March is Cygnus Ventures Month

10 min readMar 20, 2023

Eleven ventures for 360+ aspiring venturists, rainmakers, sensemakers, futurists and explorers making better sense of the world

Grey Swan Guild 4.0 & Cygnus Ventures

“The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps — we must step up the stairs” — Vance Havner.

We’ve had some incredible conversations over the last month with brainy and impassioned Guilders (please let’s also commune if you care. Remote work, the gig economy, uncertainty everywhere, side hustles and career reappraisal all seem to be preoccupying our minds and feeding the need to do great things in different ways.

One great conversation that lasted well into a recent Friday afternoon was with my friend and Guild colleague Antonia. A bullseye insight we both arrived to was the espirit de corps we had at the beginning of our Grey Swan Guild life is different now. Things have changed for three reasons.

value for time — the world has climbed out of its COVID den, there is less discretionary time in people’s calendars; we are now more intentional on what we commit to, and desire that time spent lead to ongoing value and interest
talent leading to commercialization — we have enormous pools of senior level talent and a global genius reservoir — we can and will do great things together, we should not settle for just good enough, we can be the vanguard
our smartest & most ambitious — our Guild is structured as an open forum where everybody is welcome, but we still need places where our global-best have a platform & stage to flourish

Enter Cygnus Ventures.

Cygnus Ventures represents a pivot into Grey Swan Guild 4.0 and a global organization of eight thousand members heading into its fourth year. We profile this in our recent medium post: Of Guilds and Constellations.

If you are: accountable, action-driven, adaptable, ambitious, astute and aware (and many of you are), you might find an exciting role alchemizing our eleven Cygnus Ventures into beacons of caliber, hope, intelligence and value.

We’ve made it easy to get involved too. 180+ people are already involved in these ventures and we are looking to double that number. Read on for a digest on what these 11 venture sparks are all about.

We’ll be profiling each of these ventures with their own day in the sun the rest of the month because — March is Cygnus Ventures month in the Guild.

Let’s not wait for the stars to realign, let’s rearrange them the way we want,

Sean Moffitt, Grey Swan Guild Founder Grey Swan Guild and MD, Cygnus Ventures

Tell us where you are interested — Become a Cygnus Venturist

CYGNUS VENTURES — 11 SPARKS

Explain Today, Imagine Tomorrow

Started in April, 2022 and over a 24 month period, all of these ventures below will be putting their best foot forward. They have been voted on by top Guild contributors as the most interesting set of ventures among a starter list of 50 ideas. They all have commercial, educational, intelligence and societal value (and frequently all four).

Discover what they are about, and join us on the ground floor or mid-course. Venturists are wanted!

Venture #1 — Craft Building Event Series

Learning Has No Finish Line

Launched: April 2022 monthly surface explorations that build member skills & knowledge from subject matter experts, #54 and #55 are being hosted this month.

Upcoming: Kinesthetics (March 23), Minimalism (March 28) and Know-How (Apr 11).

Value: Paid member/non-member deep dive three hour events starting Oct’23

Full explanation: https://www.greyswanguild.org/craftbuildingseries

Venturists — We are looking for 7 more expert hosts to curate and host our remaining 2023 events

Venture #2 — Cygnus Sprints (Consultancy/Advisory)

— On-Demand Sprints Solutions for a Complex, Sped up World

Launched: October 2022, a full deck of 52 Executive Principals & Advisors disrupting consulting in 90 days or less.

Upcoming: Monthly executive member events and research for the next eight months and a flourish of new client acquisition.

Value: 5x the experience, 3x the value and 2x the speed of comparable consulting and advisory offerings.

Full explanation: https://www.greyswanguild.org/cygnusprints

Venturists — We are looking to onboard 2 inner core team Executive Principals, 5 outer core members and 10 Cygnus Sprint network advisors

Venture #3 — Futuregazing

— Empowering Better Futures by Young People for Young People (designed for 13–17 year olds)

Launching: March 20 2023 Cohort A, 12 week curriculum w/ young people & Guides

Upcoming: Cohort A (March-June’23) and expanded Cohort B (Sept-Dec’23)

Value: Global young people curriculum of future skills inaccessible and not easily applied in traditional school settings.

Full explanation: https://www.greyswanguild.org/futuregazing

Venturists — we are looking for 2–3 more team members, seven expert subject matter speakers and 10–15 Futuregazing guides for Cohort B rollout

Venture #4 — The GSG Network (podcast channels)

— Big Questions, Deeper Meaning, Undiscovered Patterns, Open Possibilities, Leading minds, Better Futures

Launched: Jan, 2022 Omnifutures a podcast exploring the many varied futures, to be joined by Uncertainty-The podcast this month and an April expansion to three other channels.

