Wednesday, November 30, 2005


What is it? i mean the yellow-orrange colour light? It was taken at my balcony....Quite amazing ler.....

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

She is from FLORIDA ALSO!!! same as ANDY

http://www.kendratodd.net/

Kendra, 26, is an ambitious and highly successful real estate agent with ReMax Advantage Plus and owns a top-notch marketing company. She obtained her undergraduate degree in linguistics from the University of Florida, and upon graduation became the founding Editor-in-Chief of an award-winning lifestyle magazine in South Florida. Kendra went on to obtain her real estate license, and incorporated her media expertise into the development of My House Real Estate, Inc., an innovative real estate marketing company specializing in condo conversions and land acquisitions. My House Real Estate, Inc.'s marketing strategies are virtually unparalleled, and have generated involvement in some of Florida's most sought after real estate. Kendra is currently one of the highest producing real estate agents in the marketplace. Additionally, she is "Special Agent 53" on My House, Florida's #1 real estate investment talk radio show on Clear Channel radio.


How do you define success?
Accomplishing a balance of all the personal goals and values that add up to what ultimately I perceive to be a wonderful life - career ambitions are just one portion of "success" in my eyes.
What have you learned from watching previous seasons of The Apprentice?
Under normal circumstances anyone can come across in a likeable manner. But when you are put under tremendous pressure, and live day in day out being scrutinized on camera, you really get to see what a person is made of and what type of character they truly have. I've learned from the previous two seasons that the best approach is to be passionate, be yourself, and be a team player. If you follow this path, you will earn the respect of your teammates, regardless of whether they agree with your business strategies or not. The bottom-line: the only opinion that matters is Donald Trump's.

Why should you be the next Apprentice?
I've learned that you must be a risk taker to succeed; that you must be a doer and not a dreamer; that you have to walk the walk to talk the talk. I am the next Apprentice because I have the leadership required to inspire people into action. I abandon fear, think outside the box, approach business creatively and will rise to the top.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

AN interview

PepsiCo has had a long history of surprising and delighting consumers with its celebrity-based advertising, which frequently gives the audience a heartwarming yet tongue-in-cheek insight into their favorite entertainers. PepsiCo kept up with this tradition even during its company presentation for RCs on Dec 2nd when much to the delight of the assembled crowd, Andy Litinsky, the latest Harvard celebrity on The Apprentice, made a surprise appearance towards the end.

Andy Litinsky recently graduated in Political Science from Harvard University and at 23 years, is the youngest participant to date to compete on The Apprentice. He was fired by Donald Trump a few days ago, after failing to impress PepsiCo in his assigned task of creating a limited-edition soft drink bottle for Pepsi Edge. Andy's team created a marketing campaign based on a geographic theme, which fell flat when they presented it to an auditorium filled with marketing professionals from Pepsi. "Geography," said one marketer, "is not cool." Fortunately for Andy, although his bottle wasn't cool enough for PepsiCo, he was. After being fired from the Apprentice, he has recently been hired by PepsiCo and has signed a promotional deal with them.

During the PepsiCo RC presentation, Andy recounted his story from "fired" to "hired" and then stayed on after the presentation to talk with interested RCs. The Harbus took this opportunity to chat with Andy about his adventures on The Apprentice and to get some tips for RCs and ECs who might be thinking of taking a shot at that corner office in Trump Tower as their next career move!

Harbus: How did you decide to try out for the Apprentice ?

Andy Litinsky: I saw the first show and thought it was absolutely great. I was a huge fan and decided I would try to get on to the second one.

Harbus: How did you manage to get selected ?

AL: I had to send in a tape explaining why I should be selected. I realized that Mark Burnett was probably not going to be the one looking at the thousands of tapes that pour in. He's a mogul and has better things to do with his time. So I thought that it's probably going to be some 22 year old kid like me sitting in a room surrounded by these thousands of tapes. It's this kid who's going to select maybe a few dozen tapes and pass them upwards. I realized I needed to grab this kid's attention and the only way I could do it was to get a celebrity on my tape.

So I looked around for a free celebrity and found Jesse Ventura, who as you know used to be a professional wrestler and later the Governor of Minnesota. At that time he was a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School. I knew he left home at 6 am every morning (without being a stalker or anything!) and I met him one day as he was leaving, and explained the situation to him. He was very co-operative and we filmed a short segment talking about the show and business in general.
The remaining 30 seconds of the tape were filled with me yelling why they should select me.

Harbus: So your tape was selected. What happened next?

AL: Next, they flew 50 of us whose tapes had been selected to Los Angeles and basically, for the next ten days, they tried to break us down. We were kept inside and tested constantly - interviews, blood tests, IQ tests, psychological tests (the results of which they haven't told me yet!). We were allowed outside for exercise for an hour every day - something we called being "let out into the yard"! After those ten days, those of us who were finally selected to be on the show, including me, were told to get to New York in five days or lose the chance to be on the show.

Harbus: You were in the middle of your term at Harvard University at the time. What did you do?

