Inmaps, Rudders and Women of HR

I’m sure by now many of you have had your connections mapped using the Inmap app on LinkedIn. Over the past week, I’ve been watching friends do this and post the results.

There are so many different results. Studying them is somewhat like performing inkblot analysis. Personally, I think mine is the most interesting looking. It looks like a giant goldfish.

What you may find interesting is that the tail of the fish includes the people I have met through Women of HR. These people are represented by the mauve dots to the far left.

There are a few things that are worth noting about my connections that represent the tail:

• The people who are connected there are all connected to each other.
• Virtually none of those connected within this group are connected to other parts of my network.

Is this simply that because the practice of human resources is so different in the U.S. and Canada that cross-border connections are rare? Or is there some form of iron curtain in existence that discourages dialogue between the citizens of these nations?

It is neat to see how well we are all the Women of HR people are connected to one another. It is not like someone said, “Hey, it is vitally important that we all show a united front on LinkedIn; build up your connections” and we did so. Rather, so many of us share common thoughts and experiences and it seemed so natural to just start connecting beyond the blogsite.

I hope that in the future, it will be possible to create an Inmap of the connections of two or more individuals to see how the networks align.

Now if I could only improve the connections between the U.S. and Canada, my work would be done, but sadly then, my Inmap would no longer look like a fish!

Fish navigate with their tail as a rudder. It is totally cool to know that I have the Women of HR group as my navigator!