Launching The Grey Swan Guild Network
Making Sense of the World’s Biggest Challenges in Webcast, Podcast & Livestream formats
TED has “spread ideas that matter.”
Gimlet Media has “create a world more full of human connection and understanding.”
NPR has “create a more informed public.”
World Economic Forum has “engage the foremost leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.”
and equivalently but distinctively, Grey Swan Guild has “makes sense of the world’s biggest challenges.”
On Janauary 10th, 2021, the Grey Swan guild will be launching a set of eight podcast channels dedicated to advancing our mission, creating impact in new places, extending our footprint to different audiences, engaging leaders, change agents and sensemakers from throughout the world and augmenting our voice to the world. We’re calling it the Grey Swan Guild Network.
Here’s Some Good Reasons Why for the GSG Network:
Up until now, we have been primarily about the written word but we know there are thinkers, creators and sensemakers out there that are much more proficient in making and interpreting in audio and visual mediums. We want to create that space for them.
There is a tonne of work, effort and discussion that happens everyday inside our guild collective that never sees the light of day. We’d like to turn a spotlight on these discussions and share them with others.
We have seen thousands of new readers to the Guild come into this Medium channel over the last month. People have a hunger for critical thinking, in-depth insights, foresights and perspectives brought to them in in-depth media.
And the time is right. Whether it’s: the rise of smartphones everywhere, the increasing sophistication of digital audiences across all age ranges, the extra time provided by this pandemic or a preference, particularly among younger people, to watch and trust multimedia mediums, the tide is rising.
The Grey Swan Guild Network — Some Attributes
We are planning to launch with eight (8)+ Channels with the options for more (particularly foreign language versions).
Some of our episodes will be live; some will be recorded.
We will have our first six month schedule starting January 10th, 2021.
We will have an outside panel of experts monitoring our episodes for calibre, content and cause-worthiness.
Our ‘casts and streams will put the listener’s and watcher’s minds, souls and hearts first —how can these be helpful and affect them positively.
We will have multiplet channels and many global voices as hosts but under a common umbrella of Grey Swan Guild. Every episode will be different I’m sure, but all will be feel like and come from the same parent.
Our Eight+ Initial Channels
Leading Through the Grey
There is a new zeitgeist of leadership pervading our Teams, Zooms and hallways of our institutions. A majority of us have stated that this pandemic period has been the most challenging leadership moment of our careers. We shed a light on the new imperatives, styles and types of leadership and leaders at play in our post-pandemic world, covering personal leadership to country-level leadership and all forms in between.
Learning Grey Matter
In 2020, if we have learned anything is that we are able and will likely need to learn differently in the future. No longer is learning confined to the 10–20 years of formal education at the start of your life in a classroom. Digitalization, retraining, global competition, a need for humanity and collaboration across borders, occupations and boundaries are all prevailing. We ponder the new era of self-development, systemic learning and the industry of education and what it all means.
Liminal in the Grey Zone
Change is tough for people, but the corollary is it often leads to progress. Cultures and societal norms are changing more rapidly than any time in history. How do we approach and embrace these in-between spaces? In a volatile world, when do we know we’re in a threshold of change vs. having a rubber band snap back to normal? How do we either capture, integrate or shut out dissonance? How can we provide need and psychological safety for ourselves and others? What can we learn about resilience in the face of chaos and uncertainly. We’ll live in this state of betweenness on this channel.
Living Beyond The Grey Areas
In life, sometimes there are big questions and decisions and sometimes there are many small little questions and decisions that add up to how we lead our lives. With global perspectives, we’ll look at the 24 hour day and how people live at: home, work, play, shopping, eating, resting, travelling, social and escape. Humans are amazing creatures, let’s study them in the wild.
Love in the Grey Times
Yes, we may cover romantic love but we were kinda thinking about a much bigger nexus of love. We’ll look at relationships of all sorts. We’ll also discuss and examine the ties that bind us as a human race. Values. Passion. respect. Empathy. Purpose. Humanity. Faith. And yes, we may go down some dark allies, but true to our Guild’s purpose, we’ll hopefully shed a light on some of the positivity in the world that might not get enough airplay in the dystopic, raging worlds of traditional media and entertainment.
The Grey Word
Words have immense power and meaning. We’ll discuss and reflect on the art, alchemy, biography and science of stringing together words that matter, from some of the authors behind them. We’ll dissect the stories and people behind the stories to make better sense of their worlds, and ours.
Making Sense of Sensemaking
In our Guild, we have built up an amazing bank of sensemakers, futurists, planners, policy makers, imaginators, ethnographers, forecasters, data scienetists, strategists and change agents. We will go in-depth on their observations of the world, manageable, unmanageable and unimaginable. We’ll also explore a craft that doesn’t get nearly enough space in B. school, D. school, Eng. school or J. school and figure out how the best of us synthesize the world. Let’s geek out on making sense of sensemaking.
The Grey Swan Hour
This is the show that wraps up all of our developments of the guild and the world under one roof. Our show of shows. We’ll wrap up the key headlines, context, ideas, events, commentary, interviews, discussion and learnings with across our webcast network, but also across the guild, and with the world’s biggest headlines. If you want the gestalt of what is really going on now and in the near future, this is your alternative 60 minutes.
Where to from here…
We begin January 10, 2021 and we are looking for champions/producers, show hosts, episode guests and an expert panel of webcasters and podcasters to be our external juries — the Simon Cowells, Paula Abduls and Randy Jacksons of our nascent network (okay, sorry we’ll take that horrible reality show back). Let’s do this. Send us a message at member@greyswanguild.org of you’d be interested in supporting any of these pursuits and at what level. Let’s do this.
And now for something a little different…
In a just-as-important notice, we are now 9 days away from our deadline for getting your POVs about the state of society post-pandemic. We’ve themed the effort “Catching our Collective Breath” and are accepting submissions, from around the world. Provide us a 500 , 1000 or 1,500 word entry or a multimedia submission and if it complies with our editorial policy, you will be published. Check it out on the front page of website greyswanguild.org and you too will be published. Deadline ends December 22nd, 2020.
