Ah, you are a victim of your own success, which is a problem not uncommon to those who are competent at something. Far too often that results in people being pigeon-holed into one particular job, type-cast in a sense. Now, for some that's just great. However, this does not seem to be the case for you, as you are getting exposure, something that many want and find it hard to get. However, once the genie is out of the bottle it can be hard to get it back in.

It's tough being labled "one of them", however, you may want to consider it to be an opportunity rather than a burden. Organizations can suffer greatly from separation between management and those who actually do the work. It appears to me that you may be in a position to a lot of good things for your company as a leader, should you deside to do so.

If you want to just blend back into the woodwork, then time will probably take care of things. You may be getting a lot of attention now, but if you can successfully fend off the requests imposed on you by others (other than your manager) then eventually they will look elsewhere. People often have short memories and tech heros fade fast when they are not continually performing super-human feats of magic. I know you do not see what you did in those terms but the non-tech types often do.

IMHO, you should consider very carefully your course of action here. You have stumbled into something that many often wish they could obtain... visibility to the muckety-mucks.

Good luck

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