We'll take a look at different kinds of business models, a few success and failure stories, with a high-level overview of the six components we will be working on together over the course of a year.

We'll explore the value and intent behind a vision (and a shared or collective vision). The key question we are asking: "How do we build, refine and validate an idea?"

Over the next thirty days, you'll put time in to define and validate your idea with guidance from us and support from the group.

We'll present the results of our work to the group and get people's ideas, feedback and general experience of working on their own vision.

While the vision continues to shift and take shape, we turn our attention to learning how to examine the systems that our ideas intend to create a change in. (social change, people's decisions on where they spend their time and money, etc).

Over the rest of the month, you will work independently and in groups to try and define the systems, key influences, and elements you have the best chance at having an impact on.

We'll review the results of the last month and then dig into our vision a little bit more, this time exploring the idea of branding.

We spend our time together breaking down the key elements of branding and positioning to look for the best ways to promote our ideas.

Following the same pattern of independent work for the rest of month, you'll spend time designing, testing, improving your branding and positioning.

We present the results of our month spent thinking about brands and positioning. Like our vision, this may be something that takes multiple iterations to get "right".

With an understanding of our vision, system and brand in place, we'll take a look at creating a good strategy. Most "strategic plans" are not very good. We'll dig into understanding the kernal of a good strategy, why it's important, and how to build one.

Over the course of the next month, you'll work on clearly articulating the problems you're capable of going to work on, along with the clear and cohesive activities to solve them.

After presenting and reviewing the results of your strategic planning, we'll bring your vision, systems model, brand, and strategic plan together in a business model.

A business model is essentially a blueprint for how you (and your team) generate profit by delivering a solution (product, service, etc) to paying customers. We'll look at different kinds of business models and how to build them.

Over the course of the next month, you'll work on putting everything you've designed together into a business model. As with every month, this will be independent work with support from us and voluntary group work with other participants.

After presenting and reviewing our business models, we will spend a little bit more time than usual in our results and feedback portion of the day to explore everyone's 'business system'.

We'll break down key processes in the system (for example, how you develop your product or service, how you find customers, how you sell to customers in your "sales pipeline") and discuss ways of optimizing and automating some of those processes.

Your indepenend work for the rest of the month will be looking at your core processes and ways to optimize and automate them, either with tools that exist or by finding ways to "codify" new processes you may be creating.

Month seven is the last month we spend designing anything "new". In this final month of design, we'll take a deep dive into how we measure key indicators to make better decisions.

The most successful businesses are notoriously good at making data-driven decisions – often with diverse group of people helping make sense of the information on hand. We'll look at indicator frameworks, explore why they matter, how they work and how to create and use them.

Your independent work over the next 30 days will involve looking at different indicator frameworks, key performance and results indicators, and coming up with a first draft of your own indicator framework.

Month eight is the last session we have before we launch our projects. Every person will give an "unrehearsed" pitch - a short, 3-5 minute presention on their idea.

We'll spend the rest of our time together talking about what the next four months look like as everyone puts the first iteration of their idea out to the public.

Your work, from this point on, is to do outreach, connect with people, partners, your team, potential and existing customers, get their feedback and work to continually improve your vision, models, processes and positioning.

For the last four months, we'll meet and have more informal or "member-led" discussions based on people's experiences, challenges, opportunities and failures.

What we work on together depends on what you need most. We'll bring in entrepreneurs, we'll help develop content, tools, websites, processes, whatever you need that we're able to provide, to help your idea grow.

Your work from here-on in is to validate and grow your business. We, and the people you've worked with through the entire year, are here to help and support you as you grow your business.