I am applying

Google Maps contribution stories
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I will contine this by posting reply for any updates. A link to the Table of Contents of this thread for easy access.

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Now, the official event site is up and running. And the most importantly, application is now Open until “11:59 p.m. UTC on April 30, 2019”

It seems there is still lots of time, but it is critical to understand what it takes first. Otherwise, I cannot determine if I have enough time or not.

First things first. I need to be sure I have meet the basic requirements to have my application considered:

(Noted the difference between: requirement to submit an application Vs requirement to have my application considered)

#06 Hard Requirements

  1. Requirement on LocalGuides Level

*Applications are open to Local Guides Levels 5+ during the application period.

  • Pass. The requirement is I need to reach Level 5 by “11:59 p.m. UTC on April 30, 2019”. As I am an active Level 8 LocalGuides at the moment, I am fine for this one.
  1. Requirement on Age

*All Connect Live attendees must be at least 21 years old by the event start date on November 12, 2019.

  • Pass. The hidden half of myself wished I am still too young to apply. Still, another half is happy that I am matured enough to.

  • Doubt: If my DOB (Date of Brith) is on November 12, 1998, do I need to worry about TimeZone issues? I hope not. I am glad that I don’t have to worry about this.

  1. Am I invited to apply

*Some LocalGuides are being invited to apply by email.

  • I do not got the email invitation!!! Can I still apply?

  • I go through the Official Communications one more time:

  • I am convinced that Application is open for any LocalGuides meeting the basic requirements, which email invitation is not required.

  • I have double confirmation from a Googler that indeed my understanding on this is correct.

  • No email invitation is required in order to apply!

Summary: I considered myself have met the hard requirements to apply.

It is enough for today.

So far so good. I promised myself I will continue…

ps. If you have a question, it is likely that I am having a similar one that I have to answer in order to apply. Please share your questions with me. So that I know what I might be missing.

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進行中!!

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去年我不能說服你報名。

今年終於等到你出手了。

加油 夾 好運， @HankTu ！

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感謝!!!

因為只差一個主題無法完成剛好要出國就含恨搭機了!!

今年試試看!! 另外我快達到Level 10 了!! 在3月底前!!

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向前看！

穩步向前最重要。

@HankTu 等你好消息！

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Some doubts are clear. Thanks for these types of post @YK1001

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I am glad that you find it helpful, @Pravind_Yadav .

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Today, I am going to quickly read the official application form to identify what it takes to complete the form.

Last time, in #06 Hard Requirements, I determined I have met the basic requirements so that I am continue.

#07 - Study the Application Form

  1. The most important issues here, is NOT to submit the application by accident.
    1. As once we submitt and it being accepted, there is no way back.
    2. A Googler assured us that, only when all the Mandatory Fields (as marked by red asterisk *) are filled, our submission will be accepted.
    3. My personal take away is, I will not depend on the form to protect me against wrong inputs - wrong answers, broken links, etc.
    4. There is no Draft mode when filling in the application form. That means, we cannot save what we entered for completion later.
  2. There are some Factual Fields. That means as long as we know, we can quickly fill them in. I want to highlight two questions here:
    1. “What is the nationality listed on your passport?” and “In which country do you currently live?”
      1. The above two are mandatory fields. They offer choices from a drop down list.
      2. Make sure the country/region you need to choose is listed.
      3. If they are not, please report it in Connect and tag a Google Moderator for their immediate attention. There is one report already, which is fixed in 1-2 working days.
      4. This is critical, as if the needed entry is not provided, we cannot select the one we need.
  3. URLs to our Video / Posts / LIsts
    1. All the three are free text fields. That means we can input anything here.
    2. The most important is, we need to make sure they are being entered perfectly
    3. And we need to be able to generate / determine the correct URL from which they are hosted. (Details will be determined later.)
    4. Make sure the URLs are not broken
    5. Once the form is submitted, better not to modify the linked materials. As we do not know which version will be used.
  4. There are Open Ended questions, which are also mandatory
    1. “In a few sentences, tell us about your Local Guides involvement. Responses must be written in English.”
    2. In a few sentences, tell us why you want to attend Connect Live 2019 and what you hope to learn if chosen to attend. Responses must be written in English.
    3. I need to devise a co-herent theme to cover the Video / Posts / LIsts and these two questions. I want they can know me better.
  5. There are three Optional questions at the end. Asking our presense in Twitter, Instagram and Blog.
    1. As they are optional, I will only enter those that I think will help my application. Likely I will include only my Instagram and leave out Twitter and Blog.

It should be good for now. My next target is to looking deeper into the Video/Posts/Lists and the two Opened questions.

ps. My related posts about ConnectLive 2019

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Table of Contents

I am applying 2019-03-06 Opening Post for “I am applying” #LocalGuidesConnectLive 2019

#07 - Study the Application Form 2019-03-07 To identify what it takes to complete the official application form

#08 - Planning ahead 2019-03-08 What to do next? And a brief discussion on “Am I ready to aply?”.

09 - Skipped

#10 - Scheduling 2019, 03-10 A six week schedule to produce 3 sets of assignments. 9 days remianing to touch it up and submit.

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good for you!! I hope to meet you soon! Greetings from Colorado Springs… #isawu

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good for you!! I hope to meet you soon! Greetings from Colorado Springs…

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Thank you for your warm wishes, @Puggyisawu !

