I am Jayasimha Nuggehalli (go by ‘Jay’ just to make it easier for everyone :)). I am a level 10 Local Guide. I currently live in Cupertino, CA, USA. I am originally from India.
I started my Local Guide journey in July of 2017, so it is around 2.5 years since I started contributing to Google Maps. I was not aware of LocalGuidesConnect.com till May of 2019, joined connect as part of ConnectLive 2019 application process. Till that time I was not aware of any other LGs. After joining connect slowly got to know some of other active LGs on connect.
Fortunately I got selected for ConnectLive 2019, which gave me opportunity to meet 199 more LGs in person also several LGs on telegram before ConnectLive.
I started contributing on connect through posts on photography, sharing information on interesting places I have visited. Received Love! and support for many of my posts from my fellow LGs, LG Moderators and Google Moderators.
These interactions really helped me to grow virtual community. Then came 2020, The Covid and lock down. Apart from all the negatives of this situation, there are some positives.
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We started spending more time as a family, since everyone started working or studying from home
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Cooking more at home
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Of course spending more time on Local Guide Connect. Specially when I am tired of seeing more division, hatred, false information on other social media outlets.
Connect was very comforting not only to share information but also learn from other LGs.
Cooking at home helped me to share posts related to recipes, pictures of home cooked food on connect. This helped to expand LGs community who have similar interests.
Here are pictures of few posts I created based home cooked food.
This is when virtual meetups exploded on connect. I have participated in several virtual meetups, which were really informative and also understand passion of other LGs towards Local Guides program.
During this time Denise and Megan started the State Challenge virtual meetups. I must have attended almost all of these #StateChallenge meetups.
These #StateChallenge meetups helped me to contribute several ways and increased interaction with other LGs
- I modified some of my previous posts so that they can be part of #StateChallenge,
- Contribute new posts related to specific state challenge
- Participate as a guest host in couple of meetups
- Also assist in running couple of meetups
These challenges are informative, fun and competitive, Thanks to Denise and Megan for starting this.
Also got to know more about some of the regular attendees.
Here are some of the posts I posted for #StateChallenge
Other than Meetups I also like to participate in challenges specially photography related. This helped me to get to know more LGs who have similar interests. Able to expand the virtual community through these challenges.
Other than Connect, I am also member and moderator of several unofficial LG related facebook groups. This is also helping me to expand my LG virtual community.
I would like to Thank all the LGs who have supported me. Wish you all a Happy New Year 2021.
Here are top 48 LGs and Google Moderator who have encouraged me on Connect platform. Special thanks to them!