This quote may seem to show STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and the humanities working together, but it demonstrates an age-old juxtaposition that often holds true. Can you clone dinosaurs? Heck yes. Should You? Better not. (If you need the reasoning behind that, there’s literally a series of movies to tell you why it’s a bad idea.) While I’ve always sat more towards the Arts & Humanities camp, I’ve never liked to think of STEM and Humanities as opposing forces. In marketing and advertising, especially, it’s imperative that you mix both digital tech capabilities and the insight of psychology and sociology for optimal results. How do you do this? Google AdWords and Analytics targeting are the best examples.

There’s no doubt that Google advertising/networks are a fine science, utilizing algorithms and code that quite frankly gives me a migraine. You don’t have to understand the intricacies of new tech and science to understand that is completely awesome and useful in almost every facet of society. However, I will argue that JUST the tech is missing something invaluable – human understanding. For those of you that scoff at the Humanities (sociology, psychology, philosophy, aka the lectures you slept through in college): think about the last product you bought or signed up for. Why did you buy it? Yes, you needed it, but why that particular product and at that particular time? Is it because it made you feel a certain way? While I can’t answer those questions, I can tell you that those answers are the precise reason why psychology and sociology need to be mixed with STEM.

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