Spotlight on Alumni Websites

I find myself inspired when looking at alumni websites. A few I have looked at recently are as follows:

Irene Blinston, Ph.D.

Ryan Rominger, Ph.D. and Scott McCulloch, Ph.D

Allison Perry, Ph.D.

I always encourage students to start using the Web to promote their future career path, whatever it may be. If any alums or current students would like to show off their professional websites, please post to the comments of this blog post so that we can all see them.

Professionalize: Create a Blog of Your Own

Weblogs or "blogs" have become an easy and fun way to publish ideas to the Web. You can publish a short and finite collection of posts to promote your business/career, or you can decide to create a topical or research focus to which you continue to add to daily or weekly. Either way, you are creating something that you can share with others in your professional life.
Here at the library, we have been tremendously happy with Blogger/Blogspot, a free blogging and hosting service owned by Google. There are many more, like Vox.com, typepad.com, and wordpress.com to name a few. The services are either free with ads or very inexpensive.
As a professional resource, think about how this fits your "brand" and your vision for your career, whether clinical, academic or entrepreneurial. You can always decide to upgrade to a more formal site later, start additional blogs for different topics or talents, or delete your blog when it no longer serves its purpose.
Talk to a librarian if you want to learn more about how to get started.

Professionalize: LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a site that helps members to stay connected professionally, find an expert, and possibly find a job. I am noticing more and more ITP staff, students and faculty becoming members. It represents a level of professionalism that puts you "in the game" and really helps you keep track of colleagues who move away or change career paths.
You wonder if you can really get a job through LinkedIn. A long-time friend of mine was contacted by two different recruiters about two different jobs. She wasn't looking for a job but the second job inquiry really matched her career path and was too good to resist. She started working at the new job a month ago. She is in marketing. If it isn't there yet, I think this type of recruitment will eventually be just as common in education and psychology as it is in business now.
There is still the question of privacy. Just keep in mind this is like your business card. Put into LinkedIn what you want the public to see.
I haven't tried the "find an expert" aspect yet. I probably will eventually in my line of work. Please feel free to share your own experience of LinkedIn or other networking sites.