Job-market utilitarianism isn't my preferred defence of the Humanities -- which we need for democracy and essential non-economic spheres of life (yes, they exist) -- but it's interesting to hear corporate category-killers like Jobs and Google extol the Humanities as essential skills they look for when recruiting.

"Technology alone is not enough," Jobs said this spring, in response to his old pal Bill Gates' call for more science, tech, engineering and math (STEM) training. "It's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing."

Don't trust Steve either? Knock on the door over at Google. Executives there have learned the same lesson in a very Google-ish left-brain way - by crunching data.

Recently, they made public the results of Project Oxygen, the most massive management study ever conducted, one that crunched the information from every Google personnel record going all the way back to the company's founding in 1998. They found that "technical expertise" didn't even make the list of the top skills of good managers.

What did? Vision for your team, good communication skills, listening skills, being productive, being collaborative.

Increasingly, tech leaders are finding that big changes in their world - the massive shift from building mainframes to designing digital and social media - requires a skill set you're more likely to find in an English course than a STEM class.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/09/04/2011-09-04_want_a_job_major_in_liberal_arts.html#ixzz1X7bSzp9U