Having been actively consulting for over 15 years, I must add that volunteer work shouldn't be confused with 'networking'.

If you want to help an organization, and have the time and resources to do it -- great -- just don't expect any business to necessarily follow. In fact, what often happens is that the organization may become dependent on you as a free source of labor, as has happened with a friend of mine.

He justifies it as 'networking' but in actuality, he now spends so much time doing unpaid work that he can't even support himself.

I've been through similar experiences myself -- by joining all the local 'boards of trade' and other professional associations -- only to find that just about everyone is there to look for work as well.

As mentioned in the article, one of the best ways to build a reputation is to do a great job, and use the references and portfolio from that job to springboard to the next.

You also can't build a reputation blathering about pie-in-the-sky dream projects you WANT to work on. Talk is cheap -- as Henry Ford put it, "You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do."