Welcome to Renaissance 2.0

The Renaissance was a period of rebirth in Europe during the 14th to 17th centuries. It was hundreds of years of revolution in the arts and in culture. The social patterns, thinking and technology that allowed this to happen took thousands of years to develop. It sparked a new passion in learning, new techniques and styles of painting, and widespread reform.  This lead to an amazing leap in science and technology and the definition of the scientific method, heralding the ‘Modern Age’. This ultimately led to a change in human society so grand, that we still talk about it today.

Many of the world’s best achievements and treasures come form this period of time.

I think the past few years, and the technologies coming out today, represent the leading edge of Renaissance 2.0. And since we are all geeks, we will of course shorten it to Ren2.0.

Today, with cloud services, Azure, software plus services patterns, modern testing, SOAP/REST, Geneva, platforms like Mesh, and everything else, leads us to the point where we can build applications we have NEVER dreamed of before, just like what happened in Ren1.0. Think of the applications and services you use today, that could not have existing at all a few months or years ago. Think of all of the new experimentation and advances that will build on these early steps. The core internet really enabled this all. The easy access to information, and to communications has multiplied the amount of innovation and free thinking needed for such an explosion.

Thousand of years from now, there will be college students studying Twitter, and the times we are in today.

This is the time to take your idea, and just DO IT! The economy may look to be in shambles, but that shouldn’t stop you. Now is the time for you do build that game changing idea, perhaps in your spare time, or perhaps with some angel funding.

Niccolo de Niccoli, Poffio Bracciolini, Leonardo da Vinci, Copernicus, Galileo, Martin Luther; they all had their turn.

Now it’s our turn. Change the world, or stay home.

* I wrote this post almost six months ago, but wanted to hold it off until our announcements at PDC today. I thought people would be more likely to understand what I was saying if they had seen those announcements.