please keep off the grass

Please say hello to our innocent team in Amsterdam. I think this is their first proper appearance in the blog, so it's only right that we should find them in Dam Square, messing about on our grassy vans in front of the Queen's house.

Note Ynzo on the right, who obviously chickened out of doing the crazy Dutch car surfing thing at the last minute. Shame.

Comments

[Frankie Roberto]

This blog is turning into vanity publishing...

Blogging is about telling compelling stories, you know, not marketing spiel!

Much as it's nice to see the Dutch dudes, can't you dig out some real news to tell us?

[dan at innocent]

Hello Frankie. We're pretty new to this blogging lark, so it's good that you're letting us know what you want us to write about. I think there will always be occasions when we take the time to share dumb photos with you, and we'll also endeavour to tell you our news as it happens. If there's anything in particular you want to hear about, let us know - we want this blog to be as relevant and interesting as possible.

[Frankie Roberto]

Hi Dan,

I don't really mind the photos, I just wanted to give you a friendly warning that people will think it's a bit suss if the blog is mostly marketing-led, 'happy talk' about innocent. So far the balance has been okay, but this post and your 'Stop Trottoir' post both seemed a little pointless (although it was a Friday, so forgiveable :-)).

Here's some things I'd be interested in:

* an honest discussion of how you source fruit (organic vs non organic, local vs tropical, fair trade vs cheap).
* guest posts from your growers?
* life in the innocent factories.
* selling out - P&Js sold to Pepsico, Body Shop to Loreal, Green and Blacks to Cadbury's - would Innocent do the same, and what are the moral issues?
* behind the scenes at Fruitstock - just how do you manage to pull off such a big event?
* fruits vs vegetables - which are better, and how do they combine in smoothies?

Hope some of those ideas can be useful!

Cheers,

Frankie Roberto

[Frankie Roberto]

P.S Why not consider switching to post-moderation for comments (with spam filters) - you might find that it helps to speed up and enable more discussion around your posts!

[dan at innocent]

Hello again Frankie. I guess the problem with unmoderated comments on the blog is that we have quite a lot of kids who come to our site, mainly because we sell smoothies for kids. The worst possible scenario is that someone posts an obscene or unsuitable comment which is then read by a child. We don't really want that to happen so we're moderating all comments for now.

Interestingly, we haven't had any rude/obscene comments so far, so haven't had to censor anything. If that trend continues, we can turn off the moderation. We're keeping an eye on it.

[Frankie Roberto]

Hi Dan,

Thanks again for your reply. I understand the sensitivities around a child audience.

The balance between allowing freeflowing speedy discussion and stopping obscence and spammy comments is a difficult one to play. So glad you're keeping an eye on it, and hope you can move to a slightly less pre-emptively moderated system in future.

Cheers,

Frankie

[Ju]

These professional bloggers take life seriously don't they?
I rather liked the dumb photos and I don't give two hoots about the moderators "hindering freeflowing discussion" - life is to short to worry about these things bloggy friends - get out and enjoy it.
Don't get too heavy - chillout- drink smoothies be mellow.

[Hilde]

There is only one woman in the picture and I'm not even sure she's wearing an innocent T-shirt...

I hope it's because the rest of them didn't want to be photographed and not because there's only one woman in the Dutch team 8)

[ted]

Please find more female dutch innocent employees here Hilde:

http://innocentdrinks.typepad.com/innocent_drinks/2006/10/the_power_of_pi.html

[Hilde]

Thanks Ted.

I know that overall there are probably more women than men at Fruit Towers, but still... only 2 in Holland?

If they can use another Dutch writer, let me know and I'll try to even the numbers :)