AL: The University advised me against dropping out of college and appearing on the show but I decided that I needed to do this. So I dropped out of college and classes and went to New York. I must say the University was quite reasonable. They sent me my exams in New York and I took them sitting in Trump Tower, with Pamela, six foot and blonde, as my proctor! (Editors' Note: Pamela was also on the Apprentice and the leader of the team Andy was on.) She's actually from Harvard Business School. But it was funny because Pamela and I were always fighting on the show and here she was, standing there telling me "you have three hours in which to complete your exam...do not put your pencil down in this time..." I was giving her looks like..... (Editor's note: due to the limitations of the written medium, the Harbus is unable to reproduce the look on Andy's face at this time. Suffice it to say, it was not the look of man at peace with where fate had placed him.) Mark Burnett was amazed. He came into the room while I was taking my exams and said he'd never seen anything like it in his life!

Harbus: How was your first day of filming?

AL: I was very nervous. Nervous of being on the air. Nervous of what my parents would see and think.

Harbus: Is there a lot of editing?

AL: They film for three days and condense it down to one hour for the show or rather 44 minutes.

Harbus: What was the most interesting thing that happened to you?

AL: You mean the most interesting thing that I can talk about without violating my contracts! (Thinks for a minute)... Well, we all had to share one bathroom. There was a guy's side and a girl's side with two showers on each side. But the doors were see-through. We eventually put towels over the doors because it was just too weird otherwise.

Harbus: Why do you think you got fired?

AL: I think I kept too quiet. Donald Trump doesn't like quiet guys.

Harbus: What's next for you?

AL: Right now I have signed this promotional deal with Pepsi and I am considering various options for the future.

Harbus: Thank you for talking with us and good luck in your endeavors.

THE BEST MOMENT

WEEK 8
28 October 2004

For the second time in as many weeks, Andy had been brought into the boardroom by a Project Manager to face the firing. Like the previous week, the candidates in the suite were sure that Andy would be gone - and just like the previous week, they were wrong. When Andy walked in, the other candidates reacted with groans of surprise (and a word you can't say on TV). No one got up to shake Andy's hand or congratulate him. Andy walked out and spent some time alone on the balcony. In an interview, he said, "I felt like the kid in dodge ball who never gets picked. I mean, they drove a bus over me." But Andy said that he came to win and promised that everyone would see another side of him -- one that they'd never seen before.

Via live video conferencing, Trump called the candidates from his private jet. The teams learned that they would be working at Deutsch Advertising, where they would create an ad campaign. George and Carolyn would observe. As always, the losing team would meet Donald in the boardroom where someone would be fired. The teams headed over to the agency and met with Donny Deutsch, the owner of the company. He told them that their task would be to develop a recruitment campaign for the New York City Police Department. Donny emphasized that he wanted the teams to focus on the emotional element of serving your city as a police officer. Donny left them with a few final words of encouragement: "Don't screw up."

Andy, who said he'd been wanting to lead, got his chance when he was randomly selected to be Mosaic's Project Manager. Andy told his team that he envisioned an ad campaign that asked bigger questions. He pitched an example: "When was the last time you saved a life?" But Maria, who said she had the necessary experience to lead the team on this task, felt that the campaign needed to have sex appeal. She suggested a picture of a Hummer vehicle on the ads. Andy disagreed and steered the team toward his vision.

Apex headed down to the NYPD training facility where both teams would shoot the video and still images for their campaigns. Raj was impressed with the array of assets that they had at their disposal: helicopters, armored personnel carriers, boats, a SWAT team and more. Elizabeth, who was also chosen at random to be Project Manager, admitted that her first outing as Project Manager was a failure. Now, she said, this task was do or die for her. In a brainstorming session, Chris pitched the idea that after 9/11, working for the NYPD is like working on the front lines. Elizabeth was worried that the concept focused too much on terrorism. But Raj said that the fear was unfounded. And Chris chimed in that police work was serious stuff. Elizabeth said she didn't think the idea was the right one, but since the rest of the team wanted to go that direction, she would too. Then Elizabeth sent Kevin and Ivana to start shooting images of officers in action. But Elizabeth said that, unfortunately, they'd have to start before they knew all the shots they needed. Kevin disagreed with that strategy, but did as he was asked. Apex got a lot of action shots, including a helicopter in flight and a SWAT team sprinting into action. Mosaic showed up at the training facility to find Apex already filming. Wes worried that Apex was way ahead of them. To make matters worse, it threatened to rain. Andy said that he had a list of shots that he wanted to film, but wasn't sure he could get them all. However, Andy said it was important that he keep his composure and just keep shooting.

After a long day of filming, Elizabeth was still not happy with the concept that she had agreed to at the beginning of the day. Kevin offered to help come up with a new concept that could be used with all of the footage they had. The two worked into the night and came up with a new idea. Kevin said that over the action-packed visuals they had, a voice over could say, "I'm just not excited going to work and doing the same old thing." Elizabeth liked the idea because it de-emphasized the military aspects of joining the force and emphasized the idea of getting a great job. Looking relieved, Elizabeth said she "loved" the new direction. At the end of the night, Elizabeth said she wouldn't change her mind again, even though she knew that the others on the team might not be happy with the change. Kevin said they had "turned a corner" and that he felt more positive about the project. But the next morning, when Elizabeth pitched the new campaign to Raj, Chris and Ivana, they didn't seem receptive. Raj felt that the ads didn't have enough strength. And Elizabeth backed off the idea.

