science

Selling Blue Elephants

Selling Blue Elephants is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Selling Blue Elephants rather than just read about it. In short: Selling Blue Elephants: How to Make Great Products That People Want Before They Even Know They Want Them is a book written by Howard Moskowitz and Alex Gofman (Publisher: Wharton School Publishing 2007). The book outlines a new solution-oriented learning experience co-developed with Prof.

Key takeaways

Selling Blue Elephants belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Selling Blue Elephants to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Selling Blue Elephants from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Selling Blue Elephants: How to Make Great Products That People Want Before They Even Know They Want Them is a book written by Howard Moskowitz and Alex Gofman (Publisher: Wharton School Publishing 2007). The book outlines a new solution-oriented learning experience co-developed with Prof. Jerry (Yoram) Wind of Wharton School of Business - Rule Developing Experimentation (RDE). RDE is the systematized process of designing, testing and modifying alternative ideas, packages, products, or services in a disciplined way so that the developer and marketer discover what appeals to the customer, even if the customer can't articulate the need, much less the solution. The book describes best practices in the RDE from some of today's top companies: HP, Prego, Vlasic, MasterCard and others. Filled with real-life stories, this book changes the way people think about selling to their present and future customers.

References

External links www.SellingBlueElephants.com www.Ideamap.NET www.mji-designlab.com www.mindgenomics.com

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Selling Blue Elephants

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Selling Blue Elephants claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Selling Blue Elephants before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Selling Blue Elephants ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Selling Blue Elephants

In research: Selling Blue Elephants appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Selling Blue Elephants in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Selling Blue Elephants is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2007 non-fiction books, Business books, Economics and finance book stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Selling Blue Elephants outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Selling Blue Elephants in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Selling Blue Elephants means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Selling Blue Elephants out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Selling Blue Elephants in simple terms?

Why does Selling Blue Elephants matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Selling Blue Elephants?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Selling Blue Elephants.