Keenan Turner

Can you tell me about your educational and professional background?

I graduated college right after the financial crisis around 2010. I was majoring in political science and wanting to work for the State Department. But unfortunately, I talked to a recruiter there who advised me to start a career doing something else because they wouldn’t be hiring for a while.

I was really stuck and just trying to figure my life out. I found this program called AmeriCorps. It's a government program that gets you to work for a nonprofit for a year. That was just a great experience. I worked for a housing nonprofit in New York City and I loved it.

During that time, I was really interested in the social media realm that everyone was really getting hyped about. I think a lot of people were really focused on the content side of things, but I was more into the research — the analytical side.

My next job was in ad tech. I was working and doing ads for some top brands. Eventually I got married and moved back to California, where I got a job at Facebook.

I worked at Facebook for years and was really just excelling in a lot of different roles. But I would say a consistent theme was around tools, technology, advertisement, measurement, optimization — somewhat the technical parts of marketing.

What made you decide to come to BrainStation?

I’ve always been interested in a lot of different things, and it can be hard to find a job role that fits that cross-functional kind of path. When I was looking at different roles, I thought that marketing technology felt like product management meets marketing — so I started to think about pivoting toward that.

I wanted something that would help me think really broadly about technology in general and how I could solve problems. That’s where I found the BrainStation course.

BrainStation does a great job of finding some of the best talents in the working world as Educators. These experts have so much real-world experience and knowledge, and sometimes you need to ask questions to get that out of them and to get the full value of that experience.

I went through the program and gained a lot of insights. It helped me think critically about how technology impacts businesses. Taking that course has really helped me think at a high level about technology and business solutions.

Was there something you learned that stood out to you?

There were some really useful frameworks that showed how to identify which technologies to use for what. We also delved into looking at where specific technologies fit on the maturity curve — is it for the whole market or early adopters? That was really interesting as well.

Having those conversations definitely helped give us a frame of reference when we talk about technology. Instead of following hype, we should get really, really obsessed with what we are trying to solve.

Another thing that really helped me was being able to work with and manage these cross-functional teams.

Do you have any advice for people who want to make the most of their learning experience?

Try to speak up, be engaged, and ask questions.

BrainStation does a great job of finding some of the best talents in the working world as Educators. These experts have so much real-world experience and knowledge, and sometimes you need to ask questions to get that out of them and to get the full value of that experience.