July 30, 2008

the blue monster tattoo

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BMtattoo2.jpg
Dan Wood­man, a Mic­ro­soft emplo­yee for the last two years, liked the Blue Mons­ter so much, he went and got him­self a REAL tat­too of it. He explains why here:

While I can never for­get how much I love this com­pany and all of the great things we do, I wan­ted a daily remin­der of the fact that I, as a Mic­ro­sof­tie, need to change the world every sin­gle day. That is why, as part of MGX this year, I deci­ded to fully embrace the Blue Mons­ter and all it stands for. That is my very own Blue Mons­ter tat­too (and yes, he is real!). He’s there to make sure I don’t for­get why I am here and what it is that I am doing — chan­ging the world.

Wow. Thanks, Dan. As a car­too­nist, it doesn’t get any bet­ter than this. Like Pam Slim just told me, “Yikes, Hugh, that brings ‘Put­ting Skin into The Bran­ding Game’ to a whole new level!“
[Hint to Mar­ke­ters:] The fact that one of your collea­gues is willing to get a com­pany tat­too, AGAIN, demons­tra­tes a strong sense of what Mark Earls calls “The Purpose-Idea”. Think about it. Seriously.

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12 Responses to “the blue monster tattoo”

  1. OK — so I jum­ped before I knew all the facts. I gave Hugh grief on Twit­ter about it perhaps not being real, but a rub-on.
    I stand correc­ted and am in real awe of Dan having the pre­sence of mind to recog­nize that a remin­der like this is a great way to keep your head on straight.
    I give it to you Hugh, you are ama­zing! Nice tat­too Dan.

  2. Dan Woodman says:

    Thanks, Ste­ven. I can unders­tand — it looks a little fake in that pic­ture, but trust me — it’s the real deal. (It hurt way too much to be a rub-on.) But, now that you men­tion it… Blue Mons­ter rub-on tat­toos: per­fect for when you need a non-permanent remin­der of what it is you’re here to do today. :)
    –Dan

  3. Denis says:

    “The fact that one of your collea­gues is willing to get a com­pany tat­too…“
    But he didn’t. He got a tat­too of a cool dra­wing made by a very inte­res­ting per­son, but to anyone who doesn’t read this blog or isn’t part of the cog­nos­centi at MSFT, this *isn’t* a “com­pany tat­too”.
    Show me someone who’s got­ten a tat­too of the MSFT logo. Or the Win­dows logo. Then I’ll start paying a little more atten­tion.
    (okay, snark mode off…)

  4. Eugen Erhan says:

    so i’m gues­sing, if you’re fired, you’re scre­wed :) ))

  5. DrSnowboard says:

    Bran­ding your­self with a cor­po­rate logo, even if its only recog­ni­sa­ble by geeks? Sheesh. Let’s hope job secu­rity isn’t a con­cern, other­wise there might need to be some tat­too edits. Perhaps a large blue whale to reflect the bloat­ware that is Vista once you stop drin­king the koolaid?

  6. Paul says:

    Fas­ci­na­ting, I don’t even wear t-shirts that adver­tise things. William Gib­son was right about cor­po­rate archo­lo­gies. Go get ‘em Dan.

  7. Anonymous says:

    Man, in any other industry this would be seen as the most self aba­sing kind of brown-nosing. I don’t see why wor­king in IT is any dif­fe­rent from being a cog in any other trans­na­tio­nal cor­po­ra­tion — and a mediocre aggres­si­vely mono­po­list one at that.…

  8. hugh macleod says:

    DrS­now­board, If you have a bet­ter idea, cool. Build it.

  9. Greig Harper says:

    I have to admit I’d be reluc­tant to get a tat­too just for an emplo­yer with the way the job mar­ket is these days. I sup­pose if you get one everywhere you work it’s a visual resumé :)

  10. Dan Woodman says:

    Denis: Here you go. http://blogs.technet.com/kevinremde/archive/2005/12/06/415649.aspx
    (And no, that one isn’t mine)
    As for the rest of the com­ments about get­ting fired, chan­ging it, etc. I was pas­sio­nate about Mic­ro­soft long before I wor­ked here. And now that I do, I can­not ima­gine lea­ving. It is much more than a job — it is a way of life. I don’t envi­sion ever regret­ting the ink, nor wishing to change it, but you can bet if that hap­pens, I will let you know. ;)

  11. […] Today found this great post, here is a quick excerpt : Dan Wood­man, a Mic­ro­soft emplo­yee for the last two years, liked the Blue Mons­ter so much, he went and got him­self a REAL tat­too of it. He explains why. Read the rest of this great post Here […]