Building a Professional Presence

Recently, I've been thinking that I need to work more on my professional presence. This thinking has been sparked by a few recent events. Recently, I met a librarian who had emigrated to Canada from France (she noticed I was reading The Accidental Systems Librarian by Rachel Singer Gordon and struck up a conversation. After we parted ways, I thought it might have been interesting to keep in touch but I didn't have a business card. In addition to that, I recently read one of Stephen Abram's articles where he wrote, in part,

Either way, it's time to again find our voice as professionals. Anonymity just isn't working for us. Professionalism requires that we learn how to present ourselves, promote ourselves and be where our market of users can discover us, and be impressed that we are the sharks in the tank of the emerging information and knowledge economy. Our reputation will play out in the social Web space as much as anywhere else. We need to get good at this.

- Stephen Abrams, Time to Step Out of the Box and Start Promoting Ourselves, Information Outlook

To that end, I think I need to do at least two things:

- Create a professional website (I know some things, but I wonder if it might be better to pay a company like LIS Host to design it for me?)

- Create business cards (but what do I put on it? "Graduate Student"? How can I describe my varied interests?)

I very much welcome any suggestions that others might have on this subject. I am looking at attending several conferences in 2009 and it would be great to establish these things in advance so that I can connect with others more effectively.