If there is a war between the sciences and humanities, it might seem the sciences are winning, notwithstanding difficulties in attracting students to the STEM subjects. As Michael S. Malone writes in the Wall Street Journal (based on a speech he gave at Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University on October 18), stem-cell research and iPhones trump Jane Austin monographs and deconstructions of “The Tempest.”
Malone quotes the head of an English department as saying, “There are parents now who tell their kids they will only pay tuition for a business, engineering or science degree.” And according to a study conducted by Fidelity, “Forty-two percent [parents with children in or entering college] have encouraged their children to focus on a particular major in hopes of securing a higher paying job after graduation.” The most recommended majors are computer science, nursing, engineering, psychology, biology, and accounting, the study found.
But perhaps such recommendations are misguided. Malone writes that he invited Silicon Valley entrepreneur Santosh Jayaram to address his English students, asking that Jayaram not recommend that they switch majors before it's too late. To which Jayaram responded, “Are you kidding? English majors are exactly the people I'm looking for.”
According to Jayaram, as related by Malone, the NPI process has been turned upside down. In the past, you would spend a month deciding what product to develop and then a year designing it, building prototypes, and going into full production. Today, you can hire programmers anywhere in the world to construct virtual products from existing blocks of code in a couple of weeks—but first you need to spend a year looking for an undeveloped niche to exploit, you have to encourage people to invest in your effort, and you have to begin marketing to prospective customers.
“And how do you do that?” Jayaram asked Malone and answered his own question: “You tell stories.” Malone paraphrases Jayaram as saying, “Almost anything you can imagine you can now build, so the battleground in business has shifted from engineering, which everybody can do, to storytelling, for which many fewer people have real talent.”
Of course, recognition that the humanities can be important in business is not completely new. Steve Jobs attributed Apple's success to its position at the intersection of technology and liberal arts. But Jayaram's suggestion that English majors might now have the upper hand is novel.
I have written before about the ability of software tools from companies like National Instruments and The MathWorks to let domain experts focus on aerospace engineering, medical electronics, mechatronics, and even graphics design—not the details of coding. If Jayaram is right, storytelling may be the next domain in need of expertise.
Can engineers learn to tell stories? Or can English majors benefit from intensive courses in LabVIEW or Matlab?