I get great questions from webinars and emails that give me a chance to illustrate important points about grant writing (I’ve got a webinar happening this Saturday, sign up here).  I just got an email question that brought up an important issue:

Recently, I read a proposal written by a tenured faculty member who recently got her R01 funded. She has a record of getting grants, so, I expected to have my socks blown off by her proposal…. The proposal wasn’t exciting: it didn’t even explain why it was important (although there were TONS of technical details) … So my question is this: how much do other factors (like who writes your letters, what school you came from, whose lab you came from) play into the funding decision? 

My response:

Grants are very much like “marketing”.  You’re trying to “sell” your project to your reviewer and funder.  Given that context, we can analyze this from a marketing perspective.

There are two basic types of marketing: Brand Marketing and Direct Marketing.

Brand Marketing is what you see from big companies, like car companies, soda companies, shoe companies, etc.  Brand Marketing is there to establish a reputation, an image of quality, and a long term relationship.  A company might do this so that when you think “shoes” you think automatically think of a certain company starting with N and ending with E (for example).  That helps them have “perceived value” in what they do (which has to be backed up by real value, i.e. good products, or they’ll loose their brand image over time, despite the marketing).

Direct Marketing is what smaller business must rely upon to get a message out.  They don’t have the budget (or time) to rely on big, expensive, long-term brand building campaigns. A successful small business will go direct-to-consumer with a message, and make the most compelling case possible for the consumer to “buy” what they have to offer.  Over the long haul, they’ll build a “brand” up as well, but it takes a lot of time.

It’s the same (I’m not kidding!) in the grant world.  After someone has been around for a while, and done a good job of establishing their “brand” in a particular area, then they can do a sloppy job of the direct marketing and sometimes get away with it.  As long as their name is recognizable to reviewers, and as long as those reviewers like what they’ve seen, it is a HUGE accelerant.

However, for someone who isn’t an established “brand name”, the accelerant is missing (though there can be a bit of that from the institution you’re at and the mentors you’ve worked with).

In that case, you have only one thing to rely upon: your “direct marketing.” And that’s what your proposal is… a direct marketing piece.  You’re trying to sell a specific audience on a specific idea or project, at a specific point in time…

Since you don’t have a “brand” to back you up, you have to do a far better job of your direct marketing, i.e. writing a killer proposal and having a great project!

I think the senior colleague is relying upon her “brand” to get funded.  The danger is that could dry up at any time.  I’ve had plenty of senior people who come to me for help after 20+ years of regular grant funding, and now suddenly can’t get grants.  The brand just isn’t enough (by itself) anymore.  The proposal has to be fantastic too.

The ultimate combination is to do a fantastic job of the direct marketing, AND building your brand over time.  I’m doing just one more webinar on the how to write a great proposal (and how deal with rejection) – the direct marketing part- so you’ll need to sign up fast.  Then no more webinars on grant stuff for the rest of the Spring.  I’ve got some other fish to fry.

A few weeks ago I posted at The Scientist blog about a new jewelery store that had opened up near my office … and I was concerned that this jewelry store was headed for a sad fate if they didn’t soon figure out their “Unique Selling Proposition (USP).” The USP is that unique value that a business brings to the market to differentiate it from other businesses.

Grants must have a USP as well. In the current environment, “me too” proposals don’t cut it. There has to be something unique and powerful about what you’re proposing to do, or it won’t stand out enough in order to receive that 1 in 10 vote that is good enough for funding.

Yesterday I visited the jewelry store in question, and met the owners. It is a young fellow in his late 20′s, and a woman of about the same age who appears to be pregnant who is his wife. They are both sweet folks – but when I went in, the store was dead quiet. It reconfirmed what I wrote before, only with a personal touch. These are now real faces, young people with a dream, and if they don’t figure it out, that dream may die a quick death.

This is happening in science, too. Young scientists struggle to get funding for their work, and eventually throw in the towel. They may see senior scientists struggle, and say to themselves: “why should I bother?”

