Today will be the first Thursday in two months that there isn’t a fresh batch of materials released for u.lab.  All the material will remain available on edX, as will the features on the u.lab community site (although not sure how long registration remains open on edX for so do it quick!).  This means you can dip in and out of the materials whenever you want and a few groups have taken advantage of the materials being open and decided to postpone starting them until the new year when the timing is better for them.

For some, the end of the 8 weeks may come as a kind of relief (it is a pretty intensive 8 weeks) and for others, you may be wondering what next?

There are a few things brewing in the pipeline open to the whole ulabscot community (if you took part in 2015 or 2016 or both):

12 Dec 2016 (Glasgow) – Otto Scharmer is having a very short visit to Scotland and you are welcome to join a conversation with him and ulabscot.  Please join us by booking a space here.

15 Dec 2016 (Glasgow)  – Convened and organised by a group of ulabscot participants, we will be gathering again to watch (and possibly participate in) the final u.lab live session.  Many hubs are hoping to come along together and it could be a good way for those who took part individually this time, to tap into what’s happening in your local are.  Please join us by booking a space here.  As part of this, a couple of ulabscot participants will encourage us to take part in a 30 day kindness challenge to contribute to a Kinder Scotland (#ulabscot #30dayskindscot).  It is an idea sparked by their participation in u.lab which sees u.lab Scotland as a partner in the Carnegie Kinder Communities work.

26 Jan 2017 (Edinburgh) – a group of ulabscot participants are designing an event as part of the Fire Starter Festival. You can now book your space at it here.   You may also want to host an event within it.

End of Feb – possibly another ulabscot gathering.

Spring 2017 – a prototype/experiment from u.lab this time for me and a few others was to co-create a hosting/facilitating programme (working title: HoFa) for those who would like to introduce the u-process into your teams, organisation or community groups.  It’s still at the seedling stage but if you are interested in co-creating this with us, get in touch with Keira (Keira.Oliver@gov.scot).  We will be looking for the participants themselves to co-create it i.e. it won’t be a “training programme” as such with “us” as trainers.  You don’t have to be a trained facilitator but willing to try out new things and co-facilitate parts of it in a safe and supportive way.

Wherever you got to in the U, our experience from last year shows that it impacts on people in lots of different ways and changes happen over different lengths of time.  Some people start working on their prototypes (or experiments) right away, for others it has taken a year to get them off the ground.  If you are at this stage, the global u.lab team are encouraging you to share your work here and see what your fellow participants are creating.

Whatever stage you are at, we would love to hear about your experience of u.lab to spread the learning and start seeding some ideas for next year – just get in touch with Keira (Keira.Oliver@gov.scot).

Also, a final note for those of you seeking accreditation for participating in u.lab.  16 November 2016 is the final day to receive credit for your work in the course. You will need a 60% overall grade to receive a certificate (if you enrolled in the verified certificate track).