My wife had always been a sounding board for how well I am doing with decision issues in my life. She had been more intense in this when she considers how engrossed I had become in the Google Local Guides program. I remember when my pair of socks came some few months ago. She had wondered whether I did not deserve something more than a pair of socks. She had wondered why Google will not make monetary compensations for Local Guides’ efforts. I had always said to her that my interest in the program went way beyond making money from this engagement. I thought I had found a better way of getting better oragnized in pursuing what I can now call a life time hobby.
Perhaps I would have done a lot better if I had not just stumbled into the program. It would have been a lot easier for me if someone had told me the details of the program and how to take the different advantages of the many sides of the program. No, I did not experience a hand holding into the program. Rather, I stumbled into it and I had had to work my way through some kind of tricky but intriguing maze. Despite the pains of the trials and errors that had been in the path of my Local Guide experience, I should think I had plodded on in many parts by share doggedness and determination to be more organised in the way I keep my photos and videos.
I had been deeply engaged in photography as a hobby for as far back as forty five years now. The hobby started with those days of hard copy photographs that could really never be properly archived until the days of digitalization. Even then, through those early presentations of the advantages of the computer, there were the attendant difficulties of dealing with storing and retrieving using various media like floppy, disc, flash and hard drives. How could one have kept a proper track of so many photos and videos with most of them hidden and scattered in these different media? Indeed, the promise of a better way to store and retrieve my photos and videos was the gluing attraction to the Google’s Local Guides program for me. It did not matter if Google was not paying for as much as I could tie organising my photography materials in a better way through that arrangement.
Today, I can easily reach 9,600 of my photographs and videos submitted in the Local Guides program without hassle. However, the program has made me to realise that its easy archival and retrieval system serves beyond Guides’ personal desires like I have here. It makes submitted materials available to help other people find answers to different areas of interests to which the contributions of Guides can respond. I note that my 8,500 photo posts in the program have had some 4,900,000 views so far while the 1,100 video clips posted have had about 260,000 views. The viewers come with their different opinions on the materials posted, most times appreciating how they get a better understanding of their sites and places of interest through these posts. I am glad I can contribute to making life better for people in some of these little ways that add together to mean so much globally. Added to my photography, the badging system for Reviewers, Directors, Fact Finders, and Trailblazers in the program has opened me up to how my interest in photography can be more deeply used to help others. I do have personal complaints about the fairness of the assessments of participants in this system but I have come to find this is one of the areas one could have better handled issues in the program if I had been in touch with other members of the Local Guide community through Connect.
Now, I cannot agree more with the African proverb that says, “If you want to travel fast, go alone; but if you want to travel far, go together”. I will be using the times ahead to learn more about how to connect more with others in the community. As I move gradually into Level 10, I seek to spend more time trailblazing. I very much hope that lessons learnt in this journey will soon be shared in a book I propose to write. I will also be glad to see various parts of this experience become learning points for young people who I mentor at different fronts of my life.
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