McDonald's has launched a corporate responsiblity blog, Open for Discussion, written primarily by Bob Langert, Senior Director for Corporate Responsibility.

Like many blogs - corporate or not - it got off to a slow start. Too many days between the first few posts in January. And they read more like essays than blog postings. More recently Bob has gotten into the swing of things with shorter, snappier entries. Topics range from his visit to the Winter Olympics in Torino to a link and reference to the blog of a former employee of McDonald's. (She appears to have been in PR.)

Meanwhile Shel Israel (co-author of "Naked Conversations") criticized the blog here for overly long entries and for not posting often enough. Although his comments are on target I wonder why it is that some of us knowledgeable about blogging feel compelled to adopt the role of "blogging police"?

I'll have to think about that one. I guess it makes us look like "experts" because we understand "best practices." Of course, you could also make the case that it makes us look like jerks...

At any rate, Bob responded aimiably here, thanking Shel for the blogging pointers. That entry earned him 18 comments - most helpful and supportive ("Keep it up and maintain that humble, conversational voice!").

[Via PR Blogger in German]

Also worth a look, McDonald's includes a fairly lengthy Terms and Conditions for those wishing to leave a comment or interact with the blog. Notable is the clear reference to the fact that McD's "owns" any comment left on the blog and can use it, along with your name, any way the company chooses. I suspect you'll see more T&C's like these popping up on corporate blogs...

Here they are:

TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE

By using this site, you agree to the following terms and conditions, as well as McDonald's Internet Site Terms and Conditions and McDonald's Privacy Policy.  If you do not agree, you should not use this site.

• McDonald's owns any comments or other content that you post on this site. That means that McDonald's has the right to make, have made, offer for sale, use, sell, copy, distribute, perform, transmit, display, modify, adapt and otherwise use your submission(s) throughout the world in perpetuity in any manner that it sees fit without compensation to you. McDonald's also has the right to use your name in connection with any use of your submissions.
• McDonald's owns this site. As a result, from time to time, McDonald's may monitor comments to or the contents of this site to ensure adherence to all applicable policies and procedures. McDonald's shall have the right not to post or to remove in its sole discretion any content or comments that it considers violative of these Terms of Use or any other policies. McDonald's may post some or all of the comments and other content it receives in original form or in any form acceptable to McDonald's. McDonald's may, but will not always, reply to comments and other content submitted to this site.
• McDonald's will not treat any comments or other content submitted to this site as confidential. As a result, you should never submit a comment or other content to this site that contains any confidential, proprietary or trade secret information whether owned by you or someone else. If you want to refer to a third party work such as a newspaper article or other publication, you should link to that material on the third party's website.
• By submitting comments or other content to this site you represent that you are authorized to submit all of the information contained in any such comments or content.

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