Why Every Tech Company Needs an English Major

Why Every Tech Company Needs an English Major

Matt Asay is exactly right. Let’s here it for the English major. Every tech company needs one. “Why? Because as important as the technology is that powers our lives, businesses also depend on humanities-oriented communicators to articulate why the technology matters.”

English majors can tell the story, and that’s no easy task. Engineering is available virtually everywhere now, Asay argues; the problem is not developing new technology. “For every company that can develop an incredible hardware or software product, there are more companies who fail in the attempt to get someone interested in buying that product.”

So the next time you look to find a storyteller, don’t look for someone well versed in the technology of the day, instructs Asay. “I care far less about familiarity with Eloqua or other marketing automation programs and far more about the ability to construct an interesting thesis and synthesize it in a few hundred words. With so much textual communication, and so much riding on the ability to distinguish one’s product through that communication, the ideal marketing candidate may look more like a technology journalist or blogger and not at all like an engineer.”