Two other approaches come to mind: - Give interesting talks (e.g. James Mickens, Paul Irish, Bryan Cantrill) - Create interesting projects (e.g. Linus Torvald

Two other approaches come to mind: - Give interesting talks (e.g. James Mickens, Paul Irish, Bryan Cantrill) - Create interesting projects (e.g. Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum, Monty Widenius) I'm not sure that any of the people in my examples sought out to brand themselves though.