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Ph.D. as Training for Research AND Marketing

The Ph.D. degree is widely regarded as training-in-research. I would like to believe that it is also training-in-marketing, through the ability to sell new big ideas, new problems to solve, or new ways to solve old problems. The difference with MBA-style marketing is that instead of exaggeration or (sometimes) dishonesty, one must rely on hard facts, scientific arguments, and logic in order to drive points across. This difference arises mainly due to the disparity in target audience between the two cases.

Following are some mappings from research tasks to their marketing equivalent:

Getting Incremental Work Accepted for Publication:

Research
1. Argue that your way to solve the problem is better than others, and that a new solution will advance scientific R&D.

Marketing
1. Argue that the product is not the best of its kind in the market, and there are potential buyers who will pay for better quality/features.
e.g., Google's Web search, Apple's iPod

Proposing and Solving  a Whole New Research Problem:

Research
1. Argue that there exists a new problem that, if solved, can have a profound impact on the field. Propose one solution and argue that more needs to be done.

Marketing
1. Argue that a new product can come out of the market which will change how we live or do business, and eventually become essential.
e.g., Amazon's Kindle, iRobot's Rhoomba

Writing a Grant Proposal to get Research Funding:

Research
1. Argue that solving a given incremental/novel problem will further the goals of the funding agency/organization.

2. Show that you have started working on it, and have a research team and research ideas capable of achieving a significant part of the goal, given that there is monetary flow.

Marketing
1. Argue that the Venture Capitalist (VC) stands to make money in the long term with the development and growth of your product.

2. Show some preliminary prototypes and demonstrate the capability, through requisite ideas and human capital, to bring it to completion given the free flow of money.