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Level 9

[RECAP] YVR Post #LGSummit17 Meet Up!

As many of you know, the Local Guides Summit 2017 happened earlier this month and from the beautiful city of Vancouver, three of us attended, @Anthony_LG@JenneferB and myself! We had a blast meeting with the other Local Guides from over 60 countries and we were very excited to keep the community going in Vancouver when we returned.  Since Anthony is based in Germany, Jennefer and I decided we would do a meet up to meet others in Vancouver and to chat with them about Local Guides and share our experiences from the summit.  We were given some swag to pass onto our community, so we brought out some of our Google stickers to share.  And what is Vancouver known for? Seafood! So we decided to go for some happy hour oysters (a buck a shuck, yay!) at Chewies in Coal Harbour to chat with our fellow local guides in Vancouver! Check out these yummy oysters!!!

Oysters, and lots of them at happy hour!Oysters, and lots of them at happy hour!

Since we were fresh from visiting San Francisco Bay Area, they began to pick our brains.  Jennefer and I were very excited to share what we can (given the NDA).  One of the features of Google Maps that we spent some time talking about was lists.  We were discussing how there are lots to do in Vancouver in terms of sightseeing as well as food options and how lists would be an extremely useful for sharing and that it would already collate all of the information from Google Maps for each point of interest.  It was also very exciting that lists can now be used on desktop as well.  We also discussed the accessibility campaign and the potential for future meet ups to contribute information to maps.  Another topic we discussed was spam.  We commented on how useful Google Maps can be but when there is spam, we need to really get ahead of it to ensure the right information is on maps for us to use.  One of the guides, @Biscombe, shared with us his story of how he started as a local guide and it all started with a cup of coffee at a gas station and how he corrected information at that gas station and some of their other businesses' information as well! Something so simple, yet can have such an impact!

 

Welcoming new faces to our Vancouver meet up!Welcoming new faces to our Vancouver meet up!

As we parted, we chatted the possibility of perhaps a festive/holiday meet up in December. We'll have to look into the possibility for something like that! We are all busy and while we would like to do meet ups, it hasn't been easy.  During the discussion, we also chatted on how we all found this meet up as these were all new Local Guides that neither Jennefer nor I have met before!

 

As the end of 2017 is nearing, I wanted to reflect a bit. I have hosted a handful of meet ups this year and when the new meet up site was first launched by @HelloJess, one of my meet ups was the first to be approved (and of course, I broke something along the way). When it first came out, there were bugs and issues and I've provided feedback along the way, including being able to see who's RSVPed and being able to message everyone who said they will attend.  And with some constructive feedback, these features were implemented! I was able to see everyone that attended and message them ahead of time. It is amazing how the Local Guides team respond to constructive feedback. For this particular meet up, I was able to send announcements and details to the attendees and they all received the email reminders (there is a minor bug here though...)! Jennefer and I were intrigued as well because we were very excited to meet new Local Guides in the city! And to our surprise, all of the new attendees had no idea that we had a G+ community nor a Facebook page! While we have often questioned how difficult it is to use connect, it actually connected us to one of our attendees today! This was extremely exciting and we can't wait to see how Connect will continue to evolve in the next while to connect us to others.  While we will continue to maintain both our G+ community and Facebook pages, we will also be linking our community back to posts on Connect and also encouraging them to provide feedback here! Let's see what else we have got for the rest of 2017! 🙂 

 

Please post publicly so others can benefit as well. I do not have private messages. Thanks!
Vancouver, BC, Canada
12 comments
Level 8

Re: [RECAP] YVR Post #LGSummit17 Meet Up!

Hello @Shirley@Anthony_LG@JenneferB 

Namaste to you all from Nepal and congratulations for being selected in Summit. I missed to meet you all and hope we will get chance to meet again. Thanks for sharing your Summit experiences here @Shirley, your pictures are amazing. @HelloJess, Namaste to you too from Nepal. 

Thanks again Shirley, I loved to enjoy your post here.

Cheers, 

Niraj Bhusal, Local Guides from Nepal

Googler

Re: [RECAP] YVR Post #LGSummit17 Meet Up!

Congratulations on hosting a meet-up with new attendees, @Shirley and @JenneferB! So great of you to hand our your newly-acquired "swag" too, haha! 🙂

 

Thank you for sharing this post about your experience at the meet-up as well as your experience with the meet-up platform and sharing feedback over the past year. You know we love feedback and implementing it when we can and hope you'll love the changes we continue to make to ensure you have the best experience possible. Now, if there's a burger happy hour, I might be tempted to fly across the country. 


Note: Due to the volume of private messages Googlers receive, I do not read or respond to private messages. Please post publicly so others may benefit from your discussion. If you require urgent assistance, please tag a Google Moderator. Thank you!.
Level 4

Re: [RECAP] YVR Post #LGSummit17 Meet Up!

Congratulations on hosting a meet-up, Shirley! 

Connect Moderator

Re: [RECAP] YVR Post #LGSummit17 Meet Up!

wow... wow... wow... good job. @Shirley

NO to PLASTIC, Together, we can Achieve

Connect Moderator

Re: [RECAP] YVR Post #LGSummit17 Meet Up!

Wow @Shirley, You cannot have a day of rest, isn't it?

I'm so happy to see your photos, Vancouver Community is great, we are always reading about your activities (and we are learning a lot, from you)

Wait a moment, @Anthony_LG, did you move from Germany to Vancouver for the Meet-Up? I'm so jealous @Shirley, but I can invite you all at after Summit2017 wine Meet-Up in Italy, at the end of November.

