There’s No I In Team (BBCi Freeview Rebrand)

Published on 29 March 2005 in , , , , ,

Couple of weeks ago I had an interview for a promotion at work. Didn’t get the job (ho hum, these things happen, learn from the mistakes etc etc) but out of it came a comment that in a lot of my answers, I was talking about "we" and not "I".

Both are of course important in an interview situation for a job like that – the "I" is what you brought to the team, and the "We" is what the team did. "We" is of course important to mention at least somewhere because a project can only be delivered by the team. You could be the best producer in the world, but if your team isn’t working with you, then you won’t get far.

I’m sure someone has determined the correct ratio of "I" vs "We" for such interview situations, although maybe I should have replied with that old hackneyed phrase of "There’s no I in team" just to make 100% I wouldn’t get the job!

But I digress as usual. The fact is that over the last few weeks we’ve been steadily rolling out the new rebranded BBCi, and today it got to stop three – Freeview. And that launch, along with the others, wouldn’t have happened if there hadn’t been a good team of people working away on it.

To be done properly, interactive TV and the web need a lot of people working away behind the scenes. Just to get the thing ready for launch you need an ensamble of designers, developers, QA testers, project managers and producers, and if you want to do it really well, add some usability people in there too.

And then there’s the team of lovely people who help put it live, and those who keep a beady eye on it to make sure it doesn’t break. Oh and did I mention all the people in other departments you have to annoy by asking them to change things slightly for reasons which probably look supirous and pointless to them? No? Oh I have now.

And it has to be said that the whole rebrand wouldn’t have got where it did without all those people, and I couldn’t have done my job without them being a highly talented bunch of people who worked very hard.

Thankfully somebody appreciates the work we do. One poster said on Digital Spy today:

They’re doing a good job at BBCi, it’s not as simple as some may think.

Digital Spy forum thread: Finally! New look BBCi comes to Freeview.

And no, it was not me.

But it’s not simple, and it’s not quick and it’s not always easy. But when you’ve got a good bunch of people working on it, the road to your destination, is a lot easier to drive down.