🔎Activity: Connecting With Community Mind Map (Exploratory only)

The Connecting with Community Mind Map is a tool to help you understand and extend your professional community/network.

Focusing on community is important for several reasons:

• In Canada, many secure positions through referrals or the hidden job market.
• Fostering your network enhances your career and ensures you stay abreast of current trends.
• Rethinking networking as community-building can mitigate negative perceptions.

Initially, connecting with familiar faces feels less daunting. Shared trust and support facilitate these connections. Yet, embracing diversity in connections broadens perspectives and enriches your community.

The first level on the Mind Map is already completed with ideas to prompt you: beginning with your existing community in your immediate personal circles, then moving into your professional connections: service committees, professional associations, etc.

Activity

• Use your Workbook and the table provided (similar to a visual mind map) to list the names of individuals you are acquainted with across various suggested categories such as immediate circles, professional or industry associations, or committees. 
• Fill in the corresponding boxes with their names and continue to add names as they come to mind.
• Consider including individuals whom you may not know directly but are influential in your field, or individuals you've met at conferences whose work interests you. 
• Explore alumni networks, industry-related organizations, and social media connections for more networking opportunities. These individuals represent secondary connections, and those within your primary group may know them and could introduce you.
• Consider these additional suggestions: parent-teacher groups, faith-based or spiritual circles, professors, mentors, clubs like Royal Roads Proud or the Diversity Action Group, classmates, and former employers.