Yes, Let’s meet in Novemeber!

ps. In case you do not aware:

  1. We can edit our posts / comments / replies

  2. When are posts / comments / reply do not have replies to itself, we can delete them.

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This is the 3rd part of this series. Table of Content here .

I want to start this part by a little discussion:

Am I ready to apply?

I heard some LocalGuides decided not to apply because of various reasons. Here is the most common one:

  1. English is not for me

  2. I am not active in Maps enough

  3. I never join Meet-ups

  4. I never hosted Meet-ups

  5. I am new to Connect

  6. I am new to Local Guides. (Normally, they are already doing it without knowing it.)

  7. I have no chance …

In my opinion, the process of applying will help us to improve 1-6. Once we are stronger (in 1-6), then we have a better 7. Of course, it might be too late for 2019. But we have 2020 to hope for.

So, I will encourage all LGs that have meet the Basic Requirements to apply. (I talked about those in part 1.)

Here is my plan today:

08 - What Next?

  1. I have 3 assignments (1 minute Video / Connect Post/ Maps Lists) and two Open End questions (in the application form which the from is being discussed in part 2)
  2. There are themes (prompts) we need to follow when prepare these 5 items. Some are given, some are open. The aim is through these 5 items, I can let others understand me better, so that I can get selected.
  3. For the 3 assignments, there are specific techniques needed to create them. Thus I need to study how to do it.
  4. There are selection criteria (to be considered later). Should I start doing something to improve my chances?
    1. I decided to focus on the Application Submission itself at this stage.
    2. The criteria covers a wide range of points. And many of them are meant to measure my involvement consistency in the program, which I can do very little in two months time to make me outstanding.
    3. This is also the reason why I will only consider the selection criteria in details, once I am done with my application.

Going forward, I will take my time to study how to create the above 5 items, so that I know how to complete them. At the same time, I will start thinking of a common theme that will allow me to link those 5 items into an coherent set of introduction material about me.

To be continued …

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@YK1001 thank you so much for taking the time to share your application process

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I was not going to apply as well because like your post said, I didn’t think I had a chance. (Actually, reasons 2-7 all apply, lol) Plus the application seems a little overwhelming. But I think I’m going to try it, because I really would love to go and I think it would be an absolutely amazing experience.

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This is the 4th part of this series. Table of Content here .

Yesterday, I have a chance to discuss various aspects of LocalGuides with a LocalGuide face to face. Of course, applying to #LocalGuidesConnectLive 2019 is a main part of it.

Interesting points have developed, which are really helpful for my application planing, and at the same time, materials that I can write about.

09 - Skipped

#10 - Scheduling

We still have enough time (Application deadline is Apr 30, 2019 23:59 UTC). So this schedule is feasible. And it will solve a major problem: thinking for too long without producing anything publishable.

The idea behind this schedule is: treat it like an examination. Know when the exam will take place. We take time to prepare. But no matter what, we need to sit into the exam. And when the time is up, we need to put pens down, and paper collected.

So it can works like this:

Day 0 - Say, this is Saturdays

  1. Mark 3 hours on the next Saturday. Treat it as the examination time.

  2. Give a target for this exam. Like: to produce one 1-min Video and publish to YouTube. Note down the URL

Day 1 - Knowing there are three topics to choose from, think about them.

Day 2/3 - Do brainstorming

Day 4/5 - Do some organization

Day 6 - Do some practise

Day 7 - Show time.

And repeat the planning for the next item. (we have 5)

  1. Remember, no matter how satisfy or not satisfy we are about the product, we need to make it to a publishable state:

  • that mean, we assume there can be no more time for us to redo. And we might simply submit it in our application.

  • If there are still enough time, of course we can schedule to re-take this exam. And we have the benefit to decide which one is better to submit. And of course, we can even choose an entire different topic for our next attempt.

I guess I need the following time for my video shooting:

  1. 1 day to write the script

  2. 1 hour to practise - including find out my natural English speaking speed (speaking English is not natural to me at all.)

  3. 1 hour for shooting process

  • 1 min to take one shot

  • 2 min to review

  • 3 min to prepare for the next shot

  • I can have 10 shots to get it done.

  1. 1 day for post processing

  • I do not know how to do video editing. But one task very likely I need to do, which on 2017, my friend has done it for me:

  • Extract the sound track from the Video. Do some Noise cancellation. Adjust volume, and mix it back to the video.

  • For 2018, I use a BlueTooth mic, and I skipped that step. But the sound is not as good as in 2017.

Then I will repeat this process for my next item. The most important part is: the aim of this schedule is to produce the whole set of the 5 assignments ready to be submitted. So unless I have a full set ready, I will not spend time to redo any of the “done” parts.

Having 1 set ready should be possible in 3 weeks. For the next set, 2 weeks. Final set 1 week. Still have 9 more days to decide which set to be used, and do some final touch up.

It is good for now.

To be continued …

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Yes, @Sheashay82 .

Give it a try. Don’t think too much about our chances. (I would not have applied years ago at all if I had thought about chances.)

As if we do not, we have no chance. After we do it, only Google will know what our chances will be.

Good luck!

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Thanks for sharing. Benefit so much.

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@YK1001
Thank you for your sharing.
I’m applying too, and I write a Post here.
Maybe you can give my some suggestions. Thx =D

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