be mail being delivered from that post office up Highway 318 past Sunbeam further northwest.  Placing a point in the center of the postal code would put it well away from the town.  The US Census Bureau does have a rather precise and local boundary available for Maybell so there are ways for the town to be located more precisely on the map, it just depends what any given company's application is using to determine the location of your town.

In the case of Pitney Bowes, we have the postal code of 81640 as a boundary and a centroid point.  We have that census place boundary for Maybell, along with a number of Points of Interest for the town as well.   Now, we will soon offer the elementary school in our schools product.   Thanks for reaching out to us and best of luck going forward.


John Tagliaferro

------------------------------
John Tagliaferro
PITNEY BOWES SOFTWARE, INC
Maitland FL

Original Message:
Sent: 05-04-2019 20:59
From: MG Kinnett
Subject: Correcting inaccurate/misleading data in maps?? Looking for ideas...

Thank you Joe!  Any leads towards answers are appreciated.
m-

------------------------------
MG Kinnett
Knowledge Community Shared Account

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2019 10:18
From: Joe Francica
Subject: Correcting inaccurate/misleading data in maps?? Looking for ideas...

Let me refer this to one of our data product managers for review and comment.

------------------------------
Joe Francica
PITNEY BOWES SOFTWARE
BOULDER CO

Original Message:
Sent: 05-01-2019 18:12
From: MG Kinnett
Subject: Correcting inaccurate/misleading data in maps?? Looking for ideas...

My post is a result of being unable to get an issue fixed for a few years now.  I've asked our county who assigns addresses and the USPS over the years with no luck.  Maybe some of the Community members here can provide me with some ideas on where to go next.  Maybe there are a handful of address data point managers that I need to reach out to directly to correct this?

The latest frustration is within the Zillow real estate site and specifically the usage of Great Schools who provides the site's information on school locations.  Specifically, Great Schools is who referred me to Pitney Bowes when I said there was an issue in that our school didn't show up on our property listings in this area and after I provided the information, they still did not/could not fix the issue.

Up front, I acknowledge this may seem trivial to some reading this, but what if you live next door to an awesome one room public school with less than 20 students, located right in town, and yet, it does not come up on a search for your town?  This should be a fantastic selling point, but when someone searches, they are not provided the information.  What if, when you put in your zip code for your town, it default maps or places your town in the middle of "no where" instead of your town located right on US Highway 40, an [almost] cross country road?  What if every time you go to purchase a new cell phone or work with a tech support they tell you "oh you live in the middle of nowhere and we don't provide services there."   What if almost every time you ordered something to be shipped to you, your address came back as "unable to verify"  to the vendor and you and the vendor have to play address semantics to get an address combination that would work to get the package to you?  (Thank goodness for FedEx and UPS drivers who stick with the companies long enough to know their customers!)

Specifically, our town has a Post Office, a library, a grocery store and gas station, a town park with RV spaces, a cemetery, a wonderful river, a restaurant that needs new owners and a seasonal locker plant.  Not quite the middle of no-where, more specifically, about half-way between Denver, CO and Salt Lake City, UT!  How do I proceed to get the data points of 81640 and Maybell, CO to link up ALL the time?  I know it will take time and updates of data to achieve this, but I need starting points please!

------------------------------
MG Kinnett
Knowledge Community Shared Account
------------------------------