It is beautiful, Shirley, to see how positive the Summit have been, Congratulation for the beautiful meet-up.

 

See you soon

 

Ermes

Connect Moderator

Re: [RECAP] YVR Post #LGSummit17 Meet Up!


@Shirley wrote:

As many of you know, the Local Guides Summit 2017 happened earlier this month and from the beautiful city of Vancouver, three of us attended, @Anthony_LG@JenneferB and myself! We had a blast meeting with the other Local Guides from over 60 countries and we were very excited to keep the community going in Vancouver when we returned.  Since Anthony is based in Germany, Jennefer and I decided we would do a meet up to meet others in Vancouver and to chat with them about Local Guides and share our experiences from the summit.  We were given some swag to pass onto our community, so we brought out some of our Google stickers to share.  And what is Vancouver known for? Seafood! So we decided to go for some happy hour oysters (a buck a shuck, yay!) at Chewies in Coal Harbour to chat with our fellow local guides in Vancouver! Check out these yummy oysters!!!

Oysters, and lots of them at happy hour!Oysters, and lots of them at happy hour!

Since we were fresh from visiting San Francisco Bay Area, they began to pick our brains.  Jennefer and I were very excited to share what we can (given the NDA).  One of the features of Google Maps that we spent some time talking about was lists.  We were discussing how there are lots to do in Vancouver in terms of sightseeing as well as food options and how lists would be an extremely useful for sharing and that it would already collate all of the information from Google Maps for each point of interest.  It was also very exciting that lists can now be used on desktop as well.  We also discussed the accessibility campaign and the potential for future meet ups to contribute information to maps.  Another topic we discussed was spam.  We commented on how useful Google Maps can be but when there is spam, we need to really get ahead of it to ensure the right information is on maps for us to use.  One of the guides, @Biscombe, shared with us his story of how he started as a local guide and it all started with a cup of coffee at a gas station and how he corrected information at that gas station and some of their other businesses' information as well! Something so simple, yet can have such an impact!

 

Welcoming new faces to our Vancouver meet up!Welcoming new faces to our Vancouver meet up!

As we parted, we chatted the possibility of perhaps a festive/holiday meet up in December. We'll have to look into the possibility for something like that! We are all busy and while we would like to do meet ups, it hasn't been easy.  During the discussion, we also chatted on how we all found this meet up as these were all new Local Guides that neither Jennefer nor I have met before!

 

As the end of 2017 is nearing, I wanted to reflect a bit. I have hosted a handful of meet ups this year and when the new meet up site was first launched by @HelloJess, one of my meet ups was the first to be approved (and of course, I broke something along the way). When it first came out, there were bugs and issues and I've provided feedback along the way, including being able to see who's RSVPed and being able to message everyone who said they will attend.  And with some constructive feedback, these features were implemented! I was able to see everyone that attended and message them ahead of time. It is amazing how the Local Guides team respond to constructive feedback. For this particular meet up, I was able to send announcements and details to the attendees and they all received the email reminders (there is a minor bug here though...)! Jennefer and I were intrigued as well because we were very excited to meet new Local Guides in the city! And to our surprise, all of the new attendees had no idea that we had a G+ community nor a Facebook page! While we have often questioned how difficult it is to use connect, it actually connected us to one of our attendees today! This was extremely exciting and we can't wait to see how Connect will continue to evolve in the next while to connect us to others.  While we will continue to maintain both our G+ community and Facebook pages, we will also be linking our community back to posts on Connect and also encouraging them to provide feedback here! Let's see what else we have got for the rest of 2017! 🙂 

 


Excellent recap of what seemed to be an excellent meet-up, @Shirley! Loved your reflection on previously having used the meetup site on launch vs using it now - so many improvements across Maps/Connect have been made and I'm sure I speak for most when I say we're greatful for this program and the team that keeps it progressing and running day in and day out. They've given us an opportunity to share our discoveries and mutual love for exploring and traveling with those in our community, and your meetup was a perfect example of this. Awesome job, @Shirley & @JenneferB - you both didn't miss a beat after the Summit!

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Level 6

Re: [RECAP] YVR Post #LGSummit17 Meet Up!

Thanks for the summary Shirley! Looked like a good one 😀

 

I only see this stuff when it pops up in my Google+ feed. But I'm using that less and less now. Is there a way to subscribe to discussions related to Vancouver on connect? Is there a way to form a Vancouver group (a la G+) and then subscribe to that? It seems like it's difficult to "connect" locally if I have to sift through guide discussions from all around the world. I dunno how I'd keep track of meet ups aside from checking the G+ or Facebook pages.

Connect Moderator

Re: [RECAP] YVR Post #LGSummit17 Meet Up!

Hi @gwest

You can subscribe to a thread opening it, tapping on the three black dots on the right top of the first post and selecting "subscribe". 

You can unsubscribe to every conversation tapping on your profile photo, and selecting the "subscription" menu Screenshot_20171102-080046.png

 

 

Ermes 

Level 6

Re: [RECAP] YVR Post #LGSummit17 Meet Up!

Thanks Ermes. The problem is that the next meet up will be a new conversation thread. So I won't know about it unless I a) happen to visit the Connect website, and b) sift through conversation threads from all over the world to see a Vancouver thread. Unless, I'm missing something... It seems like this would be key functionally if Google wants to enable local meet ups.