Thursday, February 24, 2005

The Apprentice: Episode Two

After the girl's team First Forte were resoundedly beaten last week, they started off a lot more organised in the hands of Project Manager Lindsay. The boys took a while to appoint their manager - Raj.

The task Sir Alan set for them was to create a new children's toy. The girls split into teams to research toy shops and the brainstorm, whilst the boys just brainstormed. The guys agreed quite quickly on a Top Trumps type game but electronic. The girls liked a plug toy and a robot toy that the brainstorming group had come up with. Manager Lindsay really liked a semaphore game she had come up with and after the plug toy was knocked on the head due to children playing near electricity, she ordered her team to test and prepare a presentation on the robot and the semaphore card game. Child focus groups preferred the robot and the team did as well, but Lindsay called that they went with the cards approx 20 minutes before the presentation.

The boys toy progressed quite smoothly although Matthew decided to read a book during some team meetings as he wasn't really interested which caused some friction, though I felt Raj dealt with him quite well, it is obvious that Matthew is not a team player.

After both teams got their prototypes and made their presentations, the toy buyers preferred the boy's electronic card trading game.

In the board room with Sir Alan, he questioned the originality of the boy's toy saying that there were similar toys on the market already. He then added that the girls' toy was boring and made the boys the winner. They got to spend the day at a country house clay pigeon shooting.

The girls returned to the boardroom and Lindsay decided to take Miriam and Adele to the front line with her. There was little contest in who should go, the major decisions, contrary to focus groups and team members were made by Lindsay and the team all worked toward the same goal, but were disheartened by the choice of toy. Lindsay was fired.

The official website is here.

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