Re Liberal Arts in the Data Age

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dave Farber <farber () gmail com>
> Date: June 26, 2017 at 10:28:56 AM EDT
> To: Ip Ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
> Subject: Liberal Arts in the Data Age
>
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> > From: Richard Forno <rforno () infowarrior org>
> > Date: June 26, 2017 at 10:16:08 AM EDT
> > To: Infowarrior List <infowarrior () attrition org>
> > Cc: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> > Subject: Liberal Arts in the Data Age
> >
> > IMO there is great truth in what JM says.   -- rick
> >
> >
> > Liberal Arts in the Data Age
> > JM Olejarz
> > From the July–August 2017 Issue
> >
> > https://hbr.org/2017/07/liberal-arts-in-the-data-age
> >
> > College students who major in the humanities always get asked a certain question. They’re asked it so often—and by 
> > so many people—that it should come printed on their diplomas. That question, posed by friends, career counselors, 
> > and family, is “What are you planning to do with your degree?” But it might as well be “What are the humanities good 
> > for?”
> >
> > According to three new books, the answer is “Quite a lot.” From Silicon Valley to the Pentagon, people are beginning 
> > to realize that to effectively tackle today’s biggest social and technological challenges, we need to think 
> > critically about their human context—something humanities graduates happen to be well trained to do. Call it the 
> > revenge of the film, history, and philosophy nerds.
> >
> > In The Fuzzy and the Techie, venture capitalist Scott Hartley takes aim at the “false dichotomy” between the 
> > humanities and computer science. Some tech industry leaders have proclaimed that studying anything besides the STEM 
> > fields is a mistake if you want a job in the digital economy. Here’s a typical dictum, from Sun Microsystems 
> > cofounder Vinod Khosla: “Little of the material taught in Liberal Arts programs today is relevant to the future.”
> >
> > Hartley believes that this STEM-only mindset is all wrong. The main problem is that it encourages students to 
> > approach their education vocationally—to think just in terms of the jobs they’re preparing for. But the barriers to 
> > entry for technical roles are dropping. Many tasks that once required specialized training can now be done with 
> > simple tools and the internet. For example, a novice programmer can get a project off the ground with chunks of code 
> > from GitHub and help from Stack Overflow.
> >
> > If we want to prepare students to solve large-scale human problems, Hartley argues, we must push them to widen, not 
> > narrow, their education and interests. He ticks off a long list of successful tech leaders who hold degrees in the 
> > humanities. To mention just a few CEOs: Stewart Butterfield, Slack, philosophy; Jack Ma, Alibaba, English; Susan 
> > Wojcicki, YouTube, history and literature; Brian Chesky, Airbnb, fine arts. Of course, we need technical experts, 
> > Hartley says, but we also need people who grasp the whys and hows of human behavior.
> >
> > What matters now is not the skills you have but how you think. Can you ask the right questions? Do you know what 
> > problem you’re trying to solve in the first place? Hartley argues for a true “liberal arts” education—one that 
> > includes both hard sciences and “softer” subjects. A well-rounded learning experience, he says, opens people up to 
> > new opportunities and helps them develop products that respond to real human needs.
> >
> > The human context is also the focus of Cents and Sensibility, by Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro, professors of 
> > the humanities and economics, respectively, at Northwestern University. They argue that when economic models fall 
> > short, they do so for want of human understanding. Economics tends to ignore three things: culture’s effect on 
> > decision making, the usefulness of stories in explaining people’s actions, and ethical considerations. People don’t 
> > exist in a vacuum, and treating them as if they do is both reductive and potentially harmful.
> >
> > Morson and Schapiro’s solution is literature. They suggest that economists could gain wisdom from reading great 
> > novelists, who have a deeper insight into people than social scientists do. Whereas economists tend to treat people 
> > as abstractions, novelists dig into the specifics. To illustrate the point, Morson and Schapiro ask, When has a 
> > scientist’s model or case study drawn a person as vividly as Tolstoy drew Anna Karenina?
> >
> > Novels can also help us develop empathy. Stories, after all, steep us in characters’ lives, forcing us to see the 
> > world as other people do. (Morson and Schapiro add that although many fields of study tell their practitioners to 
> > empathize, only literature offers practice in doing it.)
> >
> > Sensemaking, by strategy consultant Christian Madsbjerg, picks up the thread from Morson and Schapiro and carries it 
> > back to Hartley. Madsbjerg argues that unless companies take pains to understand the human beings represented in 
> > their data sets, they risk losing touch with the markets they’re serving. He says the deep cultural knowledge 
> > businesses need comes not from numbers-driven market research but from a humanities-driven study of texts, 
> > languages, and people.
> >
> > Madsbjerg cites Lincoln, Ford’s luxury brand, which just a few years ago lagged so far behind BMW and Mercedes that 
> > the company nearly killed it off. Executives knew that becoming competitive again would mean selling more cars 
> > outside the United States, especially in China, the next big luxury market. So they began to carefully examine how 
> > customers around the world experience, not just drive, cars. Over the course of a year, Lincoln representatives 
> > talked to customers about their daily lives and what “luxury” meant to them. They discovered that in many countries 
> > transportation isn’t drivers’ top priority: Cars are instead seen as social spaces or places to entertain business 
> > clients. Though well engineered, Lincolns needed to be reconceived to address the customers’ human context. 
> > Subsequent design efforts have paid off: In 2016 sales in China tripled.
> >
> > What these three books converge on is the idea that choosing a field of study is less important than finding ways to 
> > expand our thinking, an idea echoed by yet another set of new releases: A Practical Education, by business professor 
> > Randall Stross, and You Can Do Anything, by journalist George Anders. STEM students can care about human beings, 
> > just as English majors (including this one, who started college studying computer science) can investigate things 
> > scientifically. We should be careful not to let interdisciplinary jockeying make us cling to what we know best. 
> > Everything looks like a nail when you have a hammer, as the saying goes. Similarly, at how great a disadvantage 
> > might we put ourselves—and the world—if we force our minds to approach all problems the same way?
> >
> > A version of this article appeared in the July–August 2017 issue (pp.144–145) of Harvard Business Review.



-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/18849915-ae8fa580
Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-aa268125
Unsubscribe Now: 
https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-32545cb4&post_id=20170626160720:0C1D0D62-5AAB-11E7-820C-DC46ABFD3910
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com