remember in high school when your parents thought it would be a fun experience to invite sven from denmark to come live with you as part of a student exchange program? he lived in your converted rec room, you introduced him to your friends, you took him to civil war battle grounds, and you cheered him on in soccer. well, our co-founder, eric, also thought it would be a good experience if we had an exchange student here at method. meet dan.
there are a few key differences between sven and dan. dan isn’t danish. he’s english. dan isn’t in high school. he’s the creative director at innocent drinks, a smoothie company in the UK. and dan isn’t living in our rec room although we have seen him play a little ping pong.
dan’s doing an exchange with method to share ideas about what he has learned at innocent and steal ideas to take back to his team. as part of this exchange he promised to blog a little about what he has learned.
i’ve been working at innocent for over 11 years, since we started making smoothies. i’m not allowed out much, so imagine my excitement at being able to visit another place that makes nice stuff.
so what have I learned?
i learned that it isn’t just innocent that has trouble keeping a tidy kitchen. even method, the home of people against dirty, sometimes has to put out an APB to make sure everyone washes up their used coffee mugs. while i was there the whole company took a vow that they will never, ever fail to wash the dishes, ever again. i hope they stick to their promise.
i also learned that if you have a bunch of really smart, bright, friendly people working together, then they can do pretty much anything they set their minds to. the potential is limitless. method is a business that’s doing so many good things they don’t know which ones to talk about first. this is a good problem to have, like your diamond shoes being a little bit too tight. and even though there aren’t really any diamond shoes (except maybe on katie’s feet – she strikes me as someone who might have some diamond shoes) method is rich, because they have great people with great ideas making great products.
it made me want to go home and work even harder on innocent. i was inspired and pinched plenty of good ideas. i tried to explain a little about what we do back in london. there’s a weird sibling relationship that the two businesses have – long may that continue.
and i will miss the coffee in san francisco. they have some very good coffee.
sincerely, dan
shucks, we’re blushing.
dan, thanks for the writing class you taught here at the method office and the great nuggets you shared about innocent drinks’ culture. we can’t wait for our designer, sally, to do her exchange at innocent and pinch some ideas of her own to bring back to us.
p.s. katie would like it to be known that her diamond shoes are hand-me-downs.
