Inspired by my recent post on how Shari is developing an online portfolio, midwife and regular reader Sarah Stewart has started working on her own version. Sarah decided that now was the time because as a professional midwife she's required to have a portfolio (she's had a paper version for awhile) and since more and more of her work is digital, it made sense to her to organize something online.

As you'll see, Sarah is using Wikispaces to set up her portfolio. It also looks like she's creating more of a presentation portfolio that includes selected items for public review, rather than a full working portfolio, which includes all of your work.

Some items to note from Sarah's experience:

• She's seeing her portfolio and her blog as complements to one another with her portfolio as a place to maintain a lot of the artifacts of her career, such as publications, work samples, etc., while her blog is a place to reflect on those artifacts. It's also a place to create new ones, as many of her posts may become work samples as well.

• Sarah is including reflections on her experiences and artifacts in her portfolio. Reflections are really important as they put the items in your portfolio into context for both you and people who view the portfolio. They help you learn from the process, while also demonstrating that learning.

• Take a look at how Sarah is organizing her work--this is always an issue in putting together a portfolio. In Sarah's case, she's emphasizing achievements, awards, publications, etc., rather than simply putting up a sort of online resume in chronological order. When Shari and I were working on hers, we discussed using this kind of functional format, as well as using a competency-based format. In that approach, you identify key competencies to highlight and then organize your work to illustrate those competencies.

Sarah plans to blog about the process she uses to pull together her portfolio, so keep an eye on those posts. Also, feel free to drop by her blog and give her some feedback on how it's coming together. Another great advantage of an online portfolio, besides the personal branding aspect, is that you can benefit from the wisdom of others, something that generally doesn't happen with a paper version.