The July Way

The 71 North team has been hard at work over the summer, focusing on a range of tasks from website development to workflow management to washing the studio’s dishes! There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes at the studio, and this week’s Pulse will attempt to pull back the curtain on the month of July.

At the start of the month, we introduced a new studio member, Vincent Bratcher, to the 71 North team. He’s president of the Fiber Arts Club, a space for NIU students to gather and work on their fiber art skills - whether it be sewing, knitting, crocheting, embroidery, or more! The club will be assisting 71 North throughout the semester, and the studio will host their weekly club meetings on Mondays and Fridays from 5-7PM.

While the newest member was learning the ropes, others worked on getting new programs into the studio, creating a podcast, and making adjustments to the 71 North website.

Diligent readers of the Pulse will recognize the latest addition to 71 North’s ever-growing list of programs it supports: UR2PhD, a research and mentorship training program designed to support undergraduate and graduate students in their research journeys. Now that the studio officially serves as the local coordinator of the program, we’ve updated our website to include it in our programs and we’ll receive priority access to program activities as well as support from the Computing Research Association (CRA). More on UR2PhD below.

Next on our list of accomplishments for this month is our brand new podcast, Our Way! In an effort to communicate the studio’s culture and modus operandi, we’ve created (with AI assistance) four episodes focusing on different topics:

• Contribution at 71 North

• Approaching innovation from multiple disciplines

• Collaboration in practice

• Building an innovation community

The podcast will help new studio and team members when they’re going through the on-boarding process to better understand how the studio works, and it’s also a great milestone for us as we’re constantly improving our podcast studio technology and information. This isn’t the final destination and we’re hoping to get real human voices involved soon, but for now, we’re celebrating the broadcasting of our culture in a podcast.

Listen here!  

Amidst other ongoing tasks, a big challenge we’ve tackled this month is web development. Our website, https://71north.github.io/index.html, is getting a bit of TLC from our talented team of tech enthusiasts. A few updates you might’ve noticed:

• Fewer dead links

• Removal of Disqus widgets

• Sidebar list of programs in Programs tab

• Dark mode enabled

There’s even more in store as we continue to comb through our website in search of stumbling blocks, so keep your eyes peeled for future fixes.

In closing, we’ve worked hard throughout July to bring you bigger benefits and better support, and we plan to continue on our path as we trek into August. We know you’re working hard, too, so keep up the good work, and we’ll see you soon!

Take a moment to review 71 North on Google Maps