The "Freeola Customer Forum" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
The challenge was to create and promote a product for Dogs. The boys team (eclipse) came up with a utility belt (looking more like a sash or a miltary gear) and the girls (stealth) developed a doggie cupboard where you could store all your doggie goods, food, belts, clothes etc. 2 pretty dubious products, eclipses belt product was panned by the focus group (which prefered the other idea of a blanket that caught hairs and was machine washable). Another with questionable target market making it difficult or challenging to sell. Neverless, the girls won by a massive margin. For the boys, it was a double blow with 2 members of their team leaving.
My 2 cents: The project manager really was useless, he's creditenals really did hint at it already. Bankrupt twice and choose a pretty autocratic style that didn't rub very well nor was he any good at management either. A key problem was partially the project leaders personal pride and intergrity that made him such a lousy leader. Too proud to take advice, critism and thought he good enough to make effective decisons. He had no business acumin at all (hence the record)
Stating that you're the boss (as noted right at the start of the challenge) and you have all the power is foolish in business. Its the workers who get the job done and not the managers. Managers are the brains and ensures that they get the work done (In fairness, 2 sharks in the group would cause problems in the long run.). There were so many situations and key moments that could have been resolved but the project manager refused to listen to the most disruptive member of the group (tray?) who was giving some pretty valid pointers like the delay of the other members within the focus group. Nor was he very decisive in decison making and by the look of things made a half arsed commitment to things.
But that said, tray was very disruptive and a valid point that he likes to be in control and frequently antagonsitic. He seems to have the drive, motivation and force to win, but his blunt attitude and refusal to accept authority really makes him a liablity. To be fair to the project manager, whilst his product didn't win, there was still no guarentee that the other product would have beaten the girls mammouth victory despite the good feedback from the focus group. This wasn't helped by the fact that another team member acutally had a degree in product design and didn't contribute at all.
So whats your thoughts on tonights show. Any comments on the first show or next weeks one?
I thought both ideas were pretty good in premise; the monkeys and the 'big five'. If that'd of been me though I'd have gone the extra mile and stayed a few hours making more of the monkey faced lollies. However, I thought they were pretty damn good, and actually seemed to echo the product title.
The 'big five' could have been amazing if they'd done, say, five different animal faces or pawprints. The pawprint lolly wasn't too bad, but lacked a bit of class in the finish. The 'tiger orange' lolly though, I have no idea of what that was about. It had nothing to do with a tiger whatsoever, really, and shoving hundreds and thousands all over it defeated the point of why they were making it.
Good episode though, and it was made all the more better by the way I'd forgot it was on, catching the re-run of the previous episode the day before.
So selling sweets to kids should have been easy, but it wasn't as already discussed those stupid orange lollies labelling had cost the other team dearly. There are far too many what ifs that the losing team could have won. What if they labelled the sweets properly? What if they moved to another location quickly, what if they didn't buy as much stock to make the terrible sweets?, what if the project leader didn't waste everyones time and dressed up as a lion and didn't do anything?
Close call, with the scientist leaving she leaves with a defiant finishing comment. "I didn't want the job now anyway" was the gist of the response...
>
> The guy acting like a monkey was great, though. Alan Sugar
> should hire him as his Junior Executive Monkey.
"Prank Monkey"
The guy acting like a monkey was great, though. Alan Sugar should hire him as his Junior Executive Monkey.
I think the kissagram was far too cheap and really, the women were asking/demanding customers to participate. But no one had really any idea in the evening tasks.
The women that was fired deserved to go and i agree with what alan sugar said, she really was useless and i personally think location was the biggest reason they failed. Although, it wasn't helped by a crap solution to the challenge.
I thought it was a particulary difficult challenge this one as they pretty much had to improvise and bodge their way to victory. Eclipse (boys) after a massive battering last week losing 2 members were in poor shape, they opted for gardening whilst the girls opted for face painting. Slim pickings both sides and by night things became even less dignified as they pretty much sold themselves or their pride to the public for money. Girls went for kissagrams (a softcore version of prostitution as i like to see it) whilst the boys singagrams (the idea was a impulse one). Neverless the boys managed to win nearly doubling cash.
Tray just about managed to hold the team together, he managed to make the key decisive decisions that mattered. Most notably the somewhat impulse decison to go for a sing a gram. This was helped by the nature of the job, whilst they may have done fewer jobs they got far more money compared to the girls. Who's face painting idea could have made a killing if they managed to get to schools (although looking back, what were they going to appeal to a child market on a school day). The kiss a gram went at a far too cheap price to be of any benefit at the end anyway.
Enough from me now, your thoughts on the show tonight.
Cruel indeed, but it's the premise of the show to fire people, and Alan Sugar wasn't going totally nuts at him for missing his family.