It was no coincidence that as consciousness was breaking this morning I recall the playing of Aquarius in my head. “Presumed to occur at the end of the 20th century”, indeed it did.

For those of us who were part of the purple sofa era, the year 2000 list of The Top 100 Interactive Agencies incites an array of memories. While standing as witness to the momentum of a new way of doing business, it belied the shift in direction. The wake-up call came from the larger economy that put these companies in a slide resulting in stock prices below a dollar and buyouts/consolidations throughout the end of 2001. These companies didn’t implode because of a bubble bursting (although there were certainly contributing factors of bad behaviors). The combination of circumstances exacerbated a natural attrition as the cycle of innovation sluffs the chaff.

There are significant signs to suggest we’re back on that growth curve again:

“The much-talked-about tipping point has been reached….
Business is back to 1999 levels, and it’s only going to grow.”

If you were to accept for a moment the health/movement of these companies as the canary of the industry at large, then you have to decide for yourself what the significance is of Microsoft buying one of the top agencies in the industry.

My own take is that what’s about to happen will dwarf the boom of the 90s, by several orders of magnitude. The greatest potential is inside of companies (ala. Enterprise 2.0), but only to the point that they leverage the potential to redefine their business models and focus more on innovating ‘doing’ business and creating whole new markets. Based on the insights gained from Wikinomics the real value of historic brands is to leverage the ‘machine’ of their core competencies to focus on the pursuit of new markets…not new products. This whole model relies on Enterprise 2.0.

While astronomically the Age of Aquarius will not reach its zenith for over 600 years, the real potential lies in the duality between Pisces (yin) and Aquarius (yang). Since the fundamentals of business are already too heavily weighted to the yang, the fundamentals of 2.0 thinking bring needed balance to embrace more yin characteristics. The high adoption of 2.0-related solutions is surely due to an unfilled ‘gap’ to achieve optimal balance, essentially a vacuum.

It was also no coincidence that the song this morning was being performed by The Fifth Dimension. We are making this journey via The Fifth Dimension, where by participation and interaction we fundamentally change who we are and what we can accomplish through active expression and shared experiences. Our potential is achieved through collective emergence.

Gaining knowledge and learning are simply the waste products left behind on the trail.