Shift your personal paradigm, or perhaps bend, twist or smash it. That’s the advice of Jonathan Tolstedt, who will present an upcoming NDSU brown bag presentation about creativity and innovative solutions to everyday problems.
His talk, “Life is Short, Break the Rules,” is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 24, at noon in the Memorial Union Century Theater.
Tolstedt is the intellectual property officer for Appareo Systems of Fargo, but he also is a registered U.S. patent agent, engineer, inventor, consultant and adjunct lecturer at NDSU. According to him, it’s useful to think like Albert Einstein, tap both sides of your brain or treat the laws of physics as mere suggestions.
“I’ve always been drawn to scientific and technical advances – I like really cool achievements. I’m a science fiction reader, so I’m always wondering what’s possible,” explained Tolstedt, who will present a variety of techniques for people to explore new perspectives and thought processes. His hope is to inspire a burst of creativity.
“How can you take an already successful model and apply it where it normally does not belong? I’ll introduce new ways of looking at problems,” he said. “Some of the things I’ll suggest may make people a little uncomfortable, because I’ll expose them to different ways of thinking. In my mind, really innovative ideas should make you a little uncomfortable.”
The talk is co-sponsored by the NDSU Research and Technology Park, which hosts the annual Innovation Challenge for NDSU students with events scheduled throughout the academic year culminating in the final competition and awards ceremony during Innovation Week, March 3-7. The objective of the presentation is to inspire and motivate more students to get involved in the competition.
“As students prepare for this year’s Innovation Challenge ’14 competition, we encourage them to attend Jonathan’s presentation,” said Brenda Wyland, interim executive director of the NDSU Research and Technology Park. “The presentation is an opportunity for students to initiate thinking outside of the box and realize their potential for creative thinking as they strive to bring new innovative ideas to life.”
When organizing a team for the competition, Tolstedt suggests students include team members from a variety of disciplines, who may add new slants to a project. He said, for example, engineering students can learn from the ideas of art majors and vice versa, because the two majors often have fundamentally different ways of thinking and approaching a problem.
“Students shouldn’t think that they don’t have anything to add. I urge them to use the techniques to develop their own unique ideas,” said Tolstedt, who earned his bachelor’s degree from South Dakota State University and master’s degree in computer science from the University of Iowa. “I think students will find the Innovation Challenge is a very rewarding activity, and they will get something valuable from the experience.”
Tolstedt’s presentation is open to the public. Attendees are encouraged to bring their lunch.
NDSU is recognized as one of the nation’s top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.