February 1st, 2009
Body art won't save you
Todd Bishop’s report that a Microsoftie who has a Blue Monster tattoo got pink slipped made me smile:
Microsoft solutions adviser Dan Woodman achieved minor celebrity status for getting a tattoo of the company’s unofficial “Blue Monster” mascot — a character created by Hugh MacLeod imploring employees to “change the world or go home.” In this impassioned blog post last summer, Woodman expressed his love for Microsoft and explained that he got the tattoo as a daily reminder of that mantra.
In a post this evening, Woodman acknowledged that he was among the 1,400 employees laid off by the company last week. However, he says, he has no plans to give up the Blue Monster. Nor is he giving up on the company.
I’m a bit of a body art fan myself (please - don’t ask) but this brought back memories of an i2 event I attended in Dallas some years back. The company offered a $500 bounty to anyone who had the i2 logo tattooed on them at the Deep Ellum parlors. Folks were lining up to get ink, smiling through the pain at the thought of demonstrating their loyalty and, no doubt, the thought of what they might do with that $500.
Unfortunately, someone didn’t tell them that the logo was already in the re-design shop and a few weeks later, what was once hip and cool was…uh…redundant.
There’s a lesson in there for us all. And for the record, no, I don’t have a ZDNet logo tattooed on my left buttock. Or anywhere else for that matter.
Dennis Howlett has been providing comment and analysis on enterprise software since 1991. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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