When you begin spelunking your way into intriguing new corners of the internet in order to find the others, I heartily recommend you chart the terrain, and make note of what excites you. Put a virtual pin in the map whenever something or someone resonates.
That's where a curiosity map comes in. It's a document/database filled with all the intriguing people, media, and communities you discover during your internet explorations. That way, you can easily return to the places that resonate, start fostering connections, and keep following your curiosity deeper and deeper into the most nourishing parts of the internet.
A note about how this process has evolved
Years ago, when I was firmly entrenched in the world of traditional marketing, I called this process "market mapping" instead of curiosity mapping. I got really nerdy about measuring the size of a particular market or subculture, and trying to estimate the reach and influence of all the people/companies within it. Even though those calculations make the process pretty tedious, I still think that can be a valuable approach for some people. But personally, it doesn't feel remotely necessary or alive to me anymore. Instead of trying to maximize my sense of certainty and control, I'm more interested in connection, and finding the others. That's why curiosity and resonance now take center stage in this process.
Setting up your curiosity map
First, let's talk about tooling. I’ve always used a Notion database to house my curiosity maps. I find it the ideal place for such things, which is why I’ve included a Notion template that you can duplicate and use yourself. In addition to that template, I recommend pairing it with the Save To Notion plugin, which makes it super easy to save things into your database.
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