Many of those we talked to pointed to volunteering in various ways to get oneself known: Call a technical-committee member, send your resume to a book reviews editor, volunteer to give conference talks for your colleagues, write conference papers and book chapters, run workshops, or organize new workshops. One woman said, ``Write papers for workshops. They're small, you'll meet people in your field, names become faces, you'll feel a part of a community. National conferences can be enormous and intimidating. Also, workshops are meant for preliminary work. They are a good forum for graduate students. Getting a paper accepted is real validation - it can be a big boost when you need one. Rewards in research can be few and far between.''
``It's best if you're the sole author. Second best is to be the first author in a group-authored paper.''
``Write a textbook; if possible, one of the first in an area. In fact, just write a lot. This is especially good for shy people.''
Another added, ``It's better to have something worthwhile (a finished project of some sort, such as a good dissertation) to support your claims to fame.''