Hi my dear LGs around the globe… I am Khurram Siddiqui from Karachi, Pakistan…
My journey as a Google Local Guide started in a scorching afternoon of August 2018 when I checked Google map for a nearest branch of my bank, left home but didn’t find the place there. So I irately went to Google Map for the removal of that place. Upon my request, the place was not only removed but I was offered to serve as a Google Local Guide for my community. Since I had a keen desire to serve people around me, had a pleasant past experience of Google Map & knew what great impacts it might bring in my personal development, I accepted it as an honour for me & since then proudly connected with this largest online community.
Being a Local Guide, I feel this program is a blessing in different aspects. It is the most beneficial platform that motivates the members for the personal development, community economic growth & supreme public services simultaneously.
If I talk about personal development, I believe it is the best, doubtlessly the largest community program of like-minded people in the society and around the globe, where thousands of Local Guides gather to serve, learn, explore, share their experiences & thus improve their potential and make this horizon the One World.
In Karachi, we have an active team of Local Guides who meet, share, guide & thus learn each other.
We recently arranged a wonderful meetup, host by @KashifMisidia where I got an honour to meet some more brilliant local guides from my city like @swalaymuhamm, @Bilal_shaikh , @mariazaib , @AsifShahmiri , @jahanzebkayani, @JoharK & @Shaheen_Gul where @KashifMisidia explained this program for the new LGs. In short, every meetup is a unique opportunity to meet friends, share, exchange & enhance our learning.
After getting in this program, I visit the places in different prospective. Now I feel my responsibility to bring missing places on map by adding, or correct the map by reporting the moved places or write honest reviews about the worthy places in my country. It is the best way to present my Pakistan & its beauty.
It is the best way to serve commuters who are in search some place of map or want something to know about a place through my honest reviews & answers of their queries. Their trust on Google Maps drives me to share all necessary details about the place on map so that they may save their valuable time by just a single click on map. The feedback I get from people are really priceless.
Most important factor of this program for me is the community development. I can bet this is the best channel to promote the local businesses. We can not only introduce low-scale or hidden traders by posting their business place on the map but also describe their products & services in Q/A sections.
I personally knew low scale business which had lots of potential but were not making sufficient business transactions due to being less familiar or quite out of buyers’ sight. I added them on map & with a quick span of time, they started making profitable business. Though I was not a part in profit sharing, it gives me the lion’s share in immense pleasure in return.
This is the story of my short journey as a Google Local Guide but it ain’t finished. I have still lots to do within this capacity, for me myself, for my locality, for my country & off course for this fantastic community, Local Guides, which makes us feel being One World.
