Dane Christianson: Innovation & the Insurance Industry (Senior Associate Advisor at Informa)

foreign welcome on to the cat thank you so much for being here it's such an honor to have you my first question for you Dane you are really experiencing the insurance industry let's start off with your story first how did your post-secondary experience lead you to where you are today thank you Alina for having me on the podcast you have to check out a number of them today big fan I just love the way it's laid out and love what your organization is doing all together so Kudos on everything you're doing yeah so my educational

backgrounds started at UBC uh program called urban planning with a minor in environmental sustainability that was about 12 years ago I will say I never really followed any sort of career trajectory in that field interestingly enough it has really nothing to do with what I'm doing today but there's always things you'll take away from any sort of University experience learned a lot I think just sort of taking a general arts program like that really does shape you professionally I think it does start to at least carve out or realize what your work ethic can be

following that took some time off traveled and then went to the British Columbia Institute of Technology so BCIT most Canadian provinces have something equivalent to that and I did the financial planning program which is interesting two things one BCIT is intense what you take an eight full-time courses at once versus a full-time platform being like five courses at once at UBC so you're packing in three years of work into two years essentially for the diploma program so in the first year the financial planners the insurance agents and accounting and finance are all under one umbrella

they're doing the same courses and then the second year you'd specialize from a practicality standpoint is what makes BCIT such a good experience uh in my opinion two times the amount of time spent in terms of UBC but the end really shapes you into someone who's ready to dive into the workforce which is kind of what you want to do so I think for anyone who's maybe coming out of high school for example and you're asking yourself what's the best possible way to prepare myself for uh you know getting a career level job I think

something like an Institute like BCIT really puts you in a place where you can do that for some people I think they might not be ready to necessarily jump into something as intense as BCIT I will say some of the first year students straight out of high school didn't probably have the expectation of how difficult it was going to be so it didn't necessarily make it through the full program which is fine I think having the time been in my sort of mid-20s so it's ready to put the time in and see what came of

it so that was sort of my experience there being an insurance industry now it's not directly tied to what I did in terms of financial planning at BCIT but there's absolutely components of it that are things that I use my everyday business related activities and things like that actually so I know that you're experience in all kinds of occupations right now you're a specialists in the insurance industry and you also write for innovate can you share with us your thoughts on what inspires you to try out new career paths and new opportunities yeah that's a

fun question I would say if you're asking this exact question two or three years ago I would have just been sort of all in in the insurance world I wasn't so much looking for things I could do on the side that aren't necessarily the financial incentive like what I'm doing with the innovate book is and just for slight background for those listening is co-publishing a book called innovate Vancouver and innovate Siri is sort of a flagship product of the global village publishing worlds and they're in about 50 cities now and in each City what they'll

do is Spotlight 100 companies doing Innovative things to be honest something much like illuminates doing now I consider that absolutely to be Innovative so our job there with the publishing companies to highlight these companies and shine a spotlight on them so that was something to be honest that just came by chance I do like to do a lot of networking outside of just the regular day-to-day Insurance things and whether some of it leads to Insurance business or not whatever I think I'm more one just to love getting out meeting people and hearing their story I

think that's a really big part of what that is and with the innovate piece I think if you're able to find a situation when I say a situation a job or a company or even for lack of a better term maybe it's an old school term but like a boss who is open to you be able to sort of do something on the side and allow you to pursue passion projects that aren't necessarily related to what your day job is and paying the bills I think that's someone you should probably stick with and I will

say for any companies that sort of senior leaderships or superiors you're at your office or within the executive team Etc if they're not open to you being able to um pursue those things like they'll probably fall behind because what we see now is a lot of companies especially in the startup world that's one of the biggest things that go after your passion do your side hustle put in your time at work but if you have other things you like to do absolutely chase your dreams do you have an idea for like a cool company and

you want to start working at that on the side most companies these days and again especially in the tech startup world are very supportive of that I think that's very important to explore your passion you know nowadays everyone has so many different interests even outside of work so I definitely agree with you I think in my early career I had a fantastic boss at Deloitte who allowed me to explore illuminate while working at Deloitte and I think I am forward grateful for that because it gave me the dream life that I have today yeah in

the end you can imagine some bosses are potentially like oh what if this really takes off and they're gone you know well nothing you can do about that I guess but you have to let people explore if you sort of limit their ability to explore their passions then they're probably not going to be very happy wherever they are right so you need the opportunity to at least do that exactly and their performance is going to go down it's not good for the culture resentment is going to start building tension is going to start building it's

just not that great for the culture overall so Landing a job is becoming increasingly more competitive in today's market especially given the economic climate that we're in what are some tips you can give to new graduates especially who are trying to get a job yeah so there definitely are a few things that come to mind again this is from I think just I'm taking from my experience having you know worked in a sort of career level job for a while now and I think looking back if it was like a younger me sort of thing

