What does the Local Guides program mean to me: Making the World More Clear, Near and Familiar.
I still remember the day when I received a mail from Google showing the stats of one such review that I had given about a particular place. I was amazed and was so happy when I checked that email and felt satisfied thinking, there we have somebody who valued my opinion and made it to reach people who wanted to know what somebody else knows about this particular place. Yeah! That’s something amazing.
Literally! I didn’t know then, that I was walking on the road to become one such good local guide and had helped thousand others to keep them informed. The knowledge and experience that I got by visiting one particular place is not wasted anymore and neither kept within me but stored and shared in Google maps that helped other person sitting somewhere in the world who just want a genuine suggestion and an answers to his questions that makes him more clear and familiar to the particular place he looking for.
It’s been many years since I’ve taken this proud position called Local Guide and every time I get a notification of somebody asking a question and when I answer that – they like, reply thanks. It gives me a sense of satisfaction that I had a helped someone to get certain information regarding something that they are really looking for.
Even I’ve got a chance to visit Swami Vivekananda Ashram in Mumbai that literally changed my life. When I browsed for peaceful places in Mumbai, someone had wrote a beautiful experience that they had in Swami Vivekananda Ashram which made me immediately catch a bus and visit that place but trust me, it’s a heaven on the earth. For the next few months I started visiting that place every Saturday and Sunday, spent hours doing meditation there. I’m very much thankful to that local guide who helped me to make best choice in my life.
This is one such experience which helped me to elevate my life on a spiritual path. This clearly shows the importance of the Local Guide. To me, I’m just so happy to say this; all around the globe there are lakhs of local guides who are happily drawing the right path on the Google map that has taken millions of users to the exact places that they were looking for. They don’t really read names nor share a credit but they trust the word below - Local Guide! And thank you Google for creating this wonderful opportunity and a beautiful family.
In the world of social media where everyone likes, comments, shares and has an opinion for everything. But being a local guide you have that sense of responsibility and authority assigned by none but you take that pride and try to make genuine attempts to provide correct information, rectify errors, add photos, answer quick questions and list new places. It’s not simple job, a person sitting in USA get to know what Indian visitors are thinking about a tourist place in India that he is planning to visit next month. Before everything, Local Guides sitting in India have made sure that the reviews, photos, phone number and other information that he is looking at is right information.
As this word rightly said, “Your Contributions” it’s a small contribution from my side towards making the world more clear, near and familiar.
Thank You! Google!