 If you watch Common Ground online, consider becoming a member or making a donation at lptv.org. Lakeland PBS presents Common Ground, brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota. Production funding of Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community, a partnership for generations. Member, FDIC. Welcome to Common Ground. I'm your host, Scott Knudson. In this episode, go behind the scenes with those who design Bemidji State University's TAD Talks. My name is Satchel Josephson. I'm a professor in the School of Technology, Art and Design. We're here at the beautiful Bemidji State campus and I'm here to talk about the TAD Talk event that is in the spring of every year put on by the School of Technology, Art and Design and it's just an incredible event. And I'm involved in TAD Talks because about five years ago, the students were trying to have a TEDx event on campus and for whatever reason it fell through and I was involved in the stage design at that time and I said, you know what? I think we should still move forward on it and not do a TEDx event but do something called TAD Talks where the School of Technology, Art and Design and we have an incredible network of people that we know and why don't we just tap into that network and try to find people that would embrace the spirit of the School of Technology, Art and Design. I'm Ben Wenkelman, a senior student at Bemidji State University. My task was a project manager of the 2017 annual TAD Talks for the School of Technology, Art and Design. TAD Talks is modeled around TED Talks which TED Talks, they invite an industry leader to come talk about, explain just about anything. I mean, TAD Talks is modeled around that which they then invite nine to 12 industry leaders who are modeled around engineering technology on design and art. My name is Angela Guerrari. I'm a student in the School of Technology, Art and Design here at Bemidji State University and I was one of the lead student organizers for TED Talks. So what I did was work with my professor and we worked with a committee and I would help find speakers. I would communicate with the speakers and get their PowerPoints to us, what we were gonna present on the screen and we would work on budgets and basically just planning the entire event. Hi, my name is Shane Fierstead. I'm a quality systems engineer for Polaris Industries. I work in Roseau, Minnesota and I was privileged to be a part of the 2017 TED Talks at Bemidji State University. Well, through the years I've become acquainted with David Towley, he's an instructor there at BSU in the Technology, Art and Design Department and I became acquainted with him through my MBA program where he was a classmate with me and then I also got to work with him at BSU and so he became aware that I had some knowledge of social media and he suggested a topic of social media because he knew that some of the students are kind of lost when it comes to social media. They may do things that are inappropriate or not know how to leverage social media to advance their career. They might actually be doing things that harm their career advancement. The TED Talk event is a very unique event in that it's not run by faculty. It is a student run event and we as faculty help kind of facilitate the students. The School of Technology, Art and Design is made up of programs in engineering, project management, model making, exhibit design, graphic design and studio arts and what we really try to do with TED Talk event is take students from all those different disciplines, put them in a room and say, we're gonna make a really awesome event and you guys are gonna do it. We do a stage design and we ask the engineering students is this gonna stand? Is this design gonna stand? We have the project management students managing the entire event, making sure we're meeting deadlines, making sure we're on budget and making sure that it's a quality event that the industry, the university and the community has come to expect. I became involved with TED Talks because of my professor and the project management course I was in. He had asked me and another student to be the project managers of the TED Talks event. So we worked with a variety of different professors. I worked with Satchel Josephson and Steve Sundell. Those were some of my professors on the design side but as well as David Towley, Tim Brockman and Lyle Milbrook, those are professors on the technology side and it was really cool for me to work with them because they have a different insight and they see things differently than the way Satchel and Steve see things. So David would look at me and say, okay, well, how are you gonna work the budget into that? We don't have that much money, so what are you gonna do? Whereas Satchel and Steve would say to me, okay, how are you going to give the audience a good experience? How are you going to make this experiential for them and how are you gonna use the design to do that? Dave was my professor through the project management course kind of treated each other like a working colleague through the event, which is a different experience which is great to have such a good mentor throughout this event. So the TED Talk event is made up of a committee of faculty from within the School of Technology, Art, and Design. For example, Dave Towley, he oversees a lot of the project management students that work within the project and he is an incredible person and fun to work with. He works well with a lot of the other students which is a lot of fun and it allows the other students