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Next Shawn speaks and says, "Alex, did you have your hand up?"
"To have one's hand up" means to hold your hand in the air showing that you want to speak or ask a question.When you have a question in class, in a school, you normally raise your hand.
When the teacher sees that you have your hand up, he or she might call on you, saying your name and giving you permission to ask your question.Alex says that yes, he did have his hand up.
He says, "What I'd like to know is whether your team has thought about developing an entirely new product and entering a different market."The phrase "What I'd like to know is…" means "I would like to know…", "I want to know…", or "Please tell me…."
Alex would like to know, or wants to know, whether the team considered the option, or the possibility, of having Vision Corporation start making a different type of product.Shawn replies by saying yes, the team considered that option, but it has ruled it out.
"To rule (rule) something out" means to consider something - to think about something - as a possibility, as an option, but then to decide not to do it, or to consider a list of things and decide not to use one of those things.We ruled it out; we decided we weren't going to do it.
Shawn's team began with a list of options and one of the ones that they decided not to use was to make a new product.Why? Because the team thinks it's best to use the company's strengths, or core competencies, to improve the product it already has rather than, or instead of creating a new product.
If you get sick when you see blood, for example, you might rule out being a doctor as your career - as what you want to do in your life because as a doctor, you have to see a lot of blood.
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