Coles notes version: if you like(d) my Dilbert mash ups, please visit them at their new home: Denis’ Dilbert Mashups.

Regular readers of the blog may notice something different about today’s Dilbert mashup: such as the lack of a visible comic, or “mashup” if you will. The reason for this ties back to some fellow named “Rob”, who clearly has no sense of humour and spoiled the fun for the rest of us made an interesting comment on the July 18th mashup. In short, he found the Dilbert mashup to be a distraction not worthy of his attention, and indicated he would likely unsubscribe from the wikinomics blog, even though he really likes the rest of it, if my Dilberts continued messing up his techo-babble /noise. I’m also fairly sure he didn’t want my autograph.

So… we had a quick little review of the whole Dilbert mashup thing, in order to see whether this “Rob” fellow might be onto something. Thinking back, the initial idea behind the mash ups was that the new Dilbert site was an excellent example of the power of wikinomics in action, and what better way to promote such innovations than to participate in them ourselves? And since we have our own blog, wouldn’t it be cool if we could tie each mash up back to the principles of wikinomics in some way, and share these humerous anecdotes with our readers?

Well I sure thought it would be cool – and I think I’ve managed to make a direct connection a few times (such as July 7th, June 27th, June 25th, June 24th, June 20th, June 16th, a real doozy on June 13th, June 11th, June 9th, June 6th, June 5th, a humdinger on May 30th, May 27th, May 26th, May 22nd, May 20th, May 17th, May 16th, an “I almost wet my pants” on May 13th, May 10th, and May 8th/9th. For example).

However, scattered in between these are a few where the connection to wikinomics ranges from “less obvious” to “non-existent”, particularly when unspeakable violence involving coffee cups is prominently involved in the initial storyline. These posts may very well lead certain readers to question why exactly they are on the wikinomics site / in their reader – fair enough. However, without them we lose the regular publishing cycle to draw in the readers who, unlike “Rob”, actually like to see them daily, even in the cases where the wikinomics connections are weak. Such as my Mom and I.

So what to do when faced with such a dilemma? Simply embrace some of the principles of wikinomics, such as openness and collaboration, and launch Denis’ Dilbert Mash Ups on the blogger.com platform. Whenever I do a Dilbert mash up it will be published there, and on certain occasions, if the wikinomics connection is strong enough, we may also point to them here. That should make everyone happy, non?