to interface a lot with departments and faculty that they aren't used to dealing with because they wouldn't take a lot of those classes. Another faculty member that is integral to the event is Tim Brockman, Lyle Milbrook, Bonnie Higgins, Drew Graham, Mahmood Aladay, and a lot of other faculty that I haven't listed. We have new faculty that I'm really excited about helping this year, Mitch Blessing, and it just really takes the entire team within the School of Technology, Art, and Design to make this event happen. As one of the lead faculty members of the TED Talk event, one of the things that I do is I get together with all the other faculty and we build a team of students that are excited about the event. It's an event that has kind of grown into something really special and it's something that students look forward to and it's something that the community looks forward to and industry looks forward to. So on the committee, there was a bunch of different students and one thing that was very nice was being able to delegate tasks. I didn't have to do everything and neither did they. We worked well together. We figured out what each other's strengths were and then let them run with that. Angela, Abby, and a lot of the other design student volunteers helped set up the stage along with Drew, Tim Brockman, Dave Tauley, a lot of different people throughout Bridgeman helping. It was fun, it was stressful, it was exciting, but there were definitely times that was running around very stressed. We really did well at working together, I think, and that was awesome. The committee was great and all my fellow students and all the professors and along with the community as well, everyone really worked together to make this event what it was. So one of the really great experiences that the TED Talk event gives the students is that the event is going to happen. The show must go on and students need to learn what it's like. When things don't go well, they have to work through it and it's still gonna happen and that doesn't always work with assignments. Sometimes if it doesn't work, they'll ask for more time. But with this event, we don't have that option. It's going to start at 5 p.m. and it's a really great opportunity and we'll translate when our design students or other students will get a job because they learn how to meet deadlines and that's something that the students can use in an interview when they are interviewing for a job but it's also something that they will be able to employ once they're in the job because they will have that real life experience of actually knowing what it's like to meet a deadline that is absolutely gonna happen. So one of the things we had to do to build the set for TED Talks event was create trees, which we used foam core. That's like a thick tag board type stuff which then we cut out into tree shapes and created a 3D tree. And then we had to paint them which we definitely underestimated the time that we were thinking about two to three hours and then we ended up about nine hours into it two separate days. We used an air powered brush to make it go a little quicker which thankfully we had otherwise we'd be still painting trees I think. The experience for me that was really different was I was literally downstairs in the shop painting the trees that were gonna be on the stage. We were setting them up, seeing how they looked next to each other. You know, okay, what colors do we want them to be and actually coming into the auditorium and seeing, okay, how do we want this to look? Where do we want them to sit? What lights should we use? So actually getting to see it full circle was really cool. As a cool project manager, I was expecting to split up a lot of the work and I think the other project manager that was working with me, we definitely shared a lot of the responsibilities which is great. What I didn't expect, I guess was the amount of work that went into it. We started in probably early January and we didn't finish working until April 27th, the day of the event. We definitely had to trust each other and have faith in each other and I think that we did. We learned that we could do the tasks that we were given and so could the other students. So during the Tad Talks, I would say the biggest influencer people that helped were the design students. In Bridgeman, our the School of Technology Art and Design Department a little bit segregated with the engineering construction side, with the art and design side and working with them and seeing what they were capable of doing was incredible. I got a lot of respect for the work that they can and did do and as well as the professors seeing kind of outside of the classroom working with them and seeing kind of what they have to offer and teach you. So what we're really trying to do with the Tad Talk event is give students real world opportunities. What it's like for an engineering student to take a design that one of the design students is doing and try to translate it to reality is something that they're gonna have to do in the real world and on the flip side of that our design students actually get to see how their 3D renderings come to life and so they learn more about buildability, materials and just the aesthetics of what it's like to design under a budget. To have a set as good as we did for Tad Talks, it really, I think in my opinion the biggest thing is for the speakers. I know you don't wanna invite a speaker that's an industry leader to come sit on a bare stage with a black cloth background. It really makes it pop