Upcoming: Four new channels to join Omnifutures — Craft (learning), GSG News Hour (Behind the News), Liminal (Sensemaking) and Uncertainty (in conjunction with our book)

Value: Expert level and beyond-the-superficial discussion as a media network

Full explanation: https://www.greyswanguild.org/gsgnetwork (launching in April)

Venturists — we are looking for 2 main hosts, 5 regular panelists and 1–2 behind-the-mike podcasting gurus

Venture #5 — Cygnus Speakers & Thought Leaders (all-star bureau)

— World Class Wisdom in Action

Launching: May 2023 with roster of 12–15 global-best thought leaders

Upcoming: Orchestrating the team, recruiting our inaugural roster & beta launch promotion and events.

Value: There is a big mismatch between what professional organizations and their leaders want and what stage acts are currently doing; we want to build a bureau populated by practitioners that actually do the work too, and designed for professional audiences.

Full explanation: https://www.greyswanguild.org/speaking (launching in May)

Venturists — we are looking for four people to produce and lift off thought leader brilliance here, qualifying speakers in April

Venture #6 — Cygnus Publishing

— Making Better Sense of the World With Each page

Launching: May 2023 “Uncertainty — The Playbook” — 50 contributors that have come together for the making sense of the world for better solutions and futures.

Upcoming: Early April — pre-order date, April 20th launch events, May 1st Launch Day, and Future publication plan.

Value: Providing a publishing vehicle that codifies and brings together the amazing intellectual weight of the Guild 2–3x per year.

Full explanation: https://www.greyswanguild.org/publishing (launching web page this week)

Venturists — we are looking for launch event ambassadors and three other people to join us on stewarding future publications

Venture #7 — Weathervanes Research & Intelligence

— Hindsight. Insight. Foresight. Crosssight. Together.

Launching: September 2020 start of research, April 2023 first paid report “Post-Pandemica — What Happens After Covid”

Upcoming: Quarterly report series start — September 2023 — The Regenerative Economy, December 2023 The DNA of Organization Next, March 2024 — The Customer Odyssey — markets of one

Value: We don’t need anymore of what’s already popular, representative or expected, we need to know what’s hidden, what’s beyond superficial and what’s next.

Full explanation: https://www.greyswanguild.org/weathervanes(updating shortly)

Venturists — we are looking for two heads of intelligence and 4 other major contributors across events, content and proiect management to join us

Venture #8 — The Radar Collection

— Minimizing the Surprise of the Near, Mid- & Far Futures

Launching: Research since Sept’20; May 2023 launch of The Biocene Report — Foresight into Biophilic, Bioharmonic and Nature-based Innovation Futures.

Upcoming: Quarterly report series start — Consumer Futures 2025 (Aug’23), Future of Multi-Realities (Nov’23), Future of Money & DeFi (Feb’24), Future of Cities & Residing (May’24) and Sustainability Scenarios (Aug’24), Launch of the Swan Trend Bank June’2024.

Value: Post-pandemic there is a steep rise in interest across sectors to spot the oncoming signals of the future, become resilient to them and backcast to action now; organizations struggle with this and now seeking this talent out.

Full explanation: https://www.greyswanguild.org/theradarcollection (updating shortly)

Venturists — we are looking for two heads of strategic foresight and 5 other major contributors to join us on out future treks.

Venture #9 — Guild Masterclasses

— The Leading Curriculum for Change Agents, Visionaries and Planners

Launching: Four-to-six ,fifteen-hour professional Masterclasses under a common framework beginning Oct’23

Upcoming: Develop an early and full curriculum team and Masterclass plan for Guild.

Value: Academic explanation and enquiry only take you so far, change practitioners and leaders need to invest not only in theory but making their ideas happen.

Full explanation: https://www.greyswanguild.org/masterclasses (launching in May)

Venturists — we are looking for two project leaders and four Guildmeisters/Instructors to develop and lead one facet of our Fall advance course rollout

Venture #10 — The Compass & Compendium

— The Rosetta Stone for Making Sense of the World

Launching: Jan’24 early version decision framework guide, systems map and wiki universe of frameworks and tools.

Upcoming: April-June — discussions with specialists/polymaths on frameworks, methodologies, tools and canvases across 15 key knowledge and decision domains.

Value: Everyone needs habits of mind that allow them to dance across disciplines, and apply them to intelligence and decisions. the world is much too specialized in how they frame and tackle challenges.

Full explanation: https://www.greyswanguild.org/compasscompendium (mission web page to be launched in April)

Venturists — we are looking for 15 (x 3) types of sensemakers, innovators and leaders to populate our universe and three leaders that bring it all together

Venture #11 — Gallery of Thoughts

— Get the Big Picture of the World (visualization & design group)

Launching: Ongoing stream of visual content explaining complex concepts, new developments and making sense of the world April’24.

Upcoming: Anointing a venture leader for this project and building a vision for 2024 rollout.

Value: The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we didn’t expect to see; many successful media ventures exist where design brings insight to life.

Full explanation: https://www.greyswanguild.org/gallery (mission page launching May)

Venturists — we are looking for one venture leader, 7 designers and 2 project managers