I don't know... the more business experiences I have the more I realize how significantly more important marketing is than any other aspect of business. Same thing with selling yourself. It feels like a stretch, and it's hard to swallow considering that I'm an engineer through and through, but most data that I've seen fits that conclusion.

I have very little business experience, but I would guess this is less the case with engineers. Nerds care a little more about substance because that's what their job entails. Meanwhile, business guys care about how one sells oneself because that's their trade and they enjoy seeing it done well.

Good marketing gets you hired. Good networking gives you job opportunities around the globe. Good marketing gets you promotions and bonuses. Good marketing keeps your group's product from getting the axe.

0 errors, 0 warnings isn't all that important.

Eventually the fakes get found out. You have to be able to back up your marketing with something real.

Most good organizations will be suspicious of pure marketing claims unless they can be backed up with hard evidence. So yeah, they'll interview you based on that referral, but you still have to ace the interview. They'll hire you based on the interview, but they'll fire you if you don't perform well on the job.

> Eventually the fakes get found out. You have to be able to back up your marketing with something real.

How long is "eventually"? You only need a handful of years marketing crazy financial products to walk away with a fortune. The people who get found out aren't the ones who get hurt.

0 errors, 0 warnings keeps you from being a leech.

That's fine but marketing doesn't build bridges or cure diseases.

Lack of marketing could prevent your cure/service/product from being noticed...

Not really. This is a myth that marketing schysters try to peddle. A lot of naive people like this view though. These people would have you believe that nothing survives without marketing. When's the last time you saw a commercial for heroin or cocaine? It seems sales are pretty good for those products.

And yet, again, all the marketing in the world couldn't build one bridge. It just inherently cannot. Sorry.

Drugs are sooo marketed.

Celebrities use drugs. Drugs are used in "cool" movies. You are even informed of the euphoric feeling drugs give you in elementary school.

The fact that "cool" kids in high school end up experimenting with drugs first is a form of marketing (even if it is organic.)

I have three words for your stupid "bridge" argument:

BRIDGE TO NOWHERE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge)

Your argument is that celebrities use drugs? Really? Celebrities also eat food, breath air, and sleep. Maybe you should spend more time evaluating your arguments and less time on OK Magazine. Homeless people, business people, house wives, blue collar workers, people of every walk of life use drugs. Big deal.And the products are all sold without marketing propaganda. How many crack dealers do you really think read Seth Godin? Or "How to Win Friends and Influece?"

What is stupid exactly about my "bridge" argument? What does the "bridge to nowhere" have to do with anything? That is just a Red Herring. All the marketing in the world will never produce any non-trivial feat of engineering. Sorry. Part of the issue is that you and people of your view want to point to marketing for the success of any idea; you have no demarcation criterion.

?

Of course it is. I say this as I sit in my Herman Miller chair that is truly more comfortable that that wooden one, typing on my Macbook pro that makes me miles more productive than my old pc, while sipping my Starbucks latte that is a much better coffee than what I can make at home.

Oh yeah, and did you hear that new band at SXSW this year? Much better than the one I heard the other day on the radio.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail