Wishing every Local Guides contributor across a world my admiration for the work you all are doing relentlessly. As we see the Connect Forum completing 9 years, this forum has been the go-to place for all the like-minded Local Guides who went beyond just contributing on Maps, and felt the urge to build and belong in a community. So, once again, a happy 9th to the Local Guides Connect Forum and its esteemed members.
Let’s come to the 9 questions section from the perspective of a long-time Local Guides contributor:-
Where are you from?
My name is Resham Das, and I come from an Indian city named Kolkata. Formerly known as Calcutta with a rich history, being once the capital of the gigantic British Indian empire, this 335-years old city is regarded today as the cultural capital of modern India, boasting hundreds of heritage architectures around the city (eg. Victoria Memorial Hall), which along with the northern part of the city carrying nostalgia in its nooks and corners and the southern part having its contemporary, glittering makeover - builds a unique, blended identity for itself. Born and brought up in one of the busiest business hub neighborhood of eastern India, named Burrabazar in North Kolkata, I currently live in a growing locality called Behala in South Kolkata.
When did you join Connect?
I joined the Connect Forum back in the year 2016, shortly after it was launched. My first badge earned here was the New Friend one, earned on November 8, 2016. Interestingly, we had our Local Guides communities earlier hosted on the now-defunct Google Plus social networking site, with pages built for each of the recognized Local Guides communities, including the West Bengal Local Guides, the first ever Local Guides community I was invited to be a member of. This community has been the one supervising Local Guiding activities in this part of the world even today. So, with the advent of Connect, it was a transition effort initially, as our vibrant members took on the initiative shortly to become active Connect writers.
How did you learn about Connect in the first place?
I came to know about the Google Local Guides program from an article on the local Bengali newspaper, named Anandabazar Patrika, highlighting the journey of senior Local Guide @DrShaunak from Serampore, West Bengal, to the Connect Summit 2016 at the Google HQ in California, US. I met him in Kolkata after his return, and that is how I got to know about the whole concept of Local Guiding. Now, as a Google Maps enthusiast from my childhood days (read my Maps story here), I was instantly interested to be a part of the program, and he invited me to be a member of the West Bengal Local Guides community. Therefore, during my first Local Guides meetup event at College Street & Victoria Memorial, Kolkata, I was introduced to the concept of Connect Forum - a unique social media aimed to connect Local Guides across the world on a uniform platform, as well as host unofficial Local Guides meetups using this forum.
What time of the day/week do you like to check what’s new on Connect?
Being connected to multiple Local Guides communities across these 9 years in the Local Guides program, I am a regular user of the Connect Forum these days. I like to read through the amazing articles written by my fellow Local Guides around the world, especially by a large pool of Indian Local Guides contributors who showcase their articles through the unofficial communities over WhatsApp or other social media forums. This way, I get to know about the cultural context of different geographies, look at the unique initiatives taken by different Local Guides communities to make Google Maps a smart, resourceful arena of information such as - TRAC, Road Mapper Challenge, Accessibility & Sustainability Challenges, Map Mentors, Environmental Lookouts such as the Plastic Spoon challenge, Chai Pe Charcha, Heritage Walks, Food Crawls, Geo Walks and many such ideas. So, I visit the Connect Forum at least thrice everyday to look at the new articles, respond to the mentions, and support the work of fellow Local Guides here.
Have you attended or hosted a meet-up on Connect?
I have hosted 5+ physical meetups, co-hosted 20+ physical, virtual and hybrid meetups across my 10 years journey on the Local Guides program. This included the glorious Asia One Meetup, a first meetup of it’s kind, where Local Guides from all parts of India came together and sponsored a meetup at Noida, near Delhi in the national capital that saw the footfall of 100+ Local Guides, with words of appreciation received from all over the world, as an array of interactive events took place in this wonderful festival of Local Guiding over two days, including a tour through the heritage tourist spots of Delhi. I was involved in arranging multiple friendship meetups comprising of Local Guides from different nations, both virtually and physically.
I have hosted and attended Local Guides meetups across different cities in India - including Kolkata, New Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and Bongaon. Hosted by West Bengal Local Guides and Delhi Local Guides Chapter communities, I had the opportunity to attend some 50+ amazing physical meetups in these cities, meeting a dynamic character of Local Guides contributors who made my involvement in this program much more exciting, beyond the rush of earning points, levels, viewership, rankings and badges on Maps and Forum.
