Your 2023 Grey Swans in the Wild
We want your best “wild card” predictions for how 2023 will unfold.
Happy New Year you beautiful passionate savvy Guild members and members of the human race. We are looking forward to spending a lot of time with you in the these upcoming 365 days.
Our Guild’ mission for 2023 is to “make the imaginable happen”.
With that in mind we thought we might ask you in advance of the arbitrariness, beauty, craziness, developments and events in front of us in 2023, what unimaginable things (or at least importantly improbable) will occur this year. We call them Grey Swans. Because they are originating from you, smart people from our global outposts, we are calling them Grey Swans in the Wild.
Grey Swans in Context
2022 didn’t exactly turn out the way we thought it might.
- we did not predict the Russian-Ukriane conflict and the hero in the person of a former entertainer Volodymyr Zelenskyy
- we did not predict three Prime Ministers of the U.K. in a span of 46 days
- we did not fully predict protest against strong central authoritarian governments in Iran and China, one for morality reasons and one for COVID lockdown breaking points
- we did not fully predict four-decade highs in inflation and interest rates with the shadow of things to come based on demand side monetary policy and supply side, supply chain structural issues and worker shortages
- we did not fully predict the deaths of Queen Elizabeth, Shinzo Abe, Mikael Gorbachev or Pele, Christine McVie, Bob Saget or PJ O’Rourke
The future is never a straight line, the unforeseen is never merely determined by an algorithm, and foresight, despite all of our amazing predictive technology, is still a very human endeavour.
Two conflicting forces present themselves about our perspectives on the future, reinforced by the quotes below:
At the Grey Swan Guild, as much as we pay credence to the Yogi Berra-ism, it’s important for us as a human species, a set of professionals and a community of humans, to peer into ocean of the future, and ponder what may be.
The Twist — Our “Grey Swans” Criteria:
With our sequel list of twenty-one prospective Grey Swans for 2023 already pulled together by the Grey swan Guild founders Rob Tyrie and Sean Moffitt, we are now asking you for your Grey Swans.
We have purposely dismissed the status quo thought-stream and rejected dealing with the obvious. Any reasonably decent tarot card reader or analyst can strightforward project the past. In relation to our intended post, Grey Swans have three uniquely different characteristics:
- They candidly have less than a 25% chance of happening — at least on the timing of 2023
- If they did happen, they would have big world scale- societal, economic, industrial, cultural, resource, and ethical implications
- They have a chance of happening, starting, or accelerating in 2023 — we are asking you to define measures where we can claim accuracy where possible (see instructions below).
Provide Us Your Grey Swans Please:
Grey Swan — Submission Inclusions
When making a Grey Swan prediction for 2023, we simply don’t want inveterate rants or utopian hopes. To root them in the realm of future possibility, please include four things:
- the headline
- some context
- some evidence this may come true (with perhaps a link to a relevant study/article) or some early signal
- a measure that will mark this Grey Swan has come true in 2023
Example:
Headline: Flu is eradicated! (one of our 2022 Grey Swans).
Context: As much as our past 3 year focus has been COVID, the much larger viral disease we’ve been grappling with has been influenza for the last century. It kills more people in a decade than COVID has in the last three years.
Evidence: mRNA vaccines have shown amazing ability to slip under the wire of our natural defences. Plenty of sped-up medical learning and human trail and error has brought us to the edge of wrestling influenza to the ground.
Link: https://www.pfizer.com/news/articles/what_does_mrna_mean_for_the_flu_vaccin
Measure: By September of 2023, one of the major vaccine developers will shoe conclusive proof of performance of not just innoculating that year’s strain of virus but knocking it out forever. Given the ability to produce vaccines quickly post-COVID, medical professionals and governments clamor for a safe eradication of flu similar to but substantially quicker than the century long effort to eradicate polio globally.
Potential Grey Swan Categories
The future is your oyster. We welcome unconventional but evidence-based thoughts across a range of disciplines and impacts:
- Business & Industry
- Behaviour & Psychology
- Culture & Values
- Economics & Finance
- Education & Learning
- Environment & Climate
- Health & Wellness
- Human Development & Rights
- Legal & Regulatory
- Marketplace & Customers
- Media & Communication
- Politics & Government
- Science & Progress
- Sports & Entertainment
- Technology & Digital
- Work and Workplaces
Important? Provocative? Under-the-radar? Fun? Once again, please submit your Grey swan in the Wild here: https://bit.ly/gsg21swans
Grey Swan Guild — The Post-Modern Guild
Making Sense of the World’s Biggest Challenges and Next Grey Swans — through content, experiences, intelligence, learning, community and ventures 🦢. Come see what we are all about: https://www.greyswanguild.org/
Our first quarter 2023 Craft-Building Event Series
Where we learn how to be expert professional craftspeople across disciplines and domains. We hiost these free evenst every month.
January’23 — Knowledge Management, Mastery and Models
Join us for our 53rd edition of our Craft Building Series, the Guild will host an expert discussion on the world of knowledge management with three globally renown experts.: https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:7012440080300609536/
February’23 — Kinesthetics, Physical Learning, Embodiment & Muscle Memory
March’23 — KISS, Simplicity & Minimalism
