2022
La pregunta disparadora de este post es un pequeño gancho para opinar de como sentimos a Connect, cuando lo usamos diariamente, de charlar sobre el concepto Comunidad, con mayúsculas y eso extrapolarlo a lo que nosotros hacemos diariamente en Connect, o por lo menos cuando accedemos a él, nuestros deseos, nuestras expectativas; las mías son muy evidentes jejeje, me gusta para publicar historias charlar con otros Local Guides del mundo, contar sobre mis viajes, leer que piensa el otro sobre temas varios, generar compromiso me gusta el término inglés Engagement y el concepto que toca el mismo.
Pero es realmente Local Guides Connect una Comunidad?, quiere serlo?, tiene las herramientas necesarias para aspirar a ello? o solamente es un portal más donde todos los Local Guides del mundo unos 10 millones más o menos de los cuales estamos activos en Connect no más de 100, no tengo los números para respaldar esto, pero te lo puede dar el grado de publicaciones semanales que tenemos.
Como sea, todas estas cuestiones son las que me hacen preguntar si Connect es una comunidad. Yo creo, que esta en la preadolescencia, donde no sabe qué es realmente, es necesario que exista?, es un lugar para contener a personas que nos gusta aportar?, sin importar los regalos o reconocimientos, realmente yo todavía no lo termino de descubrir.
Después de este último Connect Live 2018, al cual tuve el privilegio de asistir, al cual no me canso de agradecer, que me hayan invitado. Yo pude interactuar como muchos otros Local Guides del mundo, algunos que participan en Connect y otros que no y otros que recién con el CL18 lo descubrieron, pero una cosa que sí sentí en todo momento, en el ambiente, o por decirlo de alguna manera, veía un espíritu de Comunidad Global muy grande, departir, (charlar, salir, comer, desayunar) con algunos, ya que no con todos pude hacerlo, descubrí que existe un deseo de comunidad, pero ese deseo de comunidad no lo veo tan plasmado en Connect, por eso quizás el título del post, que más que gancho para generar opiniones, es un pregunta hacia adentro.
Las comunidades en G+ murieron al poco tiempo que dejaron de tener apoyo, algunas crecieron de una manera increíble como las de Londres, Barcelona o Brasil, por nombrar solo algunas, pasaron a ser dirigidas por sus propios Local Guides, y luego se fueron marchitando de a poco y hoy no se sabe bien que son. (Por eso que deje de existir G+ es casi anecdótico), fue un lindo experimento que no llegó a ser lo que tenía que ser.
Por otro lado existen algunos experimentos fallidos de querer llevar las comunidades a otras redes sociales tipo Facebook's u otras, creo que no tienen la tracción necesaria para llamarlas realmente comunidades, con lo cual nos queda Connect, donde no lo se pero es una opinión, se desea encajar con forcep las comunidades en un solo lugar, pero hoy por hoy me parece que le falta herramientas fundamentales para que sea una verdadera Comunidad Global, las salas de chat en línea son fundamentales para interactuar, incluso con video, es una necesidad que se solicita casi a gritos, esperemos que en algún momento sea considerado para ser agregado.
Otros aspectos que me lleva a pensar en voz alta sobre las comunidades de Local Guides, son las que existen en Asia y Oceanía, que desde mi punto de vista, si funcionan como verdaderas comunidades, quizas tambien tiene que ver mucho la idiosincrasia de la gente, que ven más simple poder juntarse, o que tienen un deseo más fuerte de participar en lo que es este gran proyecto que es ser un Local Guides, no lo se realmente, me faltan elementos de análisis para poder dar una opinión más precisa
Hasta aquí un mero usuario Local Guides que administra dos Comunidades Local Guides en Argentina, la de Buenos Aires (1218 usuarios, 3 aportantes) y la de Tierra del Fuego (145 usuarios, 1 aportante)
Farid.
