The Apprentice Blog

The Apprentice Blog - Season 4

It has started.  The new seasons of The Apprentice, and thus the Apprentice Blogs are up and rolling. 

On Sept 22st, Donald launched the 4th season with a fitness challenge that had both the men (team Excel) and the women (Capital Edge) sprinting across a golf course to find a helicopter. I'm not sure how this demonstrates business acumen... but I'm not Donald.  Each team then worked with a Bally Total Fitness location to run a set of classes.  Excel focused on signing up existing Bally customers, and Capital Edge focused on getting people in from the street.  Excel won by $11 proving again that one person can make the difference. Capital Edge went to the boardroom with lots and lots of drama.  Kristi, the PM, took only one person with her to the boardroom - Melissa.   Melissa was fired for pissing off every single member of her team in one short task. 

Check it out!

Link: The Apprentice Blog - Season 4.

The Apprentice Blog::Martha's Apprentice

It has started.  The new seasons of The Apprentice, and thus the Apprentice Blogs are up and rolling. 

On Sept 21st, Martha started the ball rolling with a book development task that had the creatives (team Matchstick) vrs the corporates (Primarius).  Each team created a kid's book - rewritting a fairtale and having it illustrated and bound.  The test was reading it to a focus-group of kids.  Primarius rewrote Hansel and Gretel in rhyme with the kids sneaking out of the house into the New York streets. Matchstick did their own version of Jack and the Beanstalk with Jack going down under the sea rather than up. Matchstick won, and their book is now available from Amazon. Primarius lost and their PM, Jeff, was fired for taking on too much and not listening to his team when they pointed out big flaws in what he was doing.

Check it out!

Link: The Apprentice Blog::Martha's Apprentice.

The Apprentice Blog - Season 3

It's finally time - The Apprentice Season 3 starts Thursday January 20th @ 8:30pm, and we are ready to go with

The Apprentice Blog - Season 3

Check it out!

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THOUGHTS ASIDE

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The Apprentice Blog - Season 2

It's finally time - The Apprentice Season 2 is starting tonight... Check it out -

The Apprentice Blog Season 2

With a little mucking about, we've set up the Season 2 blog, without (we hope) tearing apart The Apprentice Blog - Season 1.

Check it out! www.theapprenticeblog.com/the_apprentice_2 or perhaps just www.theapprenticeblog.com (assuming all is working).

Bill Rancic is The Apprentice.

“Kwame, I think you have an amazing future,” said Trump. “You’re a brilliant guy, great education, and I have no doubt you’re going to be a big success. But right now: Bill, you’re hired.”

So after frost delays, lost rock stars, and feedback from their teams:
Kwame wasn't fired - but Bill was hired!

Check out Bill's TV Guide Interview

Want to be an Apprentice-for-a-day?

From April 15-April 27, you can bid to be an Apprentice-for-a-day with several well known celebrities and business leaders or for Apprentice memorabilia with all proceeds benefiting the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

Experiences & items up for bid include:

15 minutes with George & Carolyn in the boardroom.

15 minutes with Apprentice & Survivor creator Mark Burnett

Original dossiers from each week's task

Check out what's available through the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation website.

Check out the personal sites for The Apprentice candidates

[Because of the large number of comments we are getting asking for how to contact the candidates directly, I'm reposted this entry. It was originally posted on Feb 15th, 2004, so some of the comments and content might seem a little out of date.

If you want to send a message to one of The Apprentice candidates, we recommend you go directly to their personal site and attempt to contact them there.]

The sites range from very personal - Troy's; to very professional - Katrina's; to fairly impersonal - Omarosa's.

Interestingly, many of them have "hire me" links for jobs, speaking engagements and appearances. Amy's says hire me but only if Trump doesn't do it first.

Amy's site - - ameliahenry.com
Bill's site - - billrancic.com
Bowie's site - bowiehogg.com
Ereka's site - erekavetrininyc.com
Heidi's site - heidiabressler.com (She's even promoting it through Google Ads - smart.)
Katrina's site - katrinacampins.com (Katrina's site looks like it's been in place for a while, servicing her real estate clients, and is the first one with significant links to other participants.)
Jessie's site - JessiecConners.com
Kwame's site - kwamejackson.com
Nick's site - nwarnock.com
Omarosa's site omarosa.com [Since the end of the show, Omarosa's site has been difficult to access. I assume due to high volumes]
Sam's site - samsolovey.com
Tammy's site - - tammylee.com (There's really nothing there except the site name - so I'm not sure it's really her site)

Troy's site - troymcclain.com

Can't find active sites for
Jessie, Kristi, Jason, or David (though davidgould.com exists, it's for a graphic design David not an MBA/Doctor David)

[Yes this is out of date - remember it was originally posted in Feb.]So the question is - do you think the existance of a personal website says anything about their staying power in the game?

Second 1/2 - May the Best Man Win

A quick recap - in the first 1/2 of this episode both Nick & Amy got fired. So as we rejoin the happy crew of The Apprentice we have 1/2 of an episode remaining and no one else will get fired. But this is where the game gets tough.

Executives & their Challenges:
Bill & Kwame were each given a major event to manage and oversee

Kwame - the Jessica Simpson concert at Trump Taj Mahal Jessica Simpson Dossier

Bill - the Chrysler Trump Golf Tournament at Trump National Golf Club - Golf Tournament Dossier

Teams:
Teams were made up of the last 6 candidates fired. Bill & Kwame alternated in picking team members to manage for this challenge:
Bill’s Team

Troy

Omarosa

Heidi
Bill's success will be measured on his team's
overall success in managing all aspects of this project: sponsor and charity relationships, event staff, logistics, transportation, celebrity attendance, awards dinner and overall guest experience.

Kwame’s Team

Troy

Omarosa

Heidi
Kwame's success will be measured on his team's
overall success in managing all aspects of this project: logistics, budget, talent, meet & greet, the ability to raise exposure for Jessica Simpson's charity: Operation Smile.

Summary:

Note: this is the first challenge where the measurement of success is not quantitative.

Teams were sent out separately from their leader this time. Giving Bill & Kwame a little time for private preplanning of their strategies.

Roles were assigned and the balls started rolling.

Bill & his team headed over to the Golf Club where Bill delegated the tasks: Amy – Trump liaison; Katrina – gift baskets; Nick – cars & signage.

Katrina stored all the gear for the gift baskets in a show home on the property without asking permission. So the gear was all moved into the office they were using. The Director of Sales & Events' office.

That's pretty much it for Bill's team on this episode… they pissed off the Director of Sales & Events.

Kwame delegated tasks early: Heidi – meet & greet; Troy – promotion; Omarosa – logistics.

Over dinner the first night, Omarosa ended up on the phone with Diane, the Entertainment Coordinator of the Taj Mahal, who asked Omarosa to ensure all the travel details were correct. They weren't.

You can see the blow by blow she-said-she-said silliness at NBC's Official Site.

That's pretty much it for Kwame's team on this episode… they pissed off the Entertainment Coordinator, and Omarosa lost the star of their concert and lied to her team

Bill’s Team gossip:

It was interesting that Bill selected Katrina second since she aggressively challenged Bill on his leadership style. But perhaps the devil you know…

Nick, Nick, Nick – let’s hope for Bill’s sake that the yawning and comment on being an “employee” were simply for the camera and don’t cause him to check out again.

Amy just looks really disappointed and sad. Let’s hope she can turn it around.

Kwame’s Team gossip:

Kwame, what the hell are you doing????????? Omarosa and Heidi on the same team. Again!?! How can you possibly think that is going to end well? Good selections for loyalty, bad selection for interpersonal relations.

Okay, I’ve held off for 14 episodes… but Omarosa, the camera is ON. You said in an interview you spoke with Diane. You aren’t this dumb. Deniability only works if there is no proof you knew.

Bonus points to Heidi for keeping herself out of the fray and to Troy for stepping in to help fix the problem without involving Jessica’s dad.

The official detailed summary of this episode at NBC's Official Site

So the questions are

what will be the deciding factors in who wins this challenge?

how will their team's performance effect the leaders?

will the team be given a voice in their leader's performance?

will the event's staff be asked their opinion of the performance?

The final question is:
Who's going to get "hired"?

First 1/2 - The Interviews

The first half of Episode 13 was made of up real job interviews with Trump's advisors

Norma Foerderer - VP Media Relations & Human Resources [though I seem to recall Trump saying she was his executive assistant]

Alan Wiselberg - Trump's CFO

Charlie Reese - Head of Acquisitions

Tom Downing - GM of Trump International Hotel and Tower

They sat down one on one with each of the remaining 4 candidates and grilled them:

What would you do Day 1?

How do you see the Trump Organisation?

What do you bring to the table, more than just charisma?

How do you explain your losing record?

How do you feel about hiring women?

What is one of your weaknesses?

How will you explain why you got this job?

This didn't look like a game, this was serious business primarily because these are the people who will have to work with who ever wins this 'game'. 

I would have liked to see more of this portion of the competition.  It's rare to get to see someone else interviewing at this level.

But the results were interesting:
Amy

Amy was a big focus of the debrief.  Trump was surprised by the unanimous response that there was no substance behind Amy's words.
Some quotes from the debrief

"like talking to a stepford wife.  I got bored talking to her"

"Amy irritated the hell out of me"

"... would get on my nerves"

Bill

Very little was said about Bill except that when 2 of the interviewers were asked who they would hire they said Bill.

Kwame

Not much was said about Kwame.  Though his likeability was pointed out.

Nick
The general concensus on Nick was that he was a Sales Man not a leader.
Some quotes from the debrief

"Nick is too slick for his own good"

Fired First:
Nick Warnock - "You're a sales man and not a leader" said Trump.

Fired First:
Amy Henry - Trump's message - My people need to be inspired by a leader before they can respect a leader.

Bill Rancic and Kwame Jackson are the final 2.

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Return of the Fired

There are rumors roaring around the web about the return of Omarosa and Troy to the show.

Given that
- this week's preview includes both Omarosa & Troy
- the summary of the episode says "candidates are subjected to a grueling round robin of one-on-one interviews."
- and Mark Burnett's proven premise that confrontation makes good tv... (see the penultimate episodes of the Survivor series)

I think this may be a 360-performance review of the worst kind. As a leader it's not just about how well you get your team to produce, it's also about how well you work with the team.

It would also make good tv. Especially if one of the questions they ask is "why are you a better hire than me."

So the questions are

do you think the "one-on-one interviews" are between the remaining candidates and candidates that have been fired?

and what do you think they will ask?