I just realized that for very many years, I had been living a passion; keeping memories alive; help others see from my own eyes, and also, to see what others have to share about places that I am interested in, but not just that, I have equally realized that other people, a growing number of them, hundreds of thousands of people from around the world, are also interested in what I have to say about places they too care about.
In fact, I just realized that I have helped thousands of people to place the places they care about on the map!
Many thanks to Google for the maps initiative, and more for making it possible for people like me to help enrich the map by using pictures and words to create vivid images of places of interest.
I started being conscious of the value of my contributions to the map when, in 2017, I tried locating the Liaison Office of Anambra State government in Lagos State, I followed the Google Maps directions to navigate to the destination, only to be told that they had moved to a new location, about 12 minutes drive away, I painstakingly located the new address, did my business there and took some pictures as well as exercised for the first time, the guts to suggest an edit to the address of the liaison office on the map, then I took some photographs, in stealth mode, and went home, It was my earliest memory of helping people find the places they care about, in a couple of hours, my edit was approved, and the pictures I shared had got so many interests (expressed in hundreds of views), I thought to myself, you can definitely do more.
But, for as far back as I can remember, since I had my first camera phone in 2005, I had been taking photos, and not actually photographs that show my fashion sense, but photos that tell the stories of places I had been to. From 2008, when I had my first desktop computer, I started backing up photos, and I got phones with better camera in the passage of years, and also got computers with better storage over the years too.
Today, I looked through my laptop, inside a folder I named 1p, and I realized, I had been taking photos and storing them diligently, with over 15gb content of pictures, I look through and see some pictures of places I have visited in the past, which are still very crystal representations of the places, or others turning to artifacts (for instance, when there was a plane crash in the Iju-Ishaga area of Lagos, I visited and was able to take some photos, I can bet that the houses around there and the general landscape of the vicinity must have changed over the years, the pictures I have today can already serve as a representation of the old reality of this place).
Today, I am a full blown local guide, deeply aware that what I share about places help uncountable number of others to make decisions about such places. Hence, my objectivity (as much as possible) in writing reviews, my passion to take clear, distinct photographs and my zeal to see what others have to say about places I am interested in.
https://goo.gl/maps/xuPSqP7oegPhR2ar9
https://goo.gl/maps/M1Yq5gDVsYaJf4Lm9
https://goo.gl/maps/LZPs3Hh2hwsVe4VA7
https://photos.app.goo.gl/YGUxUgrzoD5gm6ZHA
By the time Google singled me out for a reward (the Socks, which never arrived,) I was already making sure that my day, my week, my month is not spent without contributing to the map.
But being that I have identified a big gap in the discoverability of places, I have secretly ordained myself as the apostle of discoverability, in this regard, and my map editing time is largely spent discovering new places! As such, I as much as possible want to talk about my experience with places on the map, I also want to help others find the places that matter to them on the map.
I moved from writing one line reiviews of places (for instance just writing “seondary school”) to sharing relevant experiences
By early March 2020, I had got to Level 8, and just a few thousand points to cross over to level 9, with a goal to reach level 9 before March ends,
I have since started benefiting from the associations and interactions with other local Guides through platforms like the Local Guides Connect, Whatsapp groups, Telegram Groups and the ones on facebook, admittedly, these interactions have helped me gain consciousness of qualitative contributions as well as served me as good avenues to become more social, by meeting others in person through meet-ups, needless to add, but, it also never be over-emphasized that I have met a lot of wonderful people since I started closely associating with the Local Guides Community.