Is Connect a community? Of course it is .. but ... here are my personal observations / opinions about why Connect does not scratch the itch for some folks!
What is Local Guides Connect?
Well the simple way to find this answer is to look at the home page! How is it structured? What is the message being shown? In a way, this is almost an exercise in marketing but in reverse; as I try to figure out the structure and setup of Connect, it reveals to me (correctly or not) the motive behind it.
Firstly, we have the main banner which shows people hanging out amidst the backdrop of famous global landmarks. Message: global, community, social, diverse, inclusive.
Secondly, we have the tagline "Share tips, discoveries, and news with the community for people on Google Maps". Message: forum, sharing knowledge, community, Google Maps.
Thirdly, the left menu is filled with topics such as "Announcement", "Photography", "Travel", "Food & Drinks", "Local Stories", "Meet-ups", "How-tos". Message: topic based, goal oriented, knowledge sharing, hobbies, local.
Taken as a whole, this is a forum for a global, inclusive, diverse, community of Google Map users sharing their knowledge with each other around the various pre-defined topics. Yes, we basically knew this already! So many words, nothing groundbreakingly new ... yet!
What makes Connect work?
If you're interested in the pre-defined topics, you're good to go! You can hit the sections and browse to your heart's content the numerous posts submitted by users all over the world! So a photographer would be thrilled with posts on photowalks or sharing posts of his / her photos. If you love traveling and exploring new places, there's a whole section on that. Food .. drinks? Yup, that's covered too!
And, in a way, this is how I approach Connect and how I've managed to learn to appreciate it.
I've been a Local Guide since it first started .. followed it through from Google+ to Connect but most folks will not know me because I've only become active in Connect this year! Why? The answer is simple: exclusive boards ... and Connect Live. As one of the attendees, we get given an exclusive board to receive official announcements / news from Google, discuss pre / post activities, answer each other's questions on traveling, culture, what to expect etc.
I've always found Connect to be too overwhelming and busy (more on that in the next section) so I said to myself, ignore everything else on Connect .. just focus on Connect Live and the three sections that it covers (Announcements , Pre / Post Activities, Discussions). By narrowing my field of focus, and also only having less than 200 people (attendees and Googlers combined) to interact with, Connect became so much easier to use. Also, I could focus my attentions and time investments in very specific areas. For me, it was about connecting with fellow attendees before the event and also to gather and disseminate information to help everyone navigate the board. You see, even in this exclusive board, folks were struggling to keep up with the numerous posts and missing out on key/important information. I would like to think that my recap/summary posts throughout the months were helping people to get up to speed and easily find out what they were missing.
Anyway, back to point, Connect works for those who are topic centric, whose way of navigating the forums are very much based on interests whether it is food, sharing cultures, providing solutions to questions etc. It works for people who are happy to browse, perfectly fine with topic surfing; jumping from post to post, leaving a comment or a like here and there. Eventually, those people will come across others just like them, some usernames become familiar as their paths cross each other across the diverse posts that Connect holds. And then .. the magic happens, relationship takes hold and Connect becomes the community that they long for!
How does Connect fail?
So .. despite the activities that you see on Connect, why does it still fail (sorry @brittym !) on some levels? If Connect is a community, it needs people. Check! It also needs connections that bind people together. Erm. Check Maybe. For some?
The common complaints that I hear are:
- Connect is too overwhelming! Too many posts! Too many things to chuck my eyeballs at! Where do I begin?
- Why am I seeing posts about something happening miles and miles away? Where are the posts that are local to me?
- I made a post. I left a comment on others. But.. after a while I just lose interest.
For some, the "community" that they are looking for are not centred around topics but around location, as in, where they are! They want to speak to others in the same city sharing the latest trending spot, the must go to food scene, where to find a good local barber.. all the stuff that is location specific! Those are the kind of connections they are looking for that is sorely missing in Connect.
