Selling a Product to a Market that Doesn’t Want It

“Can I ask you to please recall a time when you really loved something, a movie, an album, a song or a book, and you recommended it wholeheartedly to someone you also really liked, and you anticipated that reaction, you waited for it, and it came back, and the person hated it. So, by way of introduction, that is the exact same state in which I spent every working day of the last six years. I teach high school math. I sell a product to a market that doesn't want it, but is forced by law to buy it. I mean, that's kind of—it's just a losing proposition.”

~ Dan Meyer, from “Math Class Needs a Makeover,” TED Talks (May 2010)