|
This learning activity is a "blind alley" in the sense that as a class we pursue a line of thinking that is inherently flawed. It is "deliberate" in the sense that I purposefully lead the class down this blind alley. As can be heard in the audio recording, I present the idea in a positive light at first, which is easy to do because a product focus is intuitively appealing. After walking down this "blind alley" for a while, I point out the fundamental flaws in the idea. My purpose in deliberately traveling down the blind alley is to give students a surprising, "aha!" moment. That is, I believe the deliberate blind alley is more impactful than if I simply explain the fundamental flaws in an idea. As a side benefit, this learning activity highlights the value of marketing theory in overcoming intuitive but misguided ideas. In this way, this learning activity helps reduce hindsight bias among students (an issue that I discuss more fully in Example 1a). The recording that can be heard here is an example of a "deliberate blind alley" I use as part of a class session on the different concepts of business (sales concept, product concept, marketing concept, etc.). In my description of the product concept, I pursue it for a while in a manner that seems to suggest it is a correct concept of business. I "walk down the alley" for a while before revealing the inherent flaw in the thinking. After the audio-taped segment, I discuss marketing myopia and then the marketing concept. |
|