Also, if you look at the various posts on Connect at the moment, how many are from super contributors (eg @LucioV @FaridTDF @YK1001 @StephenAbraham to name a few .. sorry .. cannot include everyone!!). They get loads of engagement because everyone knows them and feels connected and emotionally invested to interact. But if you look at the first time posters, check out the engagement levels; minimal! Comments left behind, if any, are simple, short, sweet. Stuff that makes you go, "Ah, that's nice someone read my post" but not, "Oooh, good question, I never thought of that. I must reply!". Also, posts get buried fairly quickly from the main home page.. and sometimes within days, from the main section page. In a way, that's great because that means lots of contributions. But it could also mean, lots of people are shouting about their own stories, but not actually engaging with each other.
How I think Connect can improve?
Yes, I know, I need to put these in the Idea Exchange. Noted!
Idea 1
Just like creating a new board for Connect Live attendees, create a set of boards centred on major cities. For example, there's a board for Manchester and you can post anything that you want there and give each post the appropriate tags to ensure they still fit within the current topics. That way, posts related to Manchester can get clumped together. There is visibility of posts! There is stickiness in engagement and is not just a fleeting encounter!
The challenge here is to balance local and global! Folks need a space to talk about local stuff.. but they shouldn't also disengaged from the global community. This is where the Local Guides team can come up with monthly campaigns that draw from each local community to engage at a global level!
For example, get Local Guides from each community city to create a welcoming video related to their city. This becomes a group effort where folks curate the "Best of.." list of their city, do video shoots highlighting popular spots etc. Then they submit their entry and the teams can only vote for another video from another country (so no home biasness/favouritism.. a la Eurovision style). This then engages the local community at a global level. Again, this needs to be thought of carefully, so that it's not a game of numbers but one of quality; so even the smallest community has every chance of going against the largest community!
Idea 2
Okay, so maybe creating new boards centred on major cities might exclude those from small towns.. so how about we create a "Just for you" section that gathers all posts within an X miles radius around you (make the filter adjustable) or based on posts you've liked before or topics that you are passionate about. We just need a way to draw all the relevant and/or local posts under one section. So for those who find Connect too overwhelming, they can focus on that one section to help them focus their time/attention better. This also means that every post needs a location tag.
Idea 3
Have a deeper social layer; be able to find local Local Guides (opt in only) and follow them (also opt in only). For those who opt in into this feature, it makes them more discoverable and more easy to follow so if I have 10 people that I follow (because they are local, because they all like video games etc), all their posts get my eyeballs first. On its own, this idea may not work effectively but I think coupled with Idea 1 or 2, it again targets the two main issues; consumption and engagement.
Summary
Connect needs to put the local in Local Guides, help folks get on that first step, make engagement sticky so that conversations flow and relationships build. When we have a common interest (food, travel, photography etc), a common experience (meet-ups, Connect Live etc), a common goal (wanting to learn a new language, a new culture etc), a common background (history, city, school etc), half the battle is won. The other half is just managing how we consume all that lovely posts out there so that we don't feel overwhelmed, so that we can get into deep discussions and exchanges, so that we can remember and find the lovely person we spent the past hour chatting to so that the discussion can go on on another day.
So is Connect a community for me? At first no. And for all those reasons I've given above. But I was persistent in sticking with it and I narrowed my focus to a smaller area so that I can start to engage with the same folks and build the vital relationships. Once I've established them, I started to explore the other areas in Connect and engage more. And yes, I still ignore some sections in Connect because there's just sooooo much to see/read and I have limited time each day.
Anyway, I hope this is a useful insight. These are my personal opinions and maybe some can relate to them, maybe not. Agree or disagree.. let the replies come!!! 🙂
Needless to say, I never had any problems with dissertations! It was more about keeping things concise and to the point.. which in my rambling state is really hard to achieve! I hope it's easy to follow my points and I've corrected as much as I'm willing to spend time on it! 🙂
