News

For the first time in more than 18 months, Sixies from around the nation gathered, in-person, for Six Feet Up’s semi-annual retreat. The July 2021 retreat, hosted in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, featured home-cooked meals, fire pit conversations, relaxing boat rides and several days of Sixies coming together to work on the business, as opposed to in the business. Together, the team set goals; identified, discussed and solved (IDSed) issues; and completed 11 ShipIt Day projects.

Quarterly EOS Meeting

Six Feet Up’s leadership team traveled to Twin Lakes a few days early for the Quarterly Meeting Pulse. As a proud Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS®) company, every 90 days, Six Feet Up brings together its leadership team to review the company’s vision, discuss successes, resolve key issues and determine strategic priorities.

Then, the company’s positioning and priorities were cascaded to all employees at Innovation Day.

Innovation Day

Innovation Day, a quarterly event for all Sixies, kicked off with a State of the Company address given by Six Feet Up’s CEO, Gabrielle Hendryx-Parker. Throughout the day, the team — who was encouraged to be collaborative, open and honest — discussed the future of Six Feet Up.

Specifically, the team rallied around Six Feet Up’s:

• Core focus to “Make Anything Possible™ using modern technologies and best practices to build a better world,” and
• Objective to “Complete 10 IMPACTFUL Projects™ by 2025.”

IMPACTFUL Projects™ are defined as:

• Impressive. This project makes people think anything is possible.
• Moving. This project is awe-inspiring.
• Purposeful. This project aligns with our core focus.
• Advanced. This project uses cutting-edge technology.
• Collaborative. Sixies and the client partner for the greater good.
• Transformative. This project changes lives.
• Future-focused. This project anticipates changes.
• Unquestionably benefits humankind.
• Legacy. This project will create a lasting impact on the world.

As of today, Six Feet Up has had the privilege to work on three IMPACTFUL projects — ranging from space exploration to lightning strike predictions and forest fire management. The company is well on its way to achieving this goal.

At the end of Innovation Day, the Sixies had a renewed sense of enthusiasm about Six Feet Up’s culture and the company’s goals.

ShipIt Day

The retreat continued with Six Feet Up’s 24th ShipIt Day, an event designed to develop intrinsic motivation by working in teams to complete a project of each team’s choice.

• The requirement? The project must benefit the company.
• The catch? The project must be complete and presentation-ready in just 24 hours.
• The goal? Have fun, learn something new and build team spirit!

With the inspiration from Innovation Day still top of mind, 11 teams were created and off to work. From deploying containers, to deleting outdated tickets, ramping up on React, templatizing workflows, advancing the company’s website analytics, and even cleaning out the AirBNBs hot tub filter, the Sixies had fun working on a variety of projects (with the occasional swing, slide and ping-pong break).

Organized as a friendly competition, ShipIt Day’s winning team was given $200 to donate to a charity of their choosing. This year’s winners chose to donate to The Parrot Posse, an organization dedicated to saving parrots with the help of rescues and sanctuaries.

Each ShipIt Day is an endless source of amazement at what can be achieved in 24 hours when motivation and "flow" are the driving forces. If you ask the Sixies what they like most about ShipIt Day, most will say: spending time with each other.

To coincide with our semi-annual retreats, Six Feet Up hosts two ShipIt Days each year. We’re already looking forward to our next retreat in January 2022!