We will no doubt in our time at Sauder be taught how to market effectively. The ability to market oneself, and ones services is indeed one of the most important aspects, at least from my understanding, of achieving success in the business world. However, as I was quick to learn in 299, in an overzealous attempt to market oneself, some people often blur the line between actual accomplishment and implied accomplishment, and this not necessarily wrong, if not right.
I would not hope to take the high ground on honesty; as someone who has seen some of the tougher and softer regions of the world, I have realized that absolute honesty is found neither in the slums nor the castles, but in rare, isolated locations. The ability for each human to be completely honest with another one is taken for granted in our society, and thusly, in business. We may not call it lying, but we can not call it the truth either.
If we take this to a yet higher scale, what stops a business from behaving unethically, at least in terms of marketing? Is saying that a product may do something and solve your paticular problems is not necessarily wrong, but potentially true, and making millions on such an assumption, dishonest? I perosnally am not sure where I stand on the issue, but I feel that if humans can not market themselves honestly, whats to stop corporations of humans from doing so. How many little white lies inhabit the world we live in?