It is brutal, but there are solutions:
1. Take personal responsibility. Yes, I know that’s an alien concept – but with both the jeweler and with many young scientists, doing a better job of things like identifying and developing that Unique Selling Proposition would make an enormous difference.

2. Do a better job of communicating the value of science to society. This would lead to a turnaround in the slow, steady decline in public support for science.

If you want help identifying your USP, you can sign up for a complimentary strategy session, here.

Today I had a conversation with someone who is now working for free at a major academic center.

Yes, that’s right. This person is no longer being paid a salary – but is still working.

The center that this person is working at brings in a few hundred million per year in grant money – on top of hundreds of millions in patient care revenues, etc.

But, because the person hasn’t received a grant for a while, the university has shut off the salary.

“Sorry, no grants, no paycheck.”

“Oh, you need to eat? Food? Maybe you can eat agar left over from the latest experiment while you wait for three months to see if you’re graced by the roll of the NIH grant dice.”

“By the way, we still expect you to teach that course next fall for all the med students, but we don’t have any money for your salary to do that – you’ll have to milk the NIH for that.”

This is taking things too far.

I’m calling a spade a spade – and this is the worst kind.

Universities seem to have gotten this notion that this is a “business” and that all their scientists are “businesspeople”. This is especially true in academic medicine.

But I’ve got news for the administrators who think they are being so smart by running things “like a business:”

Yes, in a business, salary can go to zero if you’re not “productive” enough. No difference here.

But, in a business, salary can go to millions or billions if you’re extremely productive.
BIG difference here. In a business, there’s huge upside potential. In an academic job?
Not so much, these days.

Basically, what the university is doing to this person (and many are doing to many people) is saying: you’re taking all the risk on the downside, but you get none of the upside potential.

You get no grants, you get no salary.
You get millions of dollars in grants, and you get no extra salary*.

It’s not the way to motivate people, folks. At least not the really smart and really capable people. They will see right through the ruse (why do you think I own two businesses? I don’t want to miss out on the upside potential of my own particular skills and talents).

I’m happy to take on the risk of my salary going to zero – as long as the university is happy to pay me at least 30% of the total grant revenue I bring in each year. (ummmm errrr maybe I shouldn’t be giving them any ideas about “businessifying” academia even more)

It is saddening to me that the academy has gotten to this point. I understand that everyone has big budget pressures to deal with. I try to be sympathetic about that. But the question that admins should be asking themselves are, “what are the long-term ramifications of my budget cutting decisions?”

The long term ramifications of putting people in a situation where there is only downside but no upside is low morale, and a flight of talent.

When the talent flees, the revenue will drop.
When the revenue drops, more budgets get cut.

And things go into a death spiral.

That’s not the way to run a business, folks. Most businesses who go into that kind of death spiral die (or get bailed out by the government).

Universities: treat your scientists (and all your people) well! You should be treating them like kings and queens, not like peons. These are the people that make your university great – and bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in grants.

Universities administrators that “get this” will be leading successful institutions into the future.

Today Morgan discusses really really boring scientific talk titles. Giving a great science talk begins with having a great title, that captivates the audience and motivates them to come to your talk. Don’t be afraid of giving your talk an interesting title! You will stand out, because everyone else will continue to use boring dry talk titles. Standing out is good. It gets you noticed. Morgan shares her favorite title for a talk, “Modeling biology with equations is like strapping a …. ” (you’ll have to watch the video to find out).

The other day, after reading a book on copyrighting by Joe Sugarman, I decided to use one technique that he suggests for coming up with a title for an upcoming talk.

The technique is simple: brainstorm. Don’t just write one title. Write 25 or more. Then pick the best one.

So I started brainstorming. I wrote some titles. I wrote some more. I started feeling silly, but I forced myself to write some more.

Towards the end, I got a little loopy. You can see the whole list below.

I then went back and rated them all, 1 (best), 2 (ok) or 3 (bad). I sorted them all in a spreadsheet, and removed the 2′s and 3′s.

I had about 5 left.

One kept beckoning to me. I just could not bring myself to delete it, or pick one of the others above it.

Guess which one?

