All too soon we were on - and luckily the laptop had sprung back into life some 10 minutes before. Once our presentation was over we got to relax and enjoy everybody else's presentations. We were both really impressed by the strength of the ideas and the presentations. Although not everything got commissioned, there is loads of potential for those ideas guys!

Jem and JK's feedback was really valuable and we're delighted, if surprised to have won a commission along with Reading Room and ICDC's - Sen Toolkit. Well done guys!

I think we both spent most of the weekend asleep and back to work on Monday was like being jetlagged - we haven't even had a chance to present to the rest of Stardotstar yet....

Overall we loved the event, found the process informative and very well run, the mentors were fabulous (helpful and ruthless in equal measure), and the hothousing of the ideas about the most useful way we've ever developed an area or idea. Pitching pitching pitching was great practise as well as a great development process. We've learnt a lot and looking forward to developing our idea further...

A big thank you to the BBC: Jem, JK, Matt, Anna, Luciana, Mario and the mentors: Frank, Nic, Gill, Matt and Nico. Thanks for making the event an extremely valuable experience and a huge success.

She'll be joining our happy throng of two, working on the ideas (such as they are) and helping us pull the presentation together. Apparently she'll also be giving us a 'female perspective'.

** Girl news ends **

Activities so far...

Day 1
We're finding it really therapeutic doing mini-presentations to one another, especially then having your pitch explained by another person. It was interesting hearing Neil (Reading Room) present back our approach and make more sense of it then we had.

Day 2
Matt Marsh - we've only been told off by him twice but, damn it, he's right. He was working hard to get us us all to understand the users need(s) and motivation to use a particular service in a much more formal and detailed way than we'd otherwise do. It's actually giving us some great in-points. Which is a good thing as we only have an area, an opportunity, to try to fill at the moment - rather than a nice grippable idea...

Later that evening: Gareth tries to show off a card trick. Top Tip: Never play cards with Matt Locke.

Food
Don't believe all the news on the food - it really was very good last night, although I have started to find myself humming 'downtown' quite a bit recently. Can it really be looped on 8 track casette.