Headstand Media

Nightstand 10 Description

34 people from a variety of organizations gathered at Headstand Media on January 22, 2009 for a great time of networking, learning and sharing around a common interest in web 2.0 technology and applications. Our training room was filled to near capacity as Nightstand 10 attenders ate Thai food from Star of Siam, and shared with one another about work, life and the web.

Presentation

Our special guest and featured presenter Steve Wilson shared with the gathered group from his experience and perspective as Senior Director of Global Web Communications, at McDonald’s Corporation, located in Oak Brook, Illinois. During his presentation, Steve covered the history of McDonald’s step-by-step entry and experimentation with web 2.o applications, what they learned along the way, and examples of the various forms and uses it takes at the company today. As you might expect, web 2.0 presented challenges requiring cultural change within such a large, global corporation.

Blogging

The earliest foray for McD into web 2.0 was an internal blog on the company Intranet. There was never a very big employee participation as it was a big change to their culture. In the next iteration, McDonald’s dropped all reference to the tool as a blog, and called it “Mindshare” focusing on positive discussion and sharing aspects. Today, this is a growing and expanding tool on the company Intranet.

Open for Discussion

External Blog

The first public McD web 2.0 application was “Open for Discussion” a company blog primarily run by Vice President, Bob Langert, around their corporate and social responsibility initiatives. This site was launched several years ago without any public announcement and has grown substantially in the years since. It is a very active blog read by thousands of people worldwide.

Crew Blog

Another newer initiative was the creation of a social networking site for McDonald’s crew members worldwide, called “Station M.”

Station M

This site allows crew members to share photos, stories and other information to build teamwork and engage in constructive conversations about the workplace. The site connects crew members worldwide and can be accessed in English, French and Spanish.

View photos from Nightstand 10

Nightstand 10

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