Posted by Dan Martin on Tue, 29/11/2011 - 12:11
Melody Hossaini, a candidate in the last series of BBC TV's The Apprentice, social entrepreneur and founder of InspirEngage International blogs about the sxith episode in the new season of Young Apprentice. Melody has 14 years experience in the youth sector and tweets at @Melody_Hossiaini
Week six task: Locate items on a list and purchase them for the best price possible.
Week six out of eight – getting serious now! This week was a classic Apprentice task; the treasure hunt!
I felt stressed just watching it, with things like 'top hat dry cleaners' and 'cloche' running through my mind! The 16 and 17 year-olds are from the generation of Google Maps and not the Yellow Pages.
When we completed the task, I saw comments on Twitter saying we were stupid not to Google the products. What people don’t always know is that smart phones with internet access are banned! This makes things considerably more difficult!
Team Haya vs Team Lizze this week. From my experience of the task, I tweeted: @Melody_Hossaini "We learned the hard way that a strong strategy is key. You need to figure out the strategy based on geography & roles & responsibility of team."
@daniellacross replied: "@Melody_Hossaini I agree - good planning pays off!"
Lizzie Magee's team Atomic were extremely well organized, had a clear strategy and even called up someone to check what the mysterious Dashiki is!
@Akshayy12 tweeted: "The 'dashiki' is this years' 'cloche'."
Haya Al Dlame's team on the other hand headed out before knowing what the plan for the day was, which we all thought was a doomed approach, but were impressed when it was revealed that they secured a win!
Just goes to show that a good strategy alone won't give you the victory if you’re not going to negotiate. Well done to them!
In the boardroom, Harry Maxwell broke records for the wrong reasons by surviving six losses in a row! Project manager Lizzie brought back the strong contender Zara Brownless and the reserved Hayley Forrester.
Zara was criticised by Hayley for being too domineering, which is a criticism I also received on the programme. I tweeted: "You become domineering by default- when people around you aren't doing much! Reminds me of Paris task."
In the end, Hayley was fired, but walked out with her head held high and quite right too! She seems like a lovely young lady and we wish her the very best!
InspirEngage International has been honoured to have worked and supported over one million young people worldwide, predominantly through delivery of our Skills Bootcamps. I have been extremely impressed watching how the young apprentices conduct themselves. Their immense capabilities don’t surprise me though.
I do hope that Young Apprentice serves a purpose in showing people that the negative headlines about young people are only true of a minority, and that most young people are extremely capable if given the opportunity.
Next week will be an exciting one as four are leaving, taking it from six people to two finalists! I’m also looking forward to seeing whether my PopBics make an appearance!
Join me next week for more live tweeting and another blog!
- 1237 reads
- login or register to post comments
- Add to a social bookmarking site
How will the Olympics impact on your small company? What are the business lessons to be learnt from the sporting world? Find out in 
Dragons' Den judges James Caan and Deborah Meaden and social entrepreneur Karen Darby are some of the successful entrepreneurs who feature in our exclusive videos. 
Join our social media discussion group and share your Twitter username with other BusinessZone members.