> But you need to be able to sell your ideas and get people excited about them to have an impact on the world.
This is true. But there's a notional dial I think about. It's labeled "effort distribution". The left end says "substance" and the right end says "hype".
I've come to accept that 0% hype is a setting that mostly doesn't work. You need to make some people aware of your work, or you'll never get word of mouth. So let's say 5%. And really, you have to go higher than that, because you need to compete some with other people's hype. So maybe 10%?
The trouble is that hype is an arms race. So if the Media Lab is hoovering up money by overhyping things, then a) that money is being pulled from more substance-focused efforts, and b) to compete, now everybody has to burn more time on hype. Except funders, of course, who have to burn more time and money hoping to see through hype.
I can almost accept this in commerce, where we burn hundreds of billions of dollars per year on this arms race via advertising, PR, etc. But it makes me especially sad to see it happening in research.
There is also a social equivalent, which is highly regional/cultural: How much do we talk ourselves up, versus how modest are we?
If you talk like you're the hottest thing since sliced cheese in some places, you're looked upon as an arrogant braggart; if you don't in other places, it is assumed you are completely incompetent.
This is true. But there's a notional dial I think about. It's labeled "effort distribution". The left end says "substance" and the right end says "hype".
I've come to accept that 0% hype is a setting that mostly doesn't work. You need to make some people aware of your work, or you'll never get word of mouth. So let's say 5%. And really, you have to go higher than that, because you need to compete some with other people's hype. So maybe 10%?
The trouble is that hype is an arms race. So if the Media Lab is hoovering up money by overhyping things, then a) that money is being pulled from more substance-focused efforts, and b) to compete, now everybody has to burn more time on hype. Except funders, of course, who have to burn more time and money hoping to see through hype.
I can almost accept this in commerce, where we burn hundreds of billions of dollars per year on this arms race via advertising, PR, etc. But it makes me especially sad to see it happening in research.