and for the audience it makes it feel like a whole better experience. Something that they would pay lots of money to come which is offered to them for free. It's very professional, well lit with the displays and cues for the speaker. There's a green room in the back where you can sit and get prepared and have a drink of water before you go on stage and mingle with the other speakers. And so we really just try to pool everybody together. We have brainstorming sessions about who would be a great speaker. So one of the things that we like to do with the Tad Talk event is make sure that we have representation from the different academic areas. We wanna have somebody from engineering, we wanna have people from project management, people from design and people from art. What Shane Fierstead did is he has great experience as a project manager. He's working in industry right now for Polaris and he really understands social media and so we approached him and said, Shane, we know that you're really good at this. What do you think about doing a Tad Talk? And he graciously accepted our invitation. The primary audience for Tad Talks are the students of Amity State University. It's open to the public, yes, but everything is done with an angle toward the students. And with them being young people just starting out in their careers, it's so important for them to make sure that they have the correct online image that their social media profiles are clean when viewed from a public standpoint. And it's so easy to make mistakes that can hurt you. I mean, once it's out there, it can be hard to get it removed from the internet. They need to make sure that they're not hindering their career but also on the other side of things, making sure that they're leveraging social media to make those connections and to enhance their career opportunities. Let's take a little bit of a history lesson in social media. Modern social media generally is considered to have started with Friendster back in 2002. Well, yeah, walking out in that setting with all those props and things that had been built by the Technology, Art and Design group, it was amazing. And well, I treated my presentation sort of like a project and I managed it that way. That's kind of how I think. The first thing I did was solidify the topic and then I kind of created an outline to go through all the main points. Then I gave myself plenty of time to make sure I did the research, find out what the best practices are when it comes to social media. I had my own opinions, I had my own experiences in life but I also wanted to make sure that was balanced with best practices recommended by employers and human resources departments. So I did the research, put together my presentation and then I made sure that happened well in advance so I could have some time to practice it several times with family and refine it, make sure that I wasn't nervous at all. It's so important, your online history is so searchable, whether it's social media or any other kind of you know, hit on the internet. If someone searches your name, they'll find things about you. So those things can be positive or they can be negative and it's so important to have a clean social media image because nowadays employers, human resources departments when you apply or when you interview, they will check that out. So you know, you could actually perhaps hinder your chances of getting the job or you could actually make sure that you got a professional photo that your privacy settings are appropriate for those things that you don't want just anybody to take a look at. And it's so important too to leverage professional opportunities like LinkedIn for example, it's probably the most common professional social media these days. I recommend that people have a presence on LinkedIn, make sure they have a nice professional photo, a nice profile that's very detailed and complete and then get people to recommend them, get people to endorse their accomplishments and their abilities. Well the networking opportunities of social media are obvious. For example, if you're looking to get into a certain industry or a certain company, you can reach out and become connected with people there and ask them to introduce you to people that can get you where you want to be. I didn't have any notes with me. I was relying on my slides and unfortunately those were sort of way off to the side so I had to turn sometimes to look at those. One recommendation I did make following the presentation was to have the slides for the speaker sort of in line with the audience so that I wouldn't have to remove my attention from the audience. If you're gonna be a speaker at TED Talks, make sure you give yourself plenty of time to do your presentation, your preparation, your research and make sure you have time to go through it and deliver it to a friend or family and then it'll help to put those butterflies at ease when it comes time to actually deliver your presentation. So we always try to do something a little different every year with the TED Talk experience and this year we had a great group of people. I really wanted the keynote speaker to represent the technology side. I also really wanted to incorporate the Native American population. I worked with the American Indian Resource Center and they suggested that we use David Northbird and his son and so we invited them and they graciously accepted our invitation. He's fortunate enough to have raised him in this culture and he's stepping up to the plate in a lot of ways. When they came in, we don't really know what to expect all the time from our presenters and they came in and did such a cool performance. It's something that people will continue to talk about for years. Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Of an incredible MC year after year in Randy Aker, he's the CEO of Exhibitor Media Group and without him it would be so hard. He absolutely does such a good job, brings a ton of energy to the event and he also helps with the planning of the event. I'm warning also an advisory board of industry professionals that help the school of technology, art and design always improve their program. So the TED Talks taught me a lot of good valuable lessons. It taught me how to deal with people, to talk with people, which once you go into industry is a huge skill to have to be able to effectively communicate with people. And then just the skills in general as being a project manager, doing the Microsoft project, the budget, the scope project charter, different things like that actually are usable once you graduate and you come into the real world. I think what I learned as a student was the real world experience. I actually, it wasn't just a project that I wrote a paper on or I designed and it was hypothetical. This was really happening. It didn't matter if something went wrong, we had to keep going. So I basically learned how to roll the punches and see, okay, if this goes wrong, how can we fix it and how can we make it better and continue moving forward? Well, it's very exciting. It's such a great thing for the community, for Northern Minnesota to be able to have something like that. And I was honored to be a part of it. So my advice for students attending the event and anyone else really, come with a notebook and come with an open mind. Because I think even if it's, so I'm a design student, I'm an exhibit design student and even if it's a technology speaker, I can still look at how they solved their problems and apply that to what I'm doing. So I think that no matter the field you're in or no matter what your expertise is, you can really learn from each individual speaker. So one of the ways this could potentially benefit an engineering student is they learn a lot about materials in the classroom. They learn about buildability but this is an opportunity for them to take a design and turn it into a reality and use it in a resume and potentially get a job. But when they're actually doing the job, it will give them something to reflect on and say, you know, I did this really cool experience when I was in college and so I have some experience with stage design and how things are built and how things can stand up. I think learning hands-on definitely reinforces another aspect that you don't get just sitting inside the classroom. You get to work with people, which is a big part. Once you graduate and go into industry, you have to be able to have a conversation with someone and deal with problems and having that experience hands-on definitely helps. TED Talks is definitely something that I'll take with me going into my career. I eventually want to be an event designer and so this was a very cool experience because I got to actually practice what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life and I think some of those things were hard deadlines. You couldn't ask the professor for more time if you weren't done with your project. If it wasn't done, we have to keep going. I also think that just understanding the aesthetics of an event, how it's set up, how it's run, time, all the different components are something that I took into my internship and I applied those to the projects I was working on there. So I graduate tomorrow, which is exciting. I am graduating with an engineering technology degree. I actually accepted a job here in Bemidji at Nortech. I'll be a quality engineer, pretty excited about that. So as a student, I would like to let everyone know that the work put behind the TED Talks event was extraordinary from many different people and that work that was put in is definitely transferable into once you graduate. A lot of the things that we did as a team will be utilized individually once all the students move on to become working citizens. One of the things that we really wanted to do with the TED Talk event was increase access. This is an event that costs no money for those that want to attend. And so you basically just need to look in the paper, we try to advertise it on the radio and we just want you to come be yourself and enjoy a great evening. Bemidji's the coolest place on the planet. I think one thing I would definitely like to say is we are so indebted to everyone who participates in this event, from speakers to MC to students to local businesses. Everybody is giving back simply because they believe in education and believe in Bemidji's state and we love that and we love to see that and I just hope to see that continue. Thank you so much for watching. Join us again on Common Ground. If you have an idea for Common Ground in North Central Minnesota, email us at legacy at lptv.org or call 218-333-3014. To watch Common Ground online, visit lptv.org and click Local Shows. Order episodes or segments of Common Ground, call 218-333-3020. Production funding of Common Ground was made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community, a partnership for generations, a member, FDIC. Common Ground is brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th, 2008. If you watch Common Ground online, consider becoming a member or making a donation at lptv.org.