Blimey

Blimey. Third Place. Blimey. Out of fifteen worldwide. Blimey.

You never dare to think you have a chance, and when we saw the standard of the other entries we very worried because they were all so good.

And then the team clicked. And sparked. And off we went. And came third. With a team of first years who learnt .NET just this year. To say we are happy about this is a bit of an understatement!

I've got to say a huge thanks to Gavin and Caroline of Microsoft, who have been fantastic in getting the project off the ground and then giving support all the way through. I also want to congratulate the team, who put in enormous amounts of work, particularly in the last three weeks or so. I'm pretty sure that they have all surprised themselves by doing this. If the aim of the competition is to raise horizons and build confidence it has succeeded beyond measure. It has been fantastic to watch a team build itself from the ground up. I've read books on team building and management (the best ones are from Steve McConnell and published by Microsoft Press - take a look) and it was fascinating to watch as the team just created itself.