Insurance Nerd Day

/5 Comments/in ,

Insurance Nerd Day

July 18th is Insurance Nerd Day, created in 2016 to celebrate everyone employed in the insurance industry. It originated as a social media campaign to dispel the myth that insurance is a “boring” career path and to attract young people entering the workforce. Since then, the movement has been gaining momentum and, thanks to the efforts of a dedicated group of self-described insurance nerds, has become an annual holiday.

Insurance Nerd Day Worldwide Weird HolidaysWhat is an Insurance Nerd?

Insurance Nerd
\in-ˈshər-ən(t)s  \ˈnərd\
noun: A term of endearment for a person who is enthusiastic and passionate about working in insurance. Hobbies may include talking about insurance in his or her free time, convincing others to join the insurance industry, reading insurance publications for fun, collecting insurance company memorabilia and posting about insurance on social media to their non-insurance friends.

 

History of Insurance Nerd Day

Insurance Nerd Day Worldwide Weird HolidaysAccording to a recent study conducted by McKinsey and Co., 25 percent of insurance professionals will reach retirement age by 2018. Another study by Griffith Insurance Education Foundation found that only 5 percent of college students indicated they were “very interested” in pursuing a career in the insurance industry. As a result, the field is facing a critical talent gap.

To call attention to this issue, Pioneer State Mutual Insurance Company declared July 18, 2016, Insurance Nerd Day and took to social media to celebrate its employees and encourage other insurance professionals to help break the stereotype that the industry is boring.

 

How to Observe Insurance Nerd Day

Dress up like an Insurance Nerd to show your pride and honor those who work in the insurance industry. Check out more photos on Pioneer’s Facebook page. Use #InsuranceNerdDay to join the fun on X, snap and share pics on Instagram, and spread the word on Bluesky.

Have a happy and healthy Insurance Nerd Day and always remember to be as nerdy as you want to be, every day of the year!

 

 

Share this:

World Listening Day

/1 Comment/in
world listening day

Nice work, if you can get it.

Today is World Listening Day. It honors the birth on July 18, 1933, of Raymond Murray Schafer, the Canadian composer, teacher, and environmentalist who invented the study of acoustic ecology at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University in the late 1960s.

Acoustic ecology utilizes field recordings to create and preserve the planet’s disappearing soundscapes while combating schizophonia, a term Schafer coined to describe a unique medical condition. “We have split the sound from the maker of the sound,” Schafer explained.

“Sounds have been torn from their natural sockets and given an amplified and independent existence. Vocal sound, for instance, is no longer tied to a hole in the head but is free to issue from anywhere in the landscape.” We have a strong sensory response to this: it smells like feces and sounds like tenure.

The first World Soundscape Project was born out of Schafer’s frustration with the noise pollution he felt was ruining the beauty of Vancouver.  It has evolved into a serious course of study. This business of listening seems to rely on a whole lot of talking.

The World Listening Project (WLP) was established in 2008 as a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization dedicated to understanding societies, cultures, and environments through listening and preserving audio recordings. Finally, someone has found a way to achieve tax-exempt status for recording a garage band or just the sound a garage makes.

WLP and the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology (MSE), under the auspices of the American Society for Acoustic Ecology (ASAE), created World Listening Day in 2010. Why? Per its site:

Cities’ sonic identities are continually fluctuating as residential and commercial infrastructures develop. The resultant social dynamics of industrialization and gentrification sponsor variegated relationships between people and the public and private places they occupy.

“…sponsor variegated relationships”? It looks like a thesaurus bled out all over an SAT. We get it: change sucks. Why can’t everything be like yesterday? If only we had a way to preserve it forever, like on DVD, but without the pesky visuals.

The theme for World Listening Day 2025 is “Echoes of Balance: Listening to Restore Harmony.”  Per the organizers:

This theme encourages people to focus on how listening can help restore inner peace, rebuild broken connections, and revive ecological balance.

While we agree that listening is an essential and underappreciated art, we don’t understand the need to starve other senses, such as sight, to do it; we aren’t sure we can engage deeply with an unheard language. But maybe we weren’t listening closely enough. Would you mind repeating it?

Share this: