In fact, going into the future, it’ll probably be the best way to make money.  If we even need money – ah, the utopian dreams of my youth.  Consider …

There was the Agrarian Age – the age of farms and self-sufficiency.  Then the Industrial Age – assembly lines, mass production of goods, the throw away society, plastics, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, myriad forms of pollution, Global Climate Change … modern, progressive futurists we may think we are, we still live so very much in that age.  

Then came the Information Age – when we all began to have access to news and information from around the globe that we never had before, ushered in (oh so long ago now folks) when stories of the Viet Nam War were shown, graphically, on television.  War on TV for the first time – now sensationalized mayhem day in and day out on all major news stations – trying to keep us glued so as to sell us more and make us bigger consumers. 

Fortunately, during this era the internet was opened up to regular Josephines like us (yes, Al Gore DID do that – he didn’t invent it as the ridiculing comments would have it, but he did open up access to it for we the people.)  And baby look at what we know now. 

These past eras ushered in one where we have greeds like Bernie Madoff, and making money through mathematical formulas compounding penny size trades by the second and derivative securities concocted by the best and brightest from MIT and similar institutions of higher learning – instead of creating value added products and services to save the planet. But that’s another story.  Fortunately, these days of massive info access also ushered in greater transperancy in just about everything – from knowing much of the in’s and out’s of the fall of Enron and Worldcom and the big three auto makers (unfortunately too late to circumvent the harm their poor decisions wrought), to knowing all the ingredients in the products we purchase so can make better informed choices.

People are wondering what comes after the Information Age. 

Well, I think it is the Age of Integrity. I certainly hope it is.  As in, an age of wholenesss – we’re all one in this universe, so let’s pull this planet altogether and create from what’s best, what adds the most value to the most people, eliminate waste, become unconditionally constructive and compassionate, go back to being citizens rather than mere consumers to be marketed to and parted from our dollars, euros, yen, rubles, etc.  Integrity also as in ethical – doing the right thing for the right reasons and vowing to become ‘obedient to the unenforceable – doing what’s right because we all begin to develop a higher sense of consciousness and know it’s the right thing, not because someone’s going to punish you if you don’t.

If we can pull that off, we have a future.  In business there is (finally!!) a new push toward social entrepreneurship and conscious capitalism.  It’s been growing as a grassroots effort for some time, mainly on websites, blogs and in chat rooms around the world wide web.  These subjects are now being taught in some of the great university business programs  (it’s about time): the Harvard Social Enterprise Initiative, Stanford Center for Social Innovation, and Berkeley Center for Responsible Business, for example. 

As reported recently by Axiom News, people are eager for conscious capitalism focused businesses.  Word is getting out (geeze what has taken so long?) that people yearn for higher meaning and greater purpose in life and work than just financial results – elevating work to a spiritual practice, integrating the practical with the very personal.  Author and Professor at Boston’s Bentley University, Raj Sisodia understands this – and is teaching it.  His new book, Firms of Endearment: How World Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose makes the case.  

And none too soon.  What do you think?

Legacy projects are taking this form of social enterprise.  Whether as a corporate responsibility project cooperatively begun by existing business owners and their staff ,or a personally developed social change philanthropic project begun by individual social entrepreneurs – more and more people are doing this work.  It is my great pleasure to get to support them in consciously developing their projects, incorporating sound business, management and marketing principles for long term viability, and with an eye toward making a positive contribution.

What joy that is! So, if you, too, believe you can make money and make sense, how will you help usher in the Age of Integrity?  I’d love to know your thoughts and ideas, and how you’ll implement them!