2022
Hello to all my Local Guides friends from all around the world. Hope everyone is feeling great!
I would like to share my great experience with you as a Google Local Guide.
My name is Sudheesh Thulaseedharan (My best friends call me Sudhi), a Level 10 Local Guide from Kerala, India.
A BIM (Building Information Modeling) Modeler by profession working at Dubai for more than ten years.
I've always been interested in travel with my family and exploring through the Internet. Also passionate in reading books and learning about cultural diversities.
One day I was looking for a location information on Google I noticed that the contact numbers, website even timing were not properly updated in Maps. I thought correcting those information will help people, who may be looking for this information. I corrected it. But at that time I had no idea that what I was doing was so important and how it will help others in a meaningful way.
After two months , I have seen some useful reviews about some businesses in my town, written by Local Guides from my town. (Now some of those are closed to me and attended LG meetups with me). I became interested and found details about Local Guide Program and understood the importance of contributing to Google Maps and how that will help others. Then I start contributing to Maps, carefully reviewing the places I had visited and adding useful photos of them. It made me feel very useful.
I kept contributing consistently. In October 2016, I received an invitation from Google Dubai to their office for a Local Guide Meetup. I was seriously excited, I had always wanted to go there so it was like a dream come true for me. That's how I learnt about Meet-ups and Connect. In Google Dubai office at Internet City, I had met so many Local Guides from various nationalities and got an unforgettable chance to explore inside Google's office in Dubai. We discussed about, how to write stunning food reviews, reviews about restaurants and 360 photography. These led me to achieve Google Street View Trusted Photographer in last September. The experience was really amazing.
After that I became more and more committed to Local Guides every moment.
After six month, last June I was at level 5 contributor, since then, I came across many great people in Kerala Local Guides community in Google+ and WhatsApp.
That gave the chance to get to know Local Guides from my native place and this helped me to realize passion of mine in its right way.
In the last September, I had attended a memorable Meet-up with Kerala Local Guides at Subhash Park, Ernakulam, Kerala. The meet-up hosted by @Sariga, where I had the chance to get to know many active local guides from my state, talk about our experiences and took lots of 360 photos together. We spent like 3-4 hours together, and those hours were fully worthwhile. There I met people like @ArunMuralidhar, @JoseVarghese, @Dhipin, @Salman, @kmadhil (Sorry, if I miss out anyone), who inspired me significantly to explore Google Maps. Meet-ups experiences are always incredible and I have no words to describe that feelings.
I'm proud to be the part of the Kerala Local Guides Community. We share activities with similar mindset which motivate and inspire us a lot. We are a team, working together to beautify a platform that anyone in the world can use and take more advantage of it. I made friends with common passion and we even had group Hangouts calls, where we discussed inventive ideas.
There I met a wonderful friend @StephenAbraham. Special mention must go to him for his great inspiration and precise guiding. Thanks @StephenAbraham, you are my motivational coach in LG Program.
After that I planned to focus in 360 photography. I captured the beauty of my village in 360 photos with my IPad. Taking 360 photos with IPad was quite difficult.
But my interest drove me a lot, I even became a Street View Trusted photographer at the end of last September.
I had hosted a Meetup event in Kollam (My Home town) at last march.
Once I started using Connect, I had absolutely no idea about what to post, how to write interesting things. Then I closely watch the writings of Connect mates like @OSAMA, @AradhanaB and many others from all across different countries, that helped me know about good practices and engaged me in very interesting conversations, those truly shaped me as a good Google Local Guide.
At the end of last February I achieved the great milestone of a LEVEL 10 Local Guide. I'm a proud to achieve this goal! Of course I wouldn't have been able to reach this position without everyone's motivation and encouragement.
Nowadays contributing to the Google Maps is no longer just a passion or time pass but has become more of a responsibility to share photos and telling everyone about places. I know that many people are depending on it to make their life easier!
I am really enjoying this. I love the variety of different ways that I can help others.
Thank you to all Local Guides, especially in Kerala Local Guide Community and Connect moderators for supporting me!
@Sudhi aniya. It is a very nice write up. Thanks for sharing. And thanks for thinking highly of me.
Wish you all the best for this Connect Live summit application, and hopefully at least 1 or more persons will be sending me postcards from there this year! 🙂
Nammude kudumbam.. nammude Keralam..
