Hi @Julie_A Thank you for this inspiring post about Connect 9th anniversary. Throughout the years, Connect has given me wonderful memories, friendships beyond boundaries and motivation to contribute to make this world a better place. I am sharing my answers to the 9 questions below.
Where are you from?
I am from Bangalore, India
When did you join Connect?
I joined Connect on early 2017
How did you learn about Connect in the first place?
I got the invitation mail to join Local Guides program when I first shared the photo of a hotel we stayed in Hyderabad. Then I discovered Connect through Google Maps. I would never forget my first post sharing about some 4000 views I recivee on my photos in Google Maps on Connect, and that time I had no idea that, how less it is compared to other local guides contributions. Even then I received wonderful and memorable wishes from other local guides for my contribution which I will never forget. Now I have posted over 100 times on Connect and it all started with that appreciation for my small contribution on my first post.
What time of the day/week do you like to check what’s new on Connect?
After getting back from work. And whenever I get the email notification about Connect especially when someone mention me, I right away jump in. But I do like to be more active on Connect during weekends to try writing posts.
Have you attended or hosted a meet-up on Connect?
I love hosting and attending meetups. I have a collection of wonderful memories from the meetups which I hosted as well as I attended. My first meetup was on 2017 when I was in third year of my college, I hosted my first photo walk meetup at Vellore and I had my college junior and my class mate college attend the meetup. Here is the link to my first ever meetup on March 2017. Then I hosted a Knowledge sharing meetup that same month and went on like this. Now my recent one which I hosted was Ramadhan food walk meetup some months ago during Ramadhan. Other than that, I have attended many meetups and one of my favorite ones will always be the Asia One meetup which was hosted at Delhi on June 2019. I remember travelling all the way to Delhi from Bangalore which was about 2000kms far to attend the meetup and it was an amazing experience to meet many of my India Local Guides friends. And was able to attend Connect Live 2018 was nothing less than a dream for me, as I got the chance to meet my global local guides friends in person. Below is the photo collage, where first two photos were from my first ever meetup and the third one is the Knowledge sharing meetup which was the second one in that same month. The fourth one is from my recent meetup which I hosted some months ago.
What’s your favorite moment on Connect?
I will never forget the time when Connect Live 2017 results were coming out, when many of my local guides friends were active on Connect and sharing live updates about receiving the invitation. I felt like everyone was at the edge of their seat and may be on the same timezone that time😄, and sharing updates realtime on Connect and it was filled with excitement, hope and sending glad tidings to those got selected.
Tell us about one Connect feature that you love.
Drafts is one of my favorite Connect feature as I dont need to worry about losing the contents when writing a posts or when replying. Especially I use it frequently when I want to get to the original post while replying and get back to the reply and I get the draft content back to continue. Special mention would be Preview option as well as Macros option which helps me preview before posting and save important links and to share with fellow local guides.
What one feature would you add to Connect if you could?
I would love to add an option, when I host a meetup, to submit the list of users on Connect who has actually attended the meetup (either physical or virtual one) as a feedback so that they will get the Meetups Attended count increased on their profile.
Tell us about one thing you’re planning to share or do on Connect this year.
I am planning to write a series of posts (atleast 10) everything about 360 Photography. I have been a Street View Trusted Photographer and did 360 Photography using Ricoh Theta V (which I received it at Connect Live 2018) and also using DSLR and would like to share about it on Connect discussing various aspects of it, etc. Also would like to resume basic cooking related posts as I used to do years ago.
Thats all about it and I wish Connect a very happy 9th anniversary.