As you may know, there were issues with sound quality during Scotland’s part of the final u.lab live session yesterday 😦 In spite of all the tests, it just didn’t work. But you live and learn. What really struck me was the messages of support we received from many people and how well the whole team involved rallied around to focus on what we can learn from the experience to improve for next time. Luckily, we filmed it on our side and MIT are working to integrate the audio from that so it will hopefully be a little better on the live session recording. I’ll keep you posted 🙂
During the final u.lab live session, Kuladharini and Elise Marshall invited the whole u.lab community to join them in an experiment to bring about a Kinder Scotland. Here is what it is all about:
Can we create a Kinder Scotland with individual acts of deliberate kindness? Can we create a kinder self by undertaking a 21-day challenge to commit a different act of kindness each day and telling someone about it?
We can see from research that people’s willingness to help a stranger or a friend is flexible. We know from studies that the more you notice that you are on the receiving end of kindness- the more likely you are to pass it on. Would you, your family, friends and colleagues like to find out for yourselves what benefits greater visible kindness might bring?
Join us for the Kinder Scotland 21 day challenge starting on January 5th 2017. You commit to undertaking a different act of kindness every day for 21 days and notice what effect it has had on you, your community, family, colleagues and friends.
The Kinder Scotland 21 day challenge is a partnership between the u.lab Scotland community and the Carnegie Trust’s Kinder Communities project; both are interested in the impact of not so random acts of kindness on communities. It will be hosted on kindspring.org, an international volunteer led kindness and generosity web platform and community. It’s entirely free to join and use the resources, ideas and daily inspirations for those taking part in the challenge. There will also be an opportunity to come together to discuss your experiences of the challenge on Thur 26 Jan 2017. Watch out for more details soon!
In this video (filmed at the end of the live session event in Glasgow – so it’s a bit noisy!), Zoe Ferguson of the Carnegie Trust, outlines the Kinder Scotland Challenge 2017:
The challenge is open to anyone in Scotland or beyond so please share widely. Visit Scotland is already on board! Will you or your organisation join the Kinder Scotland Challenge 2017 and warm the dark cold January with Kindness? Follow this link to sign up: http://www.kindspring.org/challenge/join/1272/
P.S. If you don’t get an immediate email back from kindspring.org- check your junk mail…it could be there.
u.lab Scotland 
Hello Kiera, do we have any examples of ULAB being used within the Oil & Gas sector – nationally or internationally?
Many thnaks
Norton
Hi Norton – not that I’m aware of butit’s worth posting that question on the U.Lab facebook page as others may be aware. K
I support otally the idea of a kinder Scotland. And I hope that I am always kind. But telling everybody about my acts of kindness would be counter productive. Anonymous acts of kindness have a much greater impact than acts that are declared. Telling people how kind you are will ensure doubts about your motives. I don’t want to be a Pharisee.
Richard thanks for this comment – thats absolutely fine ,please do not feel impeded or requested by our experiment, from your preferred way of being kind. Some research and my own experience of doing the 21 day kindness challenge is that the sharing of it- not suggesting in any way that we are boasting or bragging about it, increases our collective awareness of kind acts being performed. Awareness of the huge amount of kindness that is helping us through the day -actually seems to increase our confidence in other people. So we are curious if talking about it helps – there is a feed on kind spring.org where you can post anonymously – you choose your own nick name on the site.
Hi Kuladharini
I am sure that you are correct in saying that our awareness of kindness increases our confidence in other people. And the more kindness there is then the greater that confidence will be. But surely the more that people practise kindness, random or otherwise, the greater our collective awareness of the power of kindness will be anyway. Saying that, I do think that the media could do more to report anonymous acts of kindness. That way, the givers remains anonymous, but we, the receivers, are given pause for thought and encouragement to do likewise. For me, there is nothing more personally rewarding than to be kind. But if I told folk about it, I might begin to question my own motives – even if I was telling an anonymous web site! Ultimately, we should all love our neighbours as ourselves – and that advice has been around for a long time.