Page 227 - Keys To Community College Success

WORK IT Build Your Brand

Memory and Networking
21st Century Learning Building Blocks

■ Communication and collaboration
■ Social and cross-cultural skills
Your ability to remember people you meet or interact with in the workplace—their names, what Memory and Studying
they do, other relevant information about them—is an enormous factor in your career success.
Consider this scenario: You are introduced to your supervisor’s new boss, someone who could
help you advance in the company, and you exchange small talk for a few minutes. A week later
you run into him outside the building. What if you greet him by name and ask if his son is over
the case of the flu he had? You have made a good impression that is likely to help you in the
future. What if you call him by the wrong name, realize your mistake, and slink off to work?
You’ve set up a bit of a hurdle for yourself as you try to get ahead.
With what you know about memory strategies and what works for you, set up a system to
record and retain information about people you meet whom you want to remember. For your
system, decide on a tool (address book, set of notecards, electronic organizer, computer file),
what to record (name, phone, email, title, how you met, important details), and how you will
update. Choose a tool that you are most likely to use and that will be easy for you to refer to
and update.
1. Name your tool of choice.
2. List the information you will record for each entry.
3. Describe when you will record information and how often you will check/update it.
Finally, get started by putting in information for all of the people you consider to be impor-
tant networking contacts at this point. These could be family, friends, instructors and advisors,
or work colleagues and supervisors. Make this the start of a database that will serve you through-
out your career.

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