I would say use your network is probably the most obvious one maybe it's not obvious I don't know maybe if you're just coming out as a new graduate you're not really sure where to go in terms of this a user Network I don't think I ever landed a job without knowing someone first that was related to that job or introduced me to it I really don't I've had so many part-time summer jobs and things like that and it was always just by chance or someone I knew when this isn't probably typical but I really haven't

had to do that many interviews which isn't surprising in a sense I always felt interviews to be more so like here's a warm introduction to someone I know who might fit it and it always felt like that conversation would be a bit more casual in nature versus a hardcore interview with these set questions and expectations and just making sure I'm very much on point for the interview I always felt like things were more casual and that's because I think because I use my network and you know someone who knows someone and makes it a little

easier to get in there and have an experience that might land you a job another thing and I think this is good because it sort of ties into what I do with the innovate project do a lot of research in terms of deciding what companies we want to chat with and sort of to use the word interview to see if it's a fit for the book itself I absolutely do as much research on the company and whoever I might be talking to as possible I think that's a really underrated thing it's probably something you'd read

if you were typing in this question and trying to find things on the internet but for me I think that's really an important piece the more you know about them the more they know that you care and it shows that you truly do value what they're doing and you find it interesting I think for the from their perspective they want to be involved in something where they know they're wanted right it's not just sort of willy-nilly choosing companies and then okay tell me about yourself because I have no idea I always ask that question but

I do know prior to asking it right so I think just to put that into perspective for your question yeah if you're going into an interview read every single thing you can find on the internet I think that that's to me is probably the one that I would resonate most with just do your research on the company because one maybe you'll get a good opportunity during the interview to put in a really random nugget that you picked up on the internet and it's like well that might surprise them I think that goes a long way

because it's like a memorable thing perhaps and I think being memorable as well you know for a job interview can go a long way so I think those two points are the ones that come to mind doing a research is so important you know this this reminds me I oftentimes interview a lot of candidates for illuminate and sometimes candidates come to me and they ask me one question and I just automatically know it's not a good fit because they didn't do their research sometimes candidates ask me so Elena can you tell me about what illuminae

does so questions like that just indicate wow you didn't do research you don't know what you're stepping into right so absolutely it's a very innocent question but it's a question that Can Make It or Break It so going into the next question the job market is constantly changing and evolving especially with advancing Technologies for example some of the jobs that existed 20 years ago don't even exist today so this means adaptability is super important to develop can you tell us a bit more about how you've adapted in your career and any chance you have for

young professionals to gain adaptability yeah if you're not open I think the biggest and most simple way to look at it if you personally aren't open to changing your views on specific things or you're not perhaps being aggressive as you maybe should be in order to better get a feel for the landscape if you were working at a company and let's say they weren't really doing anything that was Progressive or adapting to everything we're seeing technologically of course every year it gets more impressive with what's happening if you were with the company that was stuck

in their times to an extent I don't think they would attract too many people coming out of University right now that's kind of what it is if you are at a company that's doing stuff that is Progressive and they're trying to automate their workflows like the platforms say like zapier is really cool it basically takes like 5 000 Integrations puts them under one umbrella and imagine having that knowledge and being able to bring that to a company where they're not necessarily doing some of these things you're able to save especially anyone who's Superior to people

sort of at the job level that's higher than yours you're able to save them time in any way and just bring some of these things to the table and just learn generally what's happening and what some of these more impressive maybe some of the bigger tech companies and some of the things they're doing if you have the ability to learn about those things and then bring them to a company help them look the world out of that help make employees and everyone involved with the company more understanding of why this is beneficial it's going to

save us time and it's ultimately going to make the company more Revenue they're going to like you for that so I think if you can really own on some of the things that are coming up these days like some of these platforms and you know even just knowing some of the add-ons that you have through at Microsoft Outlook and things like this and being able to utilize those to just to make things quicker and a bit more seamless throughout your day that's huge and then generally some of the flexibilities that we're actually seeing if you're

someone who's looking to find a job and you're wondering what's out there what sort of perks and things that companies offering and again that's a form of sort of adaptability on the part of the employer I've never seen doing employee benefits I've never seen such amazing perks for every company I don't know how they can get much better at this point because if you're a mother or father it's Eternal leave Matt leave top up with extended salaries four day work weeks are becoming the norm for a lot of companies if you want to work remote

you can there's no question if you want to be in New York for example and work somewhere in something like that perhaps you could do that there's a lot happening I think from both sides like opportunities for students graduating to learn things and bring those into a business and if you are able to bring those in and I can say from experience worth having worked for in the past specifically people who are older than me maybe 20 25 years and don't understand these Technologies when you're able to bring something game changing to the plate they

