Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the Wisdom 2.0 Conference

The words technology and wisdom are often not used in the same sentence. We have a "spiritual" life and our "connected" life and often there is not much overlap between the two.

There is a movement, however, to merge these two worlds, to find ways to engage with the technologies of our age with mindfulness, meaning, and wisdom.

This is the focus of the first annual Wisdom 2.0 Conference, which brings together staff from technologies companies such as Twitter, Google, and Facebook to explore the role of mindfulness in modern life, and to investigate how we can effectively use social media.

The current schedule is now up online. It includes a talk by Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, on Happiness, a talk by the Vice President of Twitter on mindfulness and Twitter, and various panel discussions.

Along with staff from technology companies, the conference also includes Zen roshis, neuroscientists, and others. The list of speakers is here.

At the end of our life, it will not likely matter how many friends we had on Facebook or followers on Twitter. What will most likely matter more is to the extent we lived wisely and compassionately.

The challenge is to align with what really matters, to align with a sense of purpose and meaning, now rather than waiting to realize this on our deathbed.

The question then is how to live a full, meaningful life while engaging with the technologies of our age. The technologies themselves are generally neither good nor bad; it is the quality of consciousness with which we relate to them that matters. In this way we can live modern or "2.0 lives" with Wisdom.