The MSU makes Bounce Life its centralized management platform for campus events and club activities
The McMaster Students Union has teamed up with Bounce Life to streamline event management and boost student engagement on campus. Announced on Instagram on July 29, Bounce will be the official community and events platform for the MSU and its affiliated organizations and student clubs.
The platform will serve as centralized hub, simplifying event planning for campus services and student clubs.
In an interview with The Silhouette, MSU president Jovan Popovic detailed the platform's benefits and its prospective impact on students.
“It’s about transparency … showing people everything that’s going on, connecting people, showing you which of your friends are going to certain events. There’s a lot of nifty features where I think people can see the best of what’s happening on campus … and connect them better than any other platform that we currently have,” Popovic said.
It’s about transparency … showing people everything that’s going on, connecting people, showing you which of your friends are going to certain events. There’s a lot of nifty features where I think people can see the best of what’s happening on campus … and connect them better than any other platform that we currently have.
Jovan Popovic
President, McMaster Students Union
Bounce, accessible via a mobile app, offers robust event management tools and features to make make event organizing streamlined and to increase engagement. Most important to the MSU, its services and student clubs is that users can host and manage event listings, track attendance, communicate with participants, and offer real-time updates during events.
One key feature is that it handles ticketing and paid events. Before, student clubs would have to choose their own service, such as Eventbrite, to sell tickets and collect fares.
Other notable features include an invite back option for re-inviting previous attendees and free SMS blasts for event-day communication.
Popovic explained that other universities, including the University of British Columbia and Western University, have already chosen Bounce as their event management system for student organizations.
"It’s a relatively newer product, but it’s being rapidly adopted. UBC and Western have integrated it, and many larger student unions across the country are taking a serious look at it. We all share the same vision of unity, connection, and belonging,” said Popovic.
It’s a relatively newer product, but it’s being rapidly adopted. UBC and Western have integrated it, and many larger student unions across the country are taking a serious look at it. We all share the same vision of unity, connection, and belonging.
Jovan Popovic, President
McMaster Students Union
The rollout of Bounce is ongoing and the first MSU events of the school year are now listed on the platform. Tickets for the upcoming homecoming concert with Loud Luxury and Lil Tecca became available on Bounce on August 30.
Popovic mentioned that him and his team promoted the app during welcome week, offering incentives such as free items to encourage sign-ups. “Now it’s about seeing how students experience it and letting them use it. We’re at the stage where we can start communicating with them through the app and posting our events,” said Popovic.
Popovic noted that with the usage of Bounce, he hopes to see more event attendance and engagement. "We've seen a significant boost in the number and quality of events on campus and I think a lot of that will be reflected on Bounce. Bounce will help us raise awareness. Once students attend our events, it's easier to keep them coming back," he said.
Students can access Bounce by downloading the app and signing up with their university email. For updates on campus events, follow the MSU and @bouncelifemac on Instagram.
As accelerating technological advancement changes the digital landscape, the role played by social institutions like schools, companies and the government will shift. Students entering the workforce may be faced with the aftershocks of this digital shift and are looking to prepare themselves.
On Oct. 2, students filled McMaster’s LIVElab to hear Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld discuss the potential impact of the growing presence of technology in the modern workplace.
Cutcher-Gershenfeld, author of Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution, is currently a professor at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. In his book, he argues that there have been two “digital revolutions” in the last 50 years — and that we will soon experience a third.
“The first digital revolution was the shift from analog to digital communication, which gave us the Internet. The second digital revolution [was] the rise of digital computation, which has given us what is now the ‘internet of things’ … [and] ubiquitous computation all throughout society,” he said.
As much as these two digital revolutions have transformed the world, Cutcher-Gershenfeld added that the ability to use this digital technology to make physical objects — a process he refers to as “digital fabrication” — changes everything. He points to fabrication laboratories as a particular example.
Fabrication laboratories, or “Fab Labs”, are small-scale hubs equipped with digital manufacturing tools such as 3D and laser printers. Fab Labs can rapidly manufacture industrial-quality goods, allowing people to turn their ideas into tangible prototypes.
“What we’re talking about is the ability to make what you need by what we call self-sufficient production, in which you are making what you need without having to work for someone else … The capability to, in a sense, have a small rapid prototyping facility that can produce industrial quality goods is happening faster and faster,” said Cutcher-Gershenfeld.
When Cutcher-Gershenfeld began writing his book, there were only 1,400 Fab Labs and maker-spaces worldwide. There are now 2,000.
According to Cutcher-Gershenfeld, access to these Fab Labs will increase exponentially in the coming years. While the impact is currently modest, he believes that Fab Labs will give way to the rapid evolution of digital fabrication and, by extension, will change what the workplace might look like for students who are about to graduate and enter the workforce.
During his talk, Cutcher-Gershenfeld emphasized the potential dangers associated with the growing presence of Fab Labs. Currently, it is difficult to predict the impact that Fab Labs will have on the economy. However, Cutcher-Gershenfeld warned that without the support of social systems, like government regulation, the ability to manufacture products digital outside of a factory setting may have repercussions on existing industries.
Judy Fudge, labour studies professor at McMaster University and organizer for the event, echoed Cutcher-Gershenfeld’s concern towards the rapid emergence of new technology.
“[Things] could change dramatically for the worse if we don’t think about the social systems to make sure they [also] change for the better,” Fudge said.
Fudge planned Cutcher-Gershenfeld’s talk as an opportunity for students and staff to see how the workplace is evolving and how some individuals are working to improve it. The seminar was planned with the Socrates Project, a McMaster initiative that brings attention to modern problems through an interdisciplinary lens, as part of their ongoing “Future of Work” lecture series.
According to Socrates Project Director Rina Fraticelli, partnering with McMaster’s School of Labour Studies was an opportunity for the Socrates Project to stimulate discussion on how the average workplace might change in the future.
After the seminar, Fraticelli said, “It seemed to me that . . . one of the biggest preoccupations . . . of students who are looking ahead [is asking] ‘What will happen when I graduate? What’s the world going to be like?’”
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