Berridge's Falling Bridge Between Tech and Humanities

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Overview

In Eric Berridge’s TED Talk, "Why Tech Needs the Humanities," he explains why individuals should value the humanities and STEM degrees equally, even in tech companies. He gives two primary reasons for his conclusion: (1) Technologies today are relatively easy to use. He explains that they are like putting together Legos—people can figure them out without degrees (check out this innovative Lego product). (2) Skills that are essential to the field of technology are also useful to humans in general. The humanities provide a foundation in "real-world experience," "judgment," and "historical contexts," which apply to technological innovations. Berridge responded to the technology trends in the nation by giving his perspective to a specific audience to try to persuade them to value the humanities and technology equally, but he could have achieved his purpose better with improved communication techniques (such as better use of language, examples, and technology).

Context

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Given in December 2017, the TED Talk features an interesting context, which Berridge directly addresses in his presentation. He explains that STEM majors in the United States are increasing, but the humanities majors are stagnant. Additionally, former President Barack Obama gave billions of dollars toward STEM education, and President Donald Trump gave millions of dollars for STEM education. With more and more successful companies being based on technology (click here for the current statistics), STEM is beginning to increase in importance in the workforce (especially on paper), but the current need for great technology firms introduces the main point given in the title of Berridge’s speech—tech needs the humanities, which is applicable in the context of an increasingly more technological world.

Point of View

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The context of the increasing emphasis on technology is coupled with Berridge’s point of view. He is the co-founder of Bluewolf, an IBM Company, which he began in December 2000. Interestingly, given the topic, he has a B.A. in English from the University of California at Berkley and an MBA in Entrepreneurial Finance from New York University. His background makes him quite sympathetic to the humanities in technology. However, he could not solve his own problem in the situation he described at the beginning of the video. Instead, a bartender fixed the situation. Ironically, Berridge needed a bartender to solve his problem, not just someone in the humanities, because he had a background in humanities himself (but this fact is ignored in the video). Berridge’s point of view makes him willing to respect humanities individuals and also to blend technology and humanities, but surprisingly, he is incapable of solving his own problem.

Audience

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Given at an IBM conference, this TED Talk has technologically capable intended and initial audiences, but Berridge's actual expanded audience may be wider than he intended. Berridge’s intended audience appears to be focused on business leaders, especially in technology. To relate to his intended and initial audiences, Berridge says "seven out of the 10 most valuable companies in the world by market cap are technology firms," which emphasizes the importance of technology companies and their leaders. However, with more than 900,000 views (as of August 30, 2018), some of the viewers are likely humanities proponents more than technology proponents. For example, one comment from a viewer, "exper tassured [sic]" stated, "I expected a more futuristic speech like technology will be misused without humanities." But most of the comments appeared to be defending technology, which indicates much of the audience may be more closely associated with the technology profession than with the humanities. The audiences of Berridge’s speech aligned with his intended and initial audiences, but as the audience base expanded, it is likely the audience members’ professions expanded.

Purpose

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Overall, the purpose of the presentation was to persuade individuals to value the humanities and STEM degrees equally, even in technology companies although Berridge could have done a better job supporting his argument by changing his language and his examples. For example, he said, "I’m not here today to tell you that STEM’s bad. I’m not here today to tell you that girls shouldn’t code." Rhetorically, instead of using a negative, it may have been more useful to explain what STEM was excellent at. This could have led to a more positive audience reaction and more positive comments (click here to read more about a psychologist who studied positive and negative framing). Also, Berridge emphasized that individuals with engineering and computer science backgrounds composed only 10 percent of his company. Although he did this to balance out the context of what he thought was an overemphasis on STEM, he appeared to undervalue technology in the process. Berridge could have changed his language and examples to support his purpose more successfully.

Concluding Thoughts

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Overall, while Berridge wanted to explain that the humanities can be a means of achieving great success in the technology world, Berridge’s speaking style caused the STEM people to be offended (click here to view some of the comments of angry viewers). Ironically, the lack of use of a PowerPoint presentation and his lack of pacing (at all) failed to demonstrate the integration the humanities and technology can have. Berridge should have followed his own advice and used his B.A. in English to prepare better for the presentation (with more movement and more technology) and to defend his argument to primarily the technology proponents (his main audience) but also the humanities proponents. While Berridge entered the discussion of the changing technology trends in the nation by giving his perspective to a diverse audience, he did not bridge the gap between the humanities and technology equally, but he could have achieved this goal with improved communication techniques (such as use of language, examples, and technology).