The Digital Spy Apprentice Series 4 - Task Three Boardroom
_NiallDEE_
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Hello candidates and welcome to the boardroom for the third task!
Firstly, what are your current feelings regarding this task?
Firstly, what are your current feelings regarding this task?
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Bit nervous but I'm fairly confident. I think we have a very strong game that has come together nicely.
I'm feeling reasonably calm about it, because I think that there is a good chance that we may have won. Personally I really liked our app and I think it went down well with the viewers as well. However, as Steve said, I have no idea what they've chosen, and I'm certainly not arrogant enough to presume that we definitely have won. I'm certainly intrigued to hear the result, but I'm feeling more confident about it than I have with certain tasks in the past.
For Team Aptitude, obviously Iain was a newcomer and was thrown into the deep end with being made project manager, how did you find your stint? As for the rest of the team, what did you think of Iain as a project manager?
As for Team Inspired, the same questions for you, what did you think of Roxie as a project manager? Roxie, how did you find your stint as PM?
EDIT: To expand on your question Lord Sugar - I absolutely adored being project manager for this task. I made sure that everything was structured, that we came up with a good set of ideas and I essentially tried bringing out the best of my team by delegating tasks based off their strengths. We spent the whole of the first day really thinking about good ideas for the app as the whole task revolved around the realistic and unique qualities of the app so we needed a strong, special idea. We had a good mix of ideas (at least 10) and then we confirmed what idea we were going to do through market research. Shadi had come up with an amazing idea which was the basic concept for the task and we all instantly fell in love with as did the people I conducted the market research on. Then we did draft versions for each subheading for our pitch for Day 2 - at the end of which I combined all these draft versions of each into one master copy. I edited it to make sure it flowed, looked structured, was easy to read while adding a few of my own ideas in at the same time. I then sent it around for everyone to read and essentially just made sure everyone understood what everyone else's ideas were. Then I thought the pitch and question/answer session on the third day went well too with every question answered in a sensible and clear way.
Everyone was coming up brilliant ideas, knew what they were doing and had fun. It really was a straightforward and enjoyable process being project manager for this task and I think we did well.
I was happy with Iain, I got on with him and I thought he did a good job getting the troupes behind him. The only issue I did have with him is that some of the delegation seemed a bit arbitrary - I don't think any of us were asked very much about our skill sets (although he did once ask me if I can draw - I can't) and I felt like some of the delegation was a little bit random. But other than that, he was genuinely really good.
I feel it went well - especially considering I have been unexpectedly ridiculously busy outside the game. As I said in my evaluation I'll admit I was maybe a bit slow to hit the ground but I think after that I did a good job made easier by everyone who was there being behind me. The nightmare for me was that I struggled to get everyone on at the same time which was further not helped by Stacey being a no show despite ample opportunity to get in touch. In all I think the team was supportive of me and treated me like I'd been there from the start.
In all fairness that was a minor oversight on my part and I did mean to get you all to send me what you felt your strengths/skills were but in the end I didn't get round to it and I should have done but there you go.
I think Roxie was excellent as PM, she kept the whole team together as we worked on our main strengths within the team.
Getting on to the task now, I see both teams decided to make their apps centred around a game. Why was this decision made? Did you consider any other types of apps?
And yes we had considered many different ideas - about 12 different ideas on that first day. Here is an elaboration on a message I sent to my colleagues on Skype when asked which idea seemed most promising with all 12 of the team's ideas:
1) Similar Artists app for people to find similar music to their tastes based off plays and type of music downloaded.
2) Personal Stylist - make suggestions about what you should wear based off a scan of the wardrobe?
3) Finger Battleships - a person tries to guess where you pressed your finger on that person's smartphone.
4) Common Everyday phrases - simple everyday voiced phrases used in a variety of social situations.
5) Live Concert app - taking you to the heart of a concert without you needing to be there.
6) Piano Tutor - teaching you how to play piano based off download music.
7) An MMORPG game like world of warcraft but based off modern day warfare.