“Modeling biology with equations is like strapping a V8-engine to a horse drawn buggy”

If I had written this title in my standard way, the most likely outcome would have been:
“Multi scale systems biology modeling with computer agents”

Which one sounds more interesting? I find the former far more compelling, due to the strong visual.

And, it conveys an important subtext that the second, more “safe” title doesn’t – that our tools aren’t necessarily right for the job.

Who knows how the folks at the receiving institution will like it, but it gave people around here a good laugh. They liked the title. I wrote the abstract in a more serious tone – but it did address the point made by the title.

This is an example of “Marketing Your Science” in action. A boring title is less likely to catch someone’s attention. If it doesn’t catch their attention, then they’re unlikely to come to the talk. If they don’t come to the talk, then what is the point of giving it?

Here is the list of possibilities I brainstormed (I’d like to see your vote in the comments for which one you prefer):

Agents are everything

Agents and fractals

Agents and fractals: modeling self similar protein behavior

Modeling self similar protein behavior

Multi scale systems biology modeling with computer agents

Protein behavior as a fractal mirror to nature

How complexity arises from simplicity in biology

Cells are simple, but our models that are complex

Proteins are simple, but our models are complex

Of birds and proteins: how modeling reveals fractal self-similarity

Birds are made of proteins and birds are like proteins

The Birds, the bees, and the proteins: how nature mirrors itself at multiple scales

Taking cues from the birds and the bees to construct realistic cellular models

Can cancer be solved by specialists? Or does it require a generalist.

It’s not the size of your CPU, it’s how you use it

It’s not the size of your equation, it’s how you use it

From equations to agents – boiling the complex down to the simple

Models as tools – it’s all how you use them

Modeling biology with equations is like strapping a V8-engine to a horse drawn buggy
“You have lots of power but won’t get very far”.

Representations of proteins: equations or agents?

From the simple arises the complex: can we mirror this in a computer?

Biological complexity arises from simplicity – can we model it the other way around?

Modeling how biological complexity arises from simple rules

The complexity we see in biology derives from many simple interactions

Forward modeling or reverse modeling: from the top down or from the bottom up?

On the top or on the bottom? Modeling approaches reveal how you like it.

ps – should science really be so boring all the time?  Most talk titles I see convey that sense.  But given that we need to get more people interested in science, not less, how about we make it a little bit interesting from time to time?

pss – I invited well known antibiotic resistance researcher Bruce Levin (from Emory) to give an upcoming seminar in my department.  He obviously “gets” this concept.  His talk title?

“Sex and drugs: the population and evolutionary dynamics of recombination and antibiotic treatment in bacteria”

I know a lot of artists and scientists, and the story is the same for both: be “proud” or be “paid”.

This came up when I was talking to a friend who has a band that plays some music I happen to like, Graveyard Fields.

I recently ran across Mark Joyner’s “Online Music Promotion Course”, and I recommended it to my friend the musician.

Mark Joyner is an “internet mogul” who pioneered many aspects of early online marketing, and now runs a series of courses on managing time, money, and energy. I’ve gotten a lot out of Mark Joyner’s various efforts. For one, I’ve learned how to better promote my own scientific work.

I thought that my musician friend needed some marketing help, so I told him about the course.

A few days later, I asked him, “did you sign up?”

His response distilled down was “it was too much marketing for me.”

I was a bit flabbergasted – but not surprised.

I see this all the time. I used to hold this attitude. In fact, I used to resent some of the well-known scientists who are good at “marketing” themselves (almost all well known scientists are good at marketing themselves, unless they were the 1-2% that got really lucky by being “discovered”).

A month ago, I attended a book writing session at the Science Online conference near Raleigh/Durham NC. I saw the same dynamic play out.

There were three published authors running the session. Guess which one of those was the most successful (in terms of buzz, interest, interviews, and perhaps, money made)? It was the author who had been doing her own marketing for more than a year before the book was published, through Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.

After the authors spoke, questions were asked. There were questions on how to get “discovered”. It seemed clear that at least part of the audience were only interested in practicing “their art” – not in doing their own promotion.

