A number of people including Todd Bishop, BoingBoing, CrunchGear, Dennis Howlett and CNBC have posts about Dan Woodman being laid off from Microsoft and for a while it was floating high on Techmeme. At the very least, Dan’s new blog just got some great juice.

For those late to the story, Dan is the dude who got a Blue Monster tattoo last year. For those really late to the story, check out the whole Blue Monster back story. Hugh also posted about Dan’s story yesterday.

Like Hugh a number of people emailed me asking for my thoughts which I had decided I would not post out of respect for a colleague who had been laid off but then I figured it made sense to say something about Blue Monster given I was an instigator.

Lets get the Dan thing out of the way first – I wish him well and like Hugh suspect he’ll end up working at Microsoft in some guise given his passion for the company. When asked whether he had any regrets, Dan said

Working at Microsoft has been the greatest experience of my life and I have no desire to forget about it. And even if I don’t get back into Microsoft right away (which is, by the way, my plan!), then I have a reminder that even outside of Microsoft, I need to do my best to change the world every single day.

Big respect Dan. Oh and if you’re reading this and would like one of the limited edition original lithographs let me know and I’ll get one to you. I have about 10 left i think….and I know a man who has some Blue Monster wine I’m sure we could furnish you with :)

So back to the Blue Monster which I haven’t talked about in a while. I’m pretty certain a few people including some close friends think it was just a marketing stunt and I no longer care about it. Quite the contrary – though I don’t bang on about it every 5 minutes these days, that’s because I don’t need to. The movement needed some energy back then but now I think it’s reached a point where it’s better understood and has a life of it’s own so it doesn’t need oxygen from Hugh and I. It also became a sensitive subject for a while but that’s a longer story….the real point is that the Blue Monster survived by continuing to be underground and some folks in the company made the right decision to ensure it stayed that way. For those people who thought it was killed off you totally missed the message. Tara called it well and the smart folks took didn’t take Option #1 (or #2 or #3 in fact). Because of that, Blue Monster has become two things:

• an established quasi brand – not owned by Microsoft but very clearly associated with Microsoft as these recent blog posts show. Both Shel Israel and Neville Hobson talked about this this week totally unrelated to Dan’s situation. Not bad for a cartoonist, geek and some wine people.

• a talking point – the Blue Monster has appeared in at least 3 pretty decent books on social & crowd marketing in the last year and is something of a case study on social marketing and crowd dynamics.

The Blue Monster will live on regardless of the energy Hugh, Dan I or anyone else puts into it. None of us ever really knew where it was going but we thought it would make people sit up and view Microsoft slightly differently. I think Hugh and I both felt strongly about challenging the prevailing “Borg mentality” with a story driven by people. If it serves to be a totem for the people energy at Microsoft and their ability to do world changing things, I’m happy. Long may that continue.