Good post. The distinction and tension between promotion and production is interesting. I tend to think of them less as necessarily competing with each other (in the work of any given person or system) and more as different strengths and skill sets not often found together. Think brains and beauty; insight and eloquence; being mathematically inclined and also talented with a flair for literary style; and so on. None of those necessarily get in the way of each other, but most who have one do not have the other.

So, too, many can produce an excellent book, or widget, or song, and still have plenty of time left for promotion–but they may not have the flair or skills for promotion. And many who have the flair or skills for promotion do not have what it takes to produce an excellent product.

Two further angles: Promotion vs. production in nature; and promotion vs. production in personality type. Many animals pretend to be what they are not–and this subterfuge and camouflage works well enough to have survived as an evolutionary advantage. Male birds–the peacock being perhaps the best-known example, have gone to astonishing lengths (pun intended), in ways that have relatively little to do with functional quality, to promote themselves to females. And what are flowers’ colors and scents but a wild bazaar of promotion to pollinators? In short, promotion is part of life at so many levels, whether or not it seems fair.

On to personality type: It’s the introvert who tends to gnash his teeth at the necessity of promotion, and at the shallowness of the world that mistakes flash or buzz for quality of substance. Conversely, it’s often the extrovert who glances enviously at the introvert who has gone within and come back out with something truly original. Yes, there are introverts who are master promoters and extroverts who are creative geniuses, but the former tend to have the advantage at intensive substance, and the latter the advantage in extensive promotion.

My comment is a little bit off topic here, but what the heck… Part of my business is a retail operation. The choice I make in this arm of the business is to balance promotion with profit (since it’s a small business, profit equals salary to me). I have no formal business education. I make the decisions on promotion vs profit almost exclusively by guessing, with the occasional glance at profit margins on the promoted items. I didn’t really think this was optimal business management– surely there must be something beyond having the boss with the science degree make a guess.

We’ve got an MBA on the staff, so I confronted her with this issue. She doesn’t seem to have any better ideas. In fact, I’m pretty sure she has an 8th-grade grasp of mathematics, and apparently her understanding of our business model is that it provides her a salary. Analogous to your previous comment on selection based on GPA… selection based on degree hasn’t proven to be overwhelmingly effective either.

This is a big issue for me – I feel like I have the technical knowledge in my field, but I suck at promoting myself/finding my own clientele. I’m working on it, but it’s much more abstract which sometimes frustrates me as someone that likes structure and results.

Basically, any time I come across someone who can “sell” I don’t buy what they are selling. This is my default. Sure it causes me to miss a few good things, but overall it is a decent quick rule to dodge an average to low quality product.

@Michael in the Great Plains
I don’t like the nature argument, as there actually are some genetic reasons behind male promotion. The actual physical promotion part of it may not help the male survive, but in many cases it suggests a greater chance for an underlying genetic trait that would help perpetuate the species.

I also don’t like the nature argument as it assumes everything in nature is “good”, and, in turn, everything that mimics nature is good.

Well personally I would have to argue that people are social beings and as such promotion [or marketing in other terms] is an inherent part of their being as social creatures. I mean people don’t exist exclusively as utility optimizing agents, otherwise all neoclassical economics would be true [more or less]. People exist as social creatures and form systems of government and political organization as such. I would have to argue that to creatures who naturally interact and form relationships, marketing is just a “natural” outgrowth of a fundamental driver, not a superfluous detraction from production of quality products [though I will agree 100% that to much time spent on SEO can cause a massive decline in the quality of blog posts ;)].

Aren’t most individual advantages good for the individual, but bad for society as a whole? The end of the Roman Republic was probably the best historic examples of this – people like Sullar, Caesar, etc used their abilities to better their position, but at the expense of the entire civilization.

As for promotion, even the act of smiling, dressing decently, brushing your hair, showering frequently are forms of personal marketing. The fact that I say hi when I see someone, instead of ignoring them, is itself marketing.