I don't know why, but, IMO, the Excell simply missed the point on this task. [/quote]
I know they did miss it, which is why I said, "What if?" I was just speculating about what would have happened had they not missed the point, and if they had indeed come close - both teams could conceivably have gotten the music style right. Then what? I'd rather see tasks where the outcome is easier to judge, not quite as ambiguous. Again, JMHO.
tjmor
Nov 24, 2005 @ 1:02 am
I didn't like that task at all. This isn't a song writing or music producing contest. I've never heard that knowing/understanding/writing/producing/etc music/songs is a job requirement for a CEO, or CIO, or COO, or marketing/sales/waterboy/realtor position in a non-music specific field. I have a feeling that plenty of seasoned executives around the world would've lost this task to Felisha just because she happened to know what she was doing. Sure, Felisha has demonstrated her leadership skills, and Capital Edge worked as a well adjusted team. But, so what? It seems that DT is willing to lower the bar in favor of profits. I guess next year we could see contestants performing bull fighting or ballroom dancing, or something else that only slightly relates to business.
Susan StoHelit
Nov 24, 2005 @ 3:00 am
At my company, a common question asked during interviews was, "How do they put the candy coating on an M&M?" That has nothing to do with our business, but it was our bosses favorite way of seeing how people thought, how they dealt with something they didn't have a pat answer to, what happened when they were outside their comfort zone.
I see tasks like this just like that - there's always going to be something in your job that will push you past what you normally work with.
blocked writer
Nov 24, 2005 @ 6:38 am
At my company, a common question asked during interviews was, "How do they put the candy coating on an M&M?" That has nothing to do with our business, but it was our bosses favorite way of seeing how people thought, how they dealt with something they didn't have a pat answer to, what happened when they were outside their comfort zone. [/quote]
I'm sure it did tell your bosses something about the prospective candidates, but I'm also sure that your bosses considered a lot more than just the answer to that question in the end. I have no problem with the contestants being pushed outside their comfort zones, but the very nature of the show and the living conditions, the times constraints, etc., probably already does that for most of them.
I also hate the fact that people have been eliminated based on a very close contest - like a $10.00 difference. In the case of this show, at least one person gets eliminated based on each task.
I dislike many of the tasks, due to the fact that that luck and sujective criteria are often factors. I'd much rather see eliminations happen once every three or four shows, and based on cumulative performance. The three or four candidates with the lowest performances would be sent home. I also think that would create more suspense and guesswork for the viewers.
Plus, it still gets to me how much they stressed creativity on this task, but it was really a task of how well the team could write a song that would fit a certain style of music. There were so many better ways to show creativity in this type of task, IMO, especially since there are many degrees of creativity. For instance, writing a screenplay based on an existing work takes creativity, but it's not the same as writing the original work. I think that over the seasons, the tasks have had a lot of room for improvement, and this one was no exception.
highlander
Nov 24, 2005 @ 10:30 am
The tasks that involve creativity are combined with giving the executives what they want: re: Star Wars, Zathura, Lamborghini. This show is supposed to show off candidates business skills and how well they understand the task /project. That is why Felisha should be commended on this task. It doesn't matter who on these boards liked Excel's song since it had to be judged by the executives who needed it to fit the format and the XM listeners, who after all are the paying subscribers. It is much harder to be creative and give the client what they want versus just being creative. In business, you need to know when taking risks might be advantageous to your business and when it can be suicide as George pointed out. Not giving your customers what they need to increase their bottom line, create the right kind of buzz, or in this case keeping the XM Cafe listeners happy is showing that Excel didn't understand how creativity must ultimately conform to what their client wants. The Excel team personally liked R & B and tried to showcase that. This task wasn't about their personal taste. They need to show their business skills and listening carefully to the client is business 101 in my book.
ETA: Felisha, on her interview portion at NBC is a big country music fan, yet, she did not try to push that on the XM listeners, because she understood this task was about making a good business decision and not about her personal taste.
tjmor
Nov 24, 2005 @ 12:39 pm
Oh, sure. Felisha should be commanded. She did great. She won. But this is not the point I was trying to make. My point is that had the Capital Edge chosen Jide, they would've won anyway. That's because Felisha just happened to know what the style of XM Cafe is. A lot of people, including seasoned executives, would have no idea how to tell two music styles apart. But... they could re-adjust their budjet to hire someone who knows. They could've excelled had they been asked to do something that is clearly business related. Had this been a condition on this task, I would have no problem at all. But the condition was for the teams to use their own creativity. How can you be creative if you don't know what exactly the soft rock is? Isn't song writing/music producing something for professionals to create? What if there was some clinic that paid DT for advertising - would they have the contestants pull teeth and then have the patients decide which 'puller' was better? This task, IMO, had nothing to do with business or business skills.
True, Randal, Rebecca, and Clay could've done more research. They could've asked the station's crew members assigned to them to help them understand the music format. May be they have and still did not get it. Again, I fail to see how this task is related to business or business skills that these contestants are expected to demonstrate. IMO, this task was about the money changing hands, and the teams were simply used as tools... I'd say, shamelessly used.
highlander
Nov 24, 2005 @ 1:20 pm
First of all, I was responding to another post but I agree with you that CE would have succeeded if they had gone with Jide which proves my point. The point of the task was not being creative only, but being creative and fitting the XM format. The listeners said they could understand Levi's lyrics and liked it as well as the acoustics and musical arrangement. CE was being creative but following the format. The lesson Trump gave in the beginning was be creative but also practical. He did not tell the teams be creative and just do what you want. This task, as I see it, was selling a song to a specific station. If I'm listening to the radio and I want to hear rock and I put on a rock station and country music starts playing, I am not going to be too happy. It's not going to matter how good or creative the country song is-if I wanted to hear country, I would have turned that station on. As far as producing soft rock, the teams were given many professional people to work with them. The teams had access to the internet for reseach and I also think they had a meeting with the executives of XM which wasn't shown due to time restraints. The show showed us more of the making of the song and the bickering between Rebecca and Clay. I still see this as a business lesson but I will agree that it is out of the ordinary.
ETA: Part of a big problem Excel had was Rebecca's own "intellectual and sophisticated" perceptions instead of just concentrating on the specifics of the task.
Jacob
Nov 24, 2005 @ 6:34 pm
Take it to email, please. Argument for argument's sake is fun, but detracts from the thread for everyone else.
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