But the odds of being “discovered” without sufficient self-promotion are about the same as the odds of winning a lottery.

Hey, I didn’t make the rules. Sometimes I am not proud to have to “market” my work. But the evidence is all around: if you don’t promote your artistic (or scientific) work, you are very unlikely to get any gravy from it.

I’m not exactly sure why the world has changed to the point where this is so necessary, but I have an idea.

I believe that it is the constant cacophany of other “marketing” messages that are out there, screaming for your attention.

I know plenty of people who hate this. I know one person who changed cell phone providers simply because of their marketing.

But recently I had an interaction that was revelatory to me.

I joined an online copywriting course, focused on marketing copy.

I sent a sample of one of my bits of work to the instructor. He sent it back completely rewritten, and I thought it sounded like a late night infomercial. When I told him that was my response, he wrote back saying: “the reason it sounds that way is because that works – those guys spend millions of dollars on those infomercials, so they tune and tweak them until they pay off”

It is so bizarre to me, sometimes, to write ad copy. But I’ve done some testing myself – and the “late night infomercial” approach is statistically superior to bland and understated in terms of response.

Science is a creative product – just like books and CDs. While one can’t go about writing “late night infomercial” style headlines for manuscripts or grant proposals (I’m sure that would backfire), it is essential to pay attention to how the work is being “marketed”. (aside: most science work is not marketed at all – that’s why most articles get buried in the trashbin of history so rapidly).

Here’s another way I can verify this. My mother was a successful watercolor artist. What do I mean by “successful?” I mean that she paid the bills by selling her art – without ever holding a “side job”.

How did she do that? A majority of her revenue came from marketing notecards and prints with her art on it. Only a fraction of the revenue came from selling the paintings themselves. She figured out early on that she had to “market” her work. She didn’t necessarily love that aspect of the work. But she did get to avoid working as a clerk at Wal Mart.

While I don’t have hard statistical evidence on this, I think the anecdotal evidence is so strong as to be almost irrefutable – if you don’t learn how to market your own creative works effectively, then getting paid reasonable money to do that work is unlikely.

The bottom line for my friend (and many others I know who hate to hear mention of “marketing”): “you can be too proud to market your work, or you can can get paid for your work – but not both”.

Speaking of that, do you want a preview of my upcoming book, code named “Marketing Your Science”? People who sign up for my newsletter list right now get a free copy of Chapter 1 – Why Marketing Your Science Is Important.

It’s that little box in the upper left hand corner that is beckoning to you.

I’m writing a book in which I claim that “you need to market your science!”  Upon hearing the word “marketing”, a lot of scientists look at me as if I’ve gone over to the dark side.  It’s almost as bad as carrying the bubonic plague.

But marketing has got to be better than some of the stupid mistakes I’ve made in my career (maybe I should call it “career blunders?”).  More than once I developed a great idea and then it suffered in obscurity because of my poor marketing of the idea.

I’m going to illustrate the concept with real-life examples. This is the first installment of “science marketing blunders”.

It starts in 1991. I was a graduate student. I had just joined a new lab, bringing my computer skills bear on analyzing data from the latest generation of instruments for DNA sequencing.

I was skilled in computer science, but not skilled in marketing.

I developed a program, called BaseFinder while I was in Lloyd Smith’s lab.  Its goal was to reduce a complex “trace” signal data into a simple stream of letters conveying the sequence of the DNA… A…C…G…T. This process is termed “base calling”.

Section of DNA Sequence Trace

At the time, the only available base calling program was bundled with the DNA sequencing instruments made by Applied Biosystems, Inc. It worked ok, but it was a closed, proprietary solution. When it made a mistake, the user was forced to just eat it, and pray/hope (or attempt to cajole ABI) that it would be fixed in the next iteration of the software.

My program was developed to fill the gap left by the commercial software, providing an open-source solution that had several benefits:

1. It was more accurate than the commercial software.

2. It provided a numerical measure of confidence for each base position, so that downstream processes could be automated to use the confidence value, flagging “poor” calls for review.

