About a year ago, I wrote a blog on DMC’s fourteenth anniversary, looking back on our first 14 years. Now, DMC has reached its fifteenth year, and at this time of our quinceañera, so to speak, I wanted to again reflect on where we've been.
Since I can’t rewrite my blog from last year, I figured I would mix it up a bit and talk about some of the fun things that DMC has done over the last year or so.
A lot of things stand out looking back on the past year. An all day, all-company offsite meeting on my boat last August landed DMC down the river to Ping Tom Park. It was a successful day considering there were intense swimming relays, attempted acrobatics off of the boat, the Chicago Air & Water Show practicing above us, and even impromptu commercials on DMC culture.
DMC was on a boat once again, in February. The DMC holiday party began on the Odyssey, which docked off of Navy Pier in the evening. The Odyssey was a great time, and we decided to keep the celebrations going later that night at the W Hotel Lakeshore.
Other memorable outings include Restaurant Week 2011 and Second City
Not surprisingly, DMC’s active and competitive nature continued throughout this year as well, competing in the Hustle up the Hancock, the Shamrock Shuffle (8k), and Chase Corporate Challenge (5k). The three were successful athletic endeavors for DMC, all continuing our long standing tradition of DMC competitive fun.
This year we also decided to start a new tradition as well, with the first annual DMC ski trip to Breckenridge, CO. It was a three-day weekend with near perfect weather, and long days on the slopes.
A fun, productive in-office tradition was also born this year as well. DMC held our first ever “FedEX Day." One result of the day was really cool functioning demo using an XBox Kinect (a stereo 3-D camera, typically used with the Xbox 360 video game console) that allows for an interactive display case. Check out the rest of the blog for other accomplishments.
We carried these new internal and external operations improvements with us in May when we moved to 2222 N. Elston Avenue. The new location has been a work in progress, and we eagerly await the completion of our rooftop deck:
As for now, DMC is enjoying summer activities in Chicago. Several DMC engineers have recently joined forces to form a beach volleyball team, Spike DMC. A group of us also went on a river kayaking excursion, a 3 mile trip along the Chicago River, with a destination to watch the fireworks show, and paddle pack.
Overall, DMC’s quinceañera has been a busy and productive, yet fun and exciting year. As we continue to grow, we look forward to more great times ahead.