8) A Social Business Game idea - a game based off social interaction too where people would organize parties and events, and try to get other people online to come to their events.
9) Beat The Celeb - a traditional 2D fighting game where we would use celebrities like Katie Price and Britney Spears fighting each other in a arena in a similar vein to Mortal Kombat.
10) A Drunk or Not App - trying to assess the condition of your friend's soberness.
11) A Mood Playlist App - organizing your music into playlists based off mood.
12) And finally Sing Something of course!
We all liked the idea of going with a game as they are a lot of fun but concerns were raised about standing out and only wanted to go with it if we had a strong idea. So we had the idea for The Safe early on and really liked the idea. We had a few more ideas - the most different being an app which allowed the user to create their own mobile game. The idea was that you had an easy to use app which allowed you to create a game based environment similar to the sort of tools out there for PC. In our market research it proved to be fairly popular but we felt it was riskier than The Safe which everyone liked.
There's also the fact that two of your team weren't around on day one so if you waited for everyone to get back to you with their skills, you would still be waiting on Stacey.
Thank you - that was a real issue unfortunately but I think we managed well enough with the 4 of us.
We all also contributed ideas to improving the app such as my ratings feature and having different packages, Emma's design for the logo, Steve's advert, Zak's ideas on a unisexual target demographic to mention a few. Everyone had ideas to make it a really viable and unique application.
The Safe was Naruto's idea with the Design your own game idea being mine. When we had 3 strong(ish) ideas I did some market research to see which would be best received. In terms of mutual agreement we had to decide on which concepts were going to be in the market research before George came on but Arran, Naruto and myself all agreed we really like The Safe idea and unless our market research threw it up negatively we decided to go with that. Thankfully George really liked the idea and got behind it straight away when he got back. Mostly the ideas came from Naruto and myself but it was an open forum so Arran did have the opportunity to put ideas in.
More specifically for Team Inspired, whilst singing may be something that some people may do confidently and may enjoy a game involving it, others might feel a bit uncomfortable at the thought. Do you think your app has mass appeal in this respect?
I think the fault lay in our pitch - we should have made certain points a bit clearer but I think most agreed that it was fairly simple when clarity was brought in the questioning.
I think it was probably a fault in the pitch. One viewer did suggest that the rules would be too complicated for a phone app. I responded to that question, and I did say that actually the game is pretty simple when you're actually playing it. However, when re-reading our pitch I think it did come across as though the rules are more complex than they actually are. Maybe we could have done with proof-reading it a little bit more.
I think it does as singing itself is an activity which transcends age, era or gender really - many people enjoy singing. There is actually scientifc evidence to show why as I pointed out in our question and answer session for our pitch earlier. The process of singing involves the release of endorphins - neurotransmitters in the brain which actually have a feel good and stress relief effect on the whole human body similar to exercise. So actually singing would allievate stress, worry and anxiety. This effect is nearly universal across human age groups, genders and races. In that respect it could actually be the best activity to base an interactive game off.
And regarding any privacy aspect of it where people could feel potentially nervous playing it with other people. The whole format of the app is based off notepad, i.e. no one will see your face like they would on Face Time with a cam, only the smartphone's in-built mic would be used, so in that respect you could do whatever you wanted and feel quite safe and comfortable doing it.
Inspired, I definitely think your idea was interesting and definitely innovative, using aspects from popular apps to create a new and original app. I do think it probably works better in theory than it would in actuality though, and I do have some issues surrounding its practicality and whether people would actually want to play it...
Aptitude, on the other hand, I felt like your idea was probably less exciting than Inspired's and significantly less original, but at the same time it definitely is something I can see working and something people would have interest in. However, no pun intended, was it all a bit too safe?
I'd be interested in confirming what you mean by 'too safe'. I would argue that if a business idea generates interest and would work in the market, I would consider 'too risky' to be a very serious concern but 'too safe' not to be so much. I don't exactly follow what the concern is here.