3. Its method of scoring the data was “modular” using (new at the time) object-oriented programming methods. So if a user wanted the program to start accounting for new types of features in the data, they could just add a module, without disrupting the rest of the program.

4. The user could define their own data processing “scripts” that combined a set of analysis modules to optimize for their own experimental conditions. Once a script was defined, it could be applied to automatically process large quantities of data.

BaseFinder Screen Shot c1998

I was working in a well known lab, and the community was hungry for software like this. It was technologically superior software to what had been available.

A handful of people have used it over the years for specialized analysis tasks, but it has been far overshadowed by other programs, primarily Phred, which was developed a bit later in Phil Greene’s lab.

Why didn’t it take off? Because of lousy marketing on my part! It had great features and benefits that would have helped people, but I didn’t do the things needed to promote it effectively.

That is a waste of the big investment in that software (10+ person years of effort).

I was too focused on the technology to care about the marketing. That was my fundamental marketing blunder.

Here’s how it manifested:

1. I chose a computer platform that nobody was using, the NeXT (Steve Jobs’ company after he left Apple in the late 80’s). I chose it because of the great technology it embodied. It had the first object-oriented operating system and programming environment, years before Java existed. I thought that it was way cool and would save lots of programming time to use their special object-oriented programming language and toolkits. But this introduced an instant handicap – only people with NeXT computers could use the software! Those computers were expensive – costing $4,000 – $5,000 or more (equivalent to a $10k or more computer with today’s dollar). Also, people didn’t want to spend the time to set up and maintain a new computer platform in their labs. Because of that, the adoption rate of our great new software was almost zero.

2. Once it was working, BaseFinder was old and boring to me. I didn’t talk about it much. I didn’t submit abstracts to conferences about it. While we kept working hard at developing it, there was no concomitant effort to promote it. When I did go to conferences, I was always talking about the latest algorithm, rather than talking about what people really would have benefitted from, which is the software platform itself.

3. User documentation was poor. For the few people who did pick it up and try it out, we had little in the way of good user documentation, so it was a frustrating experience for them. It was a sophisticated and complicated program, that could do many things, but it wasn’t intuitive. Producing intuitive software is “marketing” in its greatest form. The user interface facilitates the user getting value out of the underlying algorithms. Conveying value is a key point of marketing.

4. Our confidence values were arbitrarily scaled and not probabilistic. Even though we were the first ones to introduce this kind of confidence value, our approach was superseded by Phred, which had probabilistic confidence values. Phred’s confidence values weren’t necessarily more accurate, but they were more understandable to humans, because they were framed in terms of something many scientists are familiar with (probability).

These problems could have been remedied with a mind for “Marketing” our work.

For example, I could programmed BaseFinder in a common language like C that could have been readily ported to other environments. I could have skipped the fancy user interface at the start, and then added the user interfaces later for distinct platforms (Phred’s development took that approach).

I could have spent just a few days writing up user documentation to help people get going with the software.

I could have submitted abstracts to at least two major sequencing conferences every year, talking about BaseFinder and highlighting what was new and how it solved important problems. Phil Green did that with Phred.

Instead, I was always too busy with the “technology.” I always thought my problem was that I hadn’t done a good enough job with my software. I thought that if I only worked harder and smarter, and made the software better, that people would discover it. Even after 10 years of doing that, and people still not discovering it in droves, I eventually gave up on it.

Paying attention to the concept of Marketing would have made all the difference in taking the technology that I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into (and the Government poured a lot of money into), and getting it used.  Marketing is all about conveying the value of some thing that you have to offer. In this example, I had a potentially great thing, but I failed at conveying it’s value.

Should marketing really be such a dirty word? Perhaps if used for nefarious purposes.  But using it to promote useful software is far from being nefarious.

—————

I have a few more good marketing blunder stories that I’ll share here in the future.

What about you? I want to hear about your science marketing blunders. Let me know about that time you should have gotten the Nobel prize, but you didn’t because of lousy marketing on your part, or someone who you were working for.

And, if you’re interested in preview of my upcoming book on how to avoid these kinds of marketing blunders in science, just sign up here.