Andy was happy with how Mosaic's campaign was shaping up, but Maria wasn't. She was concerned about attracting their young, target audience. She told Andy that they needed to infuse more sex appeal into the campaign. But Andy stood his ground and stayed true to his initial vision. Kelly promised that if the team lost, and the lack of sex appeal was a factor, the issue would come up in the boardroom.

All of Apex gathered again and with Kevin present, Elizabeth announced that they were going back to their original, more militaristic idea from the day before. Kevin was not thrilled that he had spent the previous night coming up with a new campaign, only to have Elizabeth throw it out and change her mind again. Then, when Elizabeth tried to articulate the new version of the ad campaign, the rest of the team said they were confused and didn't get it. Kevin said he didn't know what Elizabeth wanted. Kevin thought that Apex had no chance to win. In an interview, he said, "I think our Project Manager sucks - flat out." Jennifer M. went so far as to suggest a coup. She said that the team should fire Elizabeth as Project Manager. However, the group didn't follow through on the threat.

Later, Elizabeth asked Kevin to work with the print advertising people, but Kevin wasn't clear about what Elizabeth wanted. After going back and forth, he finally told Elizabeth to shut up. He told her that she needed to explain all of her ideas, clearly and completely, to the print people and he would manage the process. He told Elizabeth that she would get no more input from him - and he walked off.

Although Mosaic had finished their campaign, there were still issues to argue about. Kelly felt that, given all of his experience, he should be the one to present the team's ad campaign. Andy disagreed and the two clashed. Kelly felt that he could speak personally to the idea of joining a police force because he had joined the military. Andy didn't see the consistency, but he finally agreed to a compromise: he would do a short introduction and Kelly would present the ad campaign. In an interview, Andy said that if he had to placate Kelly by giving him a part in the presentation in order to win the task, he would.

As Apex finished up their campaign, conflict ran high. Kevin said that Elizabeth was trying to put band aids on the military campaign. Kevin said that if you're going to do the military campaign then you should just do the best one you can. Raj completely disagreed with what Elizabeth was doing with the text she was adding to the still images for their posters. He felt it had nothing to do with the themes they were trying to get across.

Finally, it was time for the presentations. First, Apex showed off their ad campaign to Donny and two of his managing partners. Both the print and TV ads showed action and portrayed the police like an extension of the military, asking the viewers to join them on the front lines. Apex left and Mosaic entered. In contrast to the first presentation, Mosaic's print and TV ads asked the viewers personal questions like: "When was the last time you saved a life?", "When was the last time you were fearless?", and "When was the last time you made your family proud?" The ads also used some action shots, but portrayed a more human side of service. After conferring with his partners, Donny brought both teams back into the conference room, where he called Trump. Donny drew a stark contrast between the two campaigns. He said that Apex turned New York into a police state and implied that their ads had the potential to freak out 12 million New Yorkers. On the other hand, he said that Mosaic followed the direction about going for emotion and went for the heart. Donny told Trump that it wasn't even close - Mosaic won by a landslide. Trump congratulated Mosaic and told them that since they had done something for the City of New York, the city would return the favor. Then Trump told Mosaic that he would see them in the boardroom, where someone would be fired.

As their reward, Mosaic was driven to Times Square where they got to see their ad played in public on the jumbo screen. Maria called the experience "incredibly rewarding." At the suite, Wes gave Elizabeth advice on how to act in the boardroom - something which Jennifer M. did not appreciate. And Raj told Elizabeth that he knew she would try to pin the whole military theme of their ads on him.

After Apex entered the boardroom, Trump asked Elizabeth what went wrong. Elizabeth said that it was simple, her team didn't have a good idea. Trump said he wanted to see Apex's ad and so everyone sat through it again. At the conclusion, Carolyn declared it as pretty bad. And Trump thought it was too militaristic. Raj stood up for pushing for the military theme. He said that there were no other ideas on the table. Jennifer M., Chris and Ivana backed Raj up. Then, Raj, Ivana and Jennifer M. all agreed that Elizabeth was a poor leader and used words like "weak," "indecisive," and "paralyzed." Kevin brought up a specific example. He said that the night before the presentation, he and Elizabeth stayed up late and thought up a new direction for their ad campaign. Kevin said he really liked the new approach and that Elizabeth did too. But when Elizabeth pitched the new idea to the rest of the team, they didn't like it and so, Elizabeth dropped it. Trump jumped in and said that as a leader, you have to stand by your decisions, no matter what. Trump felt something was missing from Elizabeth, but he couldn't quite pinpoint it. Donald asked Elizabeth whom she would bring back into the boardroom to face the firing, and Elizabeth said she'd bring Raj and Chris. But Trump thought for a moment and then stunned everyone by saying, "Honestly Elizabeth, I don't think it's necessary. You're fired."