The World is Awakening…

What happens when everyone becomes awake? I don’t mean from sleep, but rather have fully developed a level of consciousness that ensures they’re aware of human connection, ideas and possibilities in new and radical ways?

If you’re a C-level executive, strategist, marketer, in product development, sales, are a teacher or small businessperson (or frankly anyone), the accelerating shifts in consciousness will impact what you do or deliver…and probably already is whether you’re aware of it or not.

My work in Web/Enterprise 2.0, community and communications through the Internet-as-a-platform means that I am seeing and experiencing this awakening on a daily basis. Simple things like watching people come together in a collaborative space and discovering how important it is to have everyone see the same vision of a product so they’re in sync; understanding the importance of ritual in a virtual meeting (e.g., how to lead a session and ensure everyone has a voice); deepening their understanding of markets and the people within them; and the inner drive people are exhibiting to move toward a vision for humanity that they live by. Businesses ignore this at their own peril.

This article in Fast Company (a publication I’m respecting more than ever as they push against the membrane of the future with articles like this one) is kinda, sorta a mashup about new concepts in ‘green’, activist capitalism, and open source and is one of the most fascinating examples I’ve seen for some time about strategies and concepts tapping into this awakening world and an ever-expanding human consciousness.

It starts out, “Somewhere between the Oscar for Al Gore’s planetary-disaster epic, An Inconvenient Truth, and the canonization of Angelina Jolie by the United Nations (in association with People (NYSE:TWX) magazine), the message started sinking in: The cultural conversation around the environment, social change, and human rights is approaching maximum velocity. What is arguably urgent has become inarguably hip.” To me, the operative words are “cultural conversation”, “maximum velocity” and “inarguably hip” in that paragraph and it is blatantly obvious to me that the company discussed in this feature couldn’t have happened until now.

As I read I realized that all that I’ve been seeing and experiencing recently — both on and offline — is but a tip-of-the-iceberg of this global awakening.

Outlined in that Fast Company article is a group of people who founded a new retail company, Nau, and all that they’re doing to build a brand — and a new way to shop — that is tapping into all the trends springing forth from an increasingly awakened world. Let’s face it, when WalMart goes organic and sustainable you know this stuff is mainstreaming!

Every where I travel and with people I’m meeting in the most unlikely places, I’m seeing sign after sign of a new consciousness of the world and each other emerging.

As I’ve attended Thought Leader Gatherings held by Heartland Circle over the last year and a half, I’ve met CEO’s; experts from healthcare, finance and publishing; and women like this from Best Buy who are taking their organizations to deeper, more balanced and strategically more profound places. The amusing thing is how many have quantified and measured the impact to employee satisfaction and attrition, increased revenues and innovative ideas, as well as mitigating their own risk that they’ll be out-of-step with their customers who are awakening or are already up with minds wide open.

The people I’ve met that are experiencing what Australian Malcolm Cohan is delivering with his Vision Videos and Visions for Humanity. The excitement I see on people’s faces as they create and deliver a personal vision for their life (getting their new love, their Ferrari, hordes of cash) and then realizing that WAIT…that’s not what I’m really here for and they then start to work on their vision for why they’re here…their quest.

There are people like Pele and Firehawk who are teaching and guiding seekers with ancient Earth wisdom (practiced by native people’s around the world) they’ve studied for nearly a decade. The impact they’ve made on people who are seeking a better grounding to the Earth, being open to what’s possible or simply being intellectually curious about ancient traditions, has been incredible. Their work (find out more for yourself here) is but one key example of the sorts of guidance that exists for people who are becoming awakened and aware.

The guidance that George Johnson and Jeff Staggs have been doing for visionaries and leaders with the 7 Entrepreneurial Skills as well as their other programs and personal executive and business offerings. Lastly, our friend Amy Lenzo (Clearlight Communications in San Francisco) focuses her work on connecting people through a deeper, more heart-full vision of ‘online community’ and integrating the language of beauty into online space.

As a ‘suit’ who used to think all this awakening stuff was New Age-y and hadn’t really pushed very hard on myself to awaken to shifts in consciousness — or defaulted to comfortable religious traditions or what my agnostic, secular friends thought were mainstream ways of being awake — I have become signifcantly more open minded and have grown to see a world of people with open or opening eyes and minds that follow and wow, it’s really informing my work.

This article about Nau points toward profound ways in which the fundamentals of business, commerce, culture, spirituality and what’s possible are being upended and refreshed. Depending on your perspective, you might read it with an eye toward why Nau might fail or that it’s a bunch of treehuggers capitalizing upon New Age trends, but to do so means you’ll miss out on one of the fastest growing phenomena’s of a rapidly Internet connected world: awareness, opening of minds to what’s possible, a knowing that we’re all connected and everything we do matters, and that there are teachers and guides to help show the way.

Don’t let your mental doors slam shut.