We’ve all seen the problem: as companies scale, the invisible walls come up, silos form, suddenly there are loads of people in the office you don’t know… and blank stares in the corridor or lift become normal.
A group of Hootsuite employees decided they didn’t want to sit back and watch this happen. Learning from programmes like Ten Thousand Coffees and Mixer, they started a coffee-fuelled revolution within their company.
The concept is really simple: employees from different departments are matched up — blind-date style — to get to know one another over a cup of coffee, tea, juice or whatever. Logistically, it started as an excel spreadsheet with email addresses and has become more sophisticated in stages – as Founder/CEO Ryan Holmes describes in this inspiring Medium article.
So far, more than 1,000 people have signed up, and 2,000 new introductions have been made over coffee. Even more importantly, that has meant new friendships, insights, ideas and collaborations… a caffeine-shot for Hootsuite’s prized culture.
