Open Access has become mainstream. We hear a lot of talk about it, but are often not sure how it really affects us as South African researchers or how much agency we have in the context of increasingly competitive research environments. How do you balance imperatives around increasing access to your work with institutional pressures to publish in high-status journals? This presentation will provide some practical pointers on how you can take steps to be more proactive in addressing your visibility, curating your outputs, and managing your intellectual property rights for maximum impact and visibility. Presentation delivered to the South African Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) as part of its Open Access Week 2014 proceedings.