will love you because it's everything now they're like oh my God how can you do that it wasn't even hard potentially learn some of the basic stuff and that will go a long way especially again depending on who you're working for so well if an employee can stay an employer time well time is money that's the most precious thing ever I love that last question for you can you share a general piece of advice for individuals who are trying to obtain a dream job yeah I think I'll probably pull from you piece of what I've

said thus far one thing is if you're already so passionate about something that will shine through in the biggest way but if you don't properly prepare for an interview that'll see that but on the flip side if it's your passion and you know everything there is to know about that company it's going to go a really long way I think if you're able to connect with someone who maybe works at that company I'm sure that would go a long way too if you had some friends and they're like you got to check out this company

I think this would be such a good fit for you or if just you're one of those people who knows exactly what they want to do which I feel like maybe is becoming more of a common thing I can say going back to my YouTube I didn't know what I wanted to do I did a program and I didn't pursue it so I think people nowadays have a better and stronger idea at a younger age in terms of what they want to do that's just sort of what I've seen and I think they have a

really clear picture in terms of what they want to do which you're already ahead at that point right I think if you know what you want to do and you have the ability to research so many different companies you have again user Network talk to people you know and find out everything you can about the workings of the company think about unique questions that might some people whoever are interviewing you and just put in as much time as you possibly can to um better understand the Dynamics of that company and hopefully if you land that

interview and get a little closer to getting the job itself everything else falls into place hopefully you like the culture there's so many things even once you do get that job there's still a whole bunch of other things that you're not really sure what it's going to look like but in terms of advice I think if you can figure out what you like to do sooner than later that's a really good story there's just so many amazing people who want to help find a mentor even right in fact goes a long way too so yeah

you mentioned culture and I want to explore more because I think oftentimes candidates when they get into a job let's say their dream job but they're not really exposed to what's actually happening on the inside of the company the culture which is so important They Can Make It or Break It so what tips and advice do you have for someone to perhaps learn more about the culture before accepting the offer how can they learn about the culture before they accept the offer yeah so I mean if you wanted to be a really bold LinkedIn is

just great you could add every single person if you get as many people at that company and Linkedin and have a really Frank conversation if someone's open to it right if you find the right person to chat with you about it maybe that's a bit taboo on the company side if you find an employee who wants to chat with you about it that's probably one way that would be fantastic and then two this is my own sort of nugget but this is something I got from my girlfriend's friend it's a question she asks when she's

going into an interview and I went something like this it's like if you were to walk in at lunch hour into your office if I looked around what would I see what would be people be doing at lunch hour what would be you know would be huddling in the kitchen chatting would they be taking breaks or they'll be eating at their desk would there be smiles on people's faces it seems like a really telling question maybe one that I think if you asked someone if you were getting interviewed I think would be like an awesome

question to have because I think that that tells a lot about culture but I also think if you have pointed questions to ask for the people that are interviewing you think you could really frame it in a way I think culture to me is like how tight is a team it's very different if it's a big small let's say medium to a big size company like 100 people Plus in an organization 100 staff versus a team like mine where we have seven culture if you have a big tech company that sort of grows too fast

and almost ignores the idea of what culture is you hear these stories where companies make a lot of money they raise money and they get to this really high level Echelon you're doing well financially but it's Left Behind the idea of what a good culture means and I don't want to use the word toxic but sometimes you do hear them getting that word get sort of thrown around a little bit so I think if it's not something that you have Founders that really work on that run the start and create a very inclusive environment where

they get feedback from their employees on everything that's huge the more feedback you get from your employees the more they feel like a part of what you're trying to build so questionnaires even things like benefits are using these certain benefits for example putting together kpis and figuring out how to apply those to the business and make it better and then with a small business a small business has to be tight-knit or it just won't function because like comparing it to 100 people you have five one person out of that five it's much more important in

terms of the cohesiveness versus one person out of a hundred so I think when you sit down with the interview for us a company that from the smaller side I think you can really get a good feel just how tight the team is are they doing stuff outside of work do they enjoy each other's presence what's the general atmosphere when you're at the office every day I think those are the kind of things that will at least help make sure it's a positive environment to be in right they've definitely heard enough stories from people I've

worked with right the environments is not good well what is it exactly people aren't happy that's usually what it is so go somewhere where people are generally happy and go to Glassdoor too you can read reviews about companies and you don't think it's a little scary we can do that but you can get information about people's feedback anonymously about their experience working with the company at Glassdoor there's so many opportunities to sort of hopefully figure out that you're going to the right place before before you actually make a commitment if you get lucky enough to

get the offer report yeah thank you so much for all the great advice Dane and thank you for coming down to the show today my pleasure that was a lot of fun foreign