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The Digital Spy Apprentice Series 4 - Task Three Boardroom |
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#1 |
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The Digital Spy Apprentice Series 4 - Task Three Boardroom
Hello candidates and welcome to the boardroom for the third task!
Firstly, what are your current feelings regarding this task? |
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#2 |
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Slightly nervous as I have no idea what the viewers have chosen.
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#3 |
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Quote:
Hello candidates and welcome to the boardroom for the third task! Firstly, what are your current feelings regarding this task? |
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#4 |
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Quote:
Firstly, what are your current feelings regarding this task? |
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#5 |
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Really sorry about this but have to pop off quickly (should only be about 10 minutes or so so will be back soon) so please try and answer these questions in my absnence:
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? |
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#6 |
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Yes to echo Steve - very nervous about the results tonight. But on the task itself, I thought it was a really fun task which brought out my creative side quite a lot. I had a really lovely team too so they made project managing and organizing easy and enjoyable to do.
![]() 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.
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#7 |
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Quote:
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? |
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#8 |
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Quote:
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? |
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#9 |
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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.
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#10 |
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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?
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#11 |
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Okay, so positive evaluations of the project managers from what I've heard.
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? |
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#12 |
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We made this decision based off what the top selling applications were and the majority of those were games as mentioned in our introduction. People seem to like the recreational, simple and entertaining aspects of apps. Along with games were actually social media and music apps as the most popular apps hence quite suitably the integration of those aspects into our app. Also the majority of our market research liked the game ideas the most:
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!
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#13 |
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Quote:
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? |
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#14 |
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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.
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#15 |
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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.
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#16 |
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In terms of the actual ideas themselves, who was responsible for coming up with both of these? Was there mutual agreement amongst the team?
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#17 |
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Shadi was responsible for coming up with the concept behind Sing Something in the same vein as the immensely popular games Charades and Pictionary but with a singing twist and a completely different format. Personally I thought it was a fantastic idea. He felt really passionate about it and the entire team quite instantly got on board with it and loved it. When I asked the whole team about which ideas they liked the most - that was the one idea everyone collectively favored (as well as my idea for a live concert application).
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. |
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#18 |
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Quote:
In terms of the actual ideas themselves, who was responsible for coming up with both of these? Was there mutual agreement amongst the team? |
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#19 |
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Thank you for your responses.
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? |
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#20 |
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For Team Aptitude, some viewers seemed slightly confused about the rules of your games. Do you think you overcomplicated things, or do you think this was a fault of the way you explained things in your pitch?
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#21 |
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Quote:
For Team Aptitude, some viewers seemed slightly confused about the rules of your games. Do you think you overcomplicated things, or do you think this was a fault of the way you explained things in your pitch? |
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#22 |
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Quote:
For Team Aptitude, some viewers seemed slightly confused about the rules of your games. Do you think you overcomplicated things, or do you think this was a fault of the way you explained things in your pitch? |
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#23 |
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Thank you for your responses. 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? ![]() 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. In this way again I think it would have mass appeal in the app market.
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#24 |
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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, so in that respect you could do whatever you wanted and feel quite safe and comfortable doing it. ![]() Do you think the privacy aspect would still be enough for people to want to play though? Do you think people would still be worried about other people hearing their singing, regardless of their anonymity?
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#25 |
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Okay, well before I get to revealing results, I'll reveal some of my thoughts:
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? |
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