What’s your favorite moment on Connect?
I do not have any distinct all-time favorite moment here on Connect, but looking at the various kinds of recognition that my fellow Local Guides receive here, especially from communities I am part of, really makes me feel happy. @PritishB being acknowledged as the 2021 Guiding Star; him and @KalyanPal being recognized as the Accessibility Champion, @DrShaunak and @SayantanDatta being selected to represent India at past Connect Live Summits & Creator Conversations, @PritishB, @Shaunak, @NandKK being selected for Connect Live Bangalore 2025, @deepakjhic being selected on multiple Google Product summits, the Asia One Summit 2019 getting a shout-out from the then Googler Connect Forum moderators, or every mention I get on @AdamGT Movers & Shakers leaderboard categories, including the Top Movers & Shakers Leaderboards Champion - 2024 badge earned - these are some of my favorite moments on the Connect Forum.
Tell us about one Connect feature that you love.
The Google Maps Contribution Stories section is an absolute treasure within the whole Local Guides forum web architecture. This is the place where we find some amazing threads on Local Guides reflecting on the behind-the-scene stories from every contribution they make on the Maps, or Local Guides meetups they host. This section of the Forum helps a user sitting in a rural village of Alipurduar district get a curated view of the Niagra Falls from Canada side. This section helps a Local Guide to express the beautiful customs and traditions of their local culture in form of text, image, videos, lists along with relevant Google Maps links and reference, in front of the whole world! Here is one of my threads with high traction shared in this very section, reflecting on the essence of the cultural epic Durgapuja in Bengal.
What one feature would you add to Connect if you could?
One feature I would like to have on the Connect Forum is an logged-in user-specific performance metrics page in the context of compliance to Google Maps policies, to evaluate the contributions of that logged-in user’s Google Maps contributions profile. This is an extremely important feature today, given the large volume of smartphone users uploading byteloads of data on Maps, sometimes totally unaware of the guidelines such as - avoiding posting selfies, group photos, blurred/shaken/low quality images, irrelevant images or videos, incorrect photos of places, spam reviews, extremely short and uninformative reviews, edited reels, heavily edited doctored images, images of places with face clearly visible as a privacy concern, incorrect edits, incorrect place markers, invalid place additions such as one’s own residential houses, listing non-business places from real-world as business entities on Maps, uploading sensitive data or images at restricted places and many other such matters. Hence, if by leveraging advanced AI to build this metrics system, visible strictly to that particular end user and Googlers only, can be presented on one’s Local Guides Forum profile, that Local Guide would be able to review their own work, understand the guidelines better by identifying what’s right and what’s wrong while making Maps contributions, and most importantly, they can be able to guide and influence other Local Guides through community channels, physical and virtual meetups or through Forum threads, to inspire quality contribution on Maps. Through this feature, the Local Guides is visualized to click on each metric, or notification from violation reviews, using a one-click solution to go and delete/edit such erroneous contributions.
This initiative, if implemented, might be able to heal the Google Maps from a heavy load of spams unfortunately existent today.
Tell us about one thing you’re planning to share or do on Connect this year.
Local Guiding is considered by many in our communities as a volunteer activity with a noble intent to add relevant information on Google Maps that helps one in need - to get information about a place to visit, get recommendations and reviews, analyze price tags, personal and vehicular navigation, emergency information, accessibility data and so much more. Keeping this spirit of social work in the mind, I have plans to collaborate Local Guiding with different communities that work for similar causes in different domains such as - feeding the underprivileged kids, arranging education or fun activities at orphanages and old-age homes, help arrange health checkups for the impoverished, donating books for a better future or quilts for the winter season at rural corners of the state, or tree plantation drives. As Local Guides, we should be able to spread words on such noble initiatives on Connect Forum, as well as upload metadata on Maps about the places we visit during such activities. I have already been part of few such activities in 2025 - a birthday celebration with 100 kids from a slum in Bodhgaya, Bihar; a dental camp for school kids at Bhadreswar, Hooghly; an afternoon spent with blessings from the seniors citizen residents at Ashray Old Age Home, Kolkata; a movie screening to enable first-ever movie hall experience for 65 special kids from Shri Gandhi Vidyalaya High School, Entally; and a blood donation drive at Apollo Hospitals, Kolkata. I am sure we can incorporate such virtuous causes can be integrated as part of Local Guides challenges, if planned and executed in a right way.