(Question)
Once again, I've analysed my year of travel to see if I'm any closer to reducing it year on year. It's an annual habit, and if often kicks off new ideas that might affect my team's next year of work. The good answer is: yes, there is less travel! And not just that, but having reduced the schlepping I do, I've been able to hire more amazing people to lead on our work, and celebrate one of NoTosh's best years ever in terms of the quality, quantity and breadth of work we're doing. Key to traveling less has been a marked increase in the number of folk who see and are now reaping the value of working with us online. I've avoided as many as 20,000 miles of travel thanks to greener clients, who are also many dollars better off having not paid for the airmiles that are wrapped up in our regular fee structure. The quality of our work is better, too, thanks to this. We are doing fewer of those day-long workshops with teachers or leaders, when an hour or even thirty minutes before the day gets started is more worthwhile. We're seeing more school leaders take this up, although it's harder to get teachers into the habit of taking 30 minutes 'me time' to jump into a coaching session on the day or week ahead. But it's starting, and the value to us all is huge. Coaching is very different to 'consulting a Personal Learning Network' on Twitter. It's intense, targeted, focussed and involves a one-on-one discussion that arrives quickly at resolutions to current day challenges that will have a long-term impact. And we come back to measure whether that impact actually happened. I don't think it's a way of working that many are used to in Education, although many corporate clients have had some rare experience with it. Encouraging both groups to take more regular time out for coaching, little and often, is a real challenge, but we're beginning to see some huge impact from relatively little input (and relatively few dollars!). The online training probably lasted Pick the correct answer from the following options: - a few weeks - a few months - a few days - not enough information
(Answer)
a few weeks

(Question)
SEOUL In addition to growing concerns that North Korea will pull out of the upcoming nuclear summit with the U.S., prospects for improved inter-Korean relations have also stalled, as Pyongyang demands that U.S.-South Korea joint military drills be scaled back, and a group of defectors be returned. Just weeks after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in declared the beginning of a new era of peace during a historic summit held in the demilitarized zone of the inter-Korean border, Pyongyang has put further dialogue and cooperation on hold until its demands are met. President Moon will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday to discuss the upcoming Trump-Kim summit and the North's sudden conditions set for continued dialogue and cooperation. Most of North Korea's anger last week, expressed in official statements and reports carried by the state news agency KCNA, seemed to be directed at the U.S. It criticized the Max Thunder joint military exercise that is currently underway, and U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton's demands for the North's unilateral nuclear disarmament. North Korea in particular objected to Bolton's insistence that North Korea follow the Libyan model, which involved the rapid and total dismantlement of that country's nuclear program, but it was also followed by the overthrow of the country's leader Moammar Gadhafi some years later. Unless the U.S. eased up on its uncompromising stance, Pyongyang indicated it would pull out of the June 12 meeting in Singapore between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump to negotiate an end the North's nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees and an end to punishing international sanctions. President Trump later said the Libya model does not apply to North Korea and that Kim Jong Un would remain in power and "be very rich" if he makes a deal to end his country's nuclear program. North Korea denounced South Korea, as well, for the joint military drills, calling the Seoul government... At the end of the story, Trump and Kim probably: Pick the correct answer from the following options: - meet on June 12 - don't meet on June 12 - not enough information - meet on June 12 and in September
(Answer)
don't meet on June 12

(Question)
Think outside the box, whilst inside the box (studio): As this studio is about working with constraints, I thought i'd google 'constraints in filmmaking' and see what comes up. One of the first links was to a journal article by Heidi Philipsen entitled 'Constraints in Film Making Processes Offer an Exercise to the Imagination'. Interestingly enough the first sentence of her article states: "I would like filmmakers interested in thinking "outside the box" to recognize that they can benefit from being placed "inside a box." I wonder if Paul had contemplated this whilst choosing the name for this studio. Throughout her article Philipsen challenges the notion that creativity is an intangible innate quality, existing within the mind of one source, but rather creativity arises from a multitude of sources. Alike all things shared she suggests that creativity is easier to enhance by changing environmental conditions, rather than encouraging people to 'think more creatively'. Perceiving creativity in this way allows you to see it as an organisationally influenced phenomenon, rather than a psychological and individual phenomenon. Which enables you to have more control over creativity and to encourage creativity once being aware of how it can be environmentally enhanced. As Csikzentmihalyi (1996) states "a genuinely creative accomplishment is almost never the result of a sudden insight, a lightbulb flashing on in the dark, but comes after years of hard work". Constraints, as Philipsen suggests is one such way to manipulate the environment to enhance creativity. Students who attended The Film School in Denmark, who were forced into working with constraints for their projects eventually considered constraints to be both useful and inspirational. Such constraints included: making a scene with a specific theme, within a specific deadline and with other specific conditions concerning the use of camera, sound, actors etc. Students stated that these constraints ultimately made them feel secure, inspired and focused and... What did John eat? Pick the correct answer from the following options: - something savory - something sweet - something sour - not enough information
(Answer)
something sweet