Update Aug 4, 2011: After closing down this website, people have come to me with remarkable stories of how my writings touched their lives. Please tell me your story if you have one: m at marcgrabanski.com

It’s been a fun ride. I am moving onto focusing on MJG International and closing down my personal website (see description on my LinkedIn). I’ve been watching the traffic fade out and I’ll leave this website up for archive purposes, but I’m done writing on it. The purpose it served is now over.

The Road to Knowledge

In three and a half years, I went from a programmer with very little writing skills (just trying to not forget things I learned) to really being listened to by a wide range of people.

Traffic, Oh! So Much Traffic

Millions of people. I can’t imagine how many football stadiums that would fill up! Sure, all I was doing was pushing the knowledge needle forward for people through open source code, but it really sunk deep into my heart what I was doing. I took it seriously and cultivated the traffic making sure it arrived at the right destination through proper wording, titles and headings.

I deeply wanted to progress and receive the right information through my website. By helping others by writing, I progressed greatly.

Thank You, Eager Learners Around the World

I’m honored and humbled to this day by the people who are willing and happy to learn from me. I want to progress peoples’ careers. I’m not a great speaker (I need to work on that), but people listen to me and have changed their careers because of what I’ve showed or taught them through speaking and teaching.

I got to travel around the world doing workshops and speaking engagements!

Think about that. I was just a largely unknown Minnesotan (technology black hole, as I refer to it), who eventually got to receive all-expense paid trips to other countries. Makes me want to cry tears of joy and say “thank you…”

Power of Open Source

It is amazing what open source has done for the world. Open knowledge empowers greatly the earth. I created a script that took off like wildfire. To this day, the jQuery UI Datepicker is one of the world’s most utilized JavaScript / interface components which paved the way for what I’m doing now. I did what I set out to achieve.

Now I get to build user interface components for clients and companies. They’ve made $millions off components I build. It turns out creating nice UI components is mega tough to get right, but when you do they are absolutely indispensable.

Open source taught me how to do this. Thank you, open source.

Power of a Name

When I’d write an article, help someone out, or write open source code my name was being spread around the internet. Spreading your name all over the internet through open source and sharing code snippets is definitely the best way I know to build a career for yourself.

It comes down to this: do what you love to do first, display what you learn and get really good at it and the right career will find you.

This style of learning and sharing is a proven model of career success. Anybody who wants to be great (/ well known) must travel this road. To my surprise, I was put in some sort of unspoken open source hall of credibility. My open source projects gave me instant cred with anyone in the world I worked with. This is an amazing phenomenon! You can work anywhere and even chose your job. The only caveat for me that this freedom is there only if you want to stick to the things you are known for. Even though I can perform up with some of the best coders, I’ve changed now and I’m not known for what I’m best at. I’ll continue to code, but it isn’t my primary focus anymore.

In conclusion, building street cred out in the trenches is an amazing way to build a career. Show your software and improve others! It is the only surefire way of building a successful career in doing what you love.

Archiving the “Marc Grabanski” Brand

I can no longer spread my name through the internet, but I know my name lives on in the hearts and minds of many that my work has touched…and in the links to this website. ;)