The arrogantly titled Blog Council, managed by GasPedal, Chicago, IL, is the most ludicrous and ill-conceived idea to ever come out of a backward-thinking corporate cesspool that’s so desperate to get a piece of the pie, it’s willing to inject archaic web 1.0 sensibilities into the flourishing social phenomena the rest of us call blogging.

These geniuses think that a closed community of clueless and anti-social corporate bloggers can get together and set the blogging world to rights, without having to engage with ‘outsiders’ who have serious blogging experience and valuable input to share - instead, opting to decide for themselves what the best practices for corporate blogging are.

GasPedal, the marketing firm who manage the Blog Council have a blog, and this post really made me laugh…

“It’s really too bad that being a grouchy cynic is often consider[sic] a badge of honor among major bloggers. The general level of pessimism and meanness is just sad… …Blogs should celebrate. They should celebrate freedom and openness.“

Well now they’ve appeared on Startup Earth, and really have something to be sad about. It’s in “celebration of freedom and openness”, that I whole-heartedly mock this short-sighted venture with great satisfaction.

The site itself broadcasts their ignorance like a beacon of stupidity, breaking every rule in the book with their “We write, you listen” attitude. There is zero interaction on the front page, which contains ‘Latest News’ and a handy little FAQ, so they don’t have to respond directly to questions. This would be ok on most sites, but for a “Blogging Council” as they put it, it’s about a million miles from the blogging I know.

From the site..

“We will be exploring best practices, model policies, and issues specific to major companies’ blogs. We provide a community for corporate bloggers to meet each other, share ideas, and learn from each other.

We will also serve as a voice for corporate blogging. Companies will be blogging, but we will do it differently than personal or small business blogs. There is no one “right way” to blog.”

Let me save you some time by offering what I see as good corporate blogging practices; you are of course free to discuss these ideas or disagree by leaving a comment, which brings me nicely to my first point…

Encourage open debate - A no-brainer this one, and the whole point of blogging, whether it’s personal or corporate, using a blog for one-way ‘press release’ style posts is an excercise in futility. Readers want to see a human being on the other end. Yahoo! is a good example.

Be transparent - In other words, show readers what it’s like behind the scenes. The Blog Council is only open to members, which means the flow of information will eventually stagnate and become irrelevant in the real blogging world.

You are not the authority on blogging - Repeat. Even authoritive bloggers learn from each other. The only thing BC members will learn from each other, is how clueless they really are. By then it’ll be too late, as the rest of the blogosphere continues to innovate.

So there you have it. Bloggers keep on blogging, experimenting and sharing ideas. Let these stuffy corporates have their clubhouse. Watching it fail will be hilarious.