McBlogging

When I wrote a long story about McDonald’s and corporate responsibility for FORTUNE in 2003, my colleague at the time, Joe Nocera, said that the most responsible thing for McDonald’s to do would be to shut down. He was kidding, but he was expressing a view of Mickey D’s shared by liberal elites. What other U.S. corporation has been the target of two Hollywood movies in recent years—Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Super Size Me and Fox Searchlight’s upcoming Fast Food Nation?

The truth is, McDonald’s takes CSR seriously. It offers healthy choices in its restaurants, has worked with environmentalists for more than a decade around issues ranging from packaging to sustainable fisheries, does lots of charitable work, etc. The company is far from perfect—there’s a raging and very complicated controversy about its ties to exploited migrant workers who pick tomatoes in Florida, and giving away Hummer toys in Happy Meals isn’t exactly green practice. But there’s no doubt in my mind that Bob Langert, who runs the corporate responsibility operation at McDonald's, is one of the people inside corporate America who is changing things for the better.

Bob and a colleague, Catherine Adams, have been writing a blog for McDonald’s, and it’s worth a look. It’s an effort by the company to be more transparent and open. Some of what Bob writes strikes me as spin—he defends the Hummer giveaway by saying it’s just a toy—but he also offers insight into the tensions that face a company that’s trying to change its business to meet the rising expectations of consumers and critics. Fitting the blog-writing into his schedule isn’t easy, Bob tells me via email, but he says he’s enjoying the writing.

I am always thinking about my next blog, and the next one. I wish we had more comments, more dialogue, but there is a fair amount of blog activity outside my own blog on what I write, so I think that is good.

Corporate blogging's catching on. I think that before too long, any company that wants to connect with its many stakeholders will have one. The challenge will be to make them authentic--and not just spin.

Comments

[Debbie Weil]

Marc,

Apologies for not getting right back to you today. Thanks for your interesting post - and for sharing the email from Bob Langert. Generally, I think corporate bloggers mean well. Sometimes they just need more practice in getting "the blogging thing" down. They're so attuned to speaking/writing/thinking in corporate-speak that it's hard for them to drop it. Just my two cents.

[Marc Gunther]

Debbie,
Your post on this is great. Folks, check it out at http://www.blogwriteforceos.com/blogwrite/2006/09/oops_mcdonalds_.html