Tag: predictions

Predictions 2016: Apple, Tesla, Google, Medium, Adtech, Microsoft, IoT, and Business on a Mission

Nostradamus_propheciesTwelve years of making predictions doesn’t make writing them any easier, regardless of my relatively good showing in 2015. In fact, I briefly considered taking the year off – who am I to make predictions anyway? And so much has changed in the past few years – for me personally, and certainly for the industries to which I pay the most attention. But the rigor of thinking about the year ahead is addictive – it provides a framework for my writing, and a snapshot of what I find fascinating and noteworthy. And given that more than 125,000 of you read my post summarizing how I did in 2015 (thanks Medium and LinkedIn!), it was really you who’ve encouraged me to have at it again for 2016. I hope you’ll find these thought provoking, at the very least, and worthy of comment or debate, should you be so inclined.

So let’s get to it.

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Predictions 2015: Uber, Google, Apple, Beacons, Health, Nest, China, Adtech…

1-nostradamus2015. My eleventh year of making predictions. Seems everyone’s gotten onto this particular bus, and I’m now late to the party – I never get around to writing till the weekend – when I have open hours in front of me, and plenty of time to contemplate That Which May Come.

There are several keys to getting predictions right. First, you need to pay attention to long term secular trends – big changes that have been in the works for a while. Second, you need to call the timing – will those trends break into the mainstream this coming year? Last year, for example, I predicted that 2014 would be the year that the Internet would “adopt the planet as its cause.” I think I was right on the secular trend, but utterly wrong on the timing.

Third, you need to pay attention to patterns that have yet to emerge, but have a high probability of breaking out in the near term. A good example of this is my declaring that Twitter would become a major media platform three years ago.

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Halfway Into 2013, How’re The Predictions Doing?

1-nostradamusOver the past few years I’ve taken to reviewing my annual predictions once half the year’s gone by. This weekend I realized exactly that had occurred.

It’s been quite a six months, I must say. Personally I took back the reigns at a company I founded in 2005, found a co-author for my book, and hired a CEO for the company I started last year (he starts next week). But I haven’t been writing nearly as much as I’d like here, and that sort of saddens me. However, one of my “half year” resolutions is to change that, and it starts with this review of my Predictions 2013.

This year’s predictions were a bit different in that I wrote about things I *wished* would happen this year, as opposed to those I thought most likely to happen. They were still predictions, but more personal in nature. So let’s see how I did, shall we?

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Predictions 2013

Mssr. Nostradamus

One week into the new year, it’s again time for me take a crack at predicting what might come of this next spin around the sun, at least as it relates to the Internet ecosystem. Last year’s predictions came out pretty well, all things considered, but I took an unusual tack – I wrote long posts on each of the first six, and then shot from the hip for the last one. Those last shots were pretty hit or miss, as you might expect.

This year I’m going to try something new. Instead of trying to get everything right – which often means being practical and reining in some of my more obvious biases – I’m going to make predictions based on what I wish would happen. In other words, below are things that I hope occur this year, even if the chances of them happening may be arguably slim. In the past I’ve edited out a fair amount of this impulse, as I was aiming game the odds in my favor. But for whatever reason – perhaps because this post marks my 10th year of predictions – I feel like airing it out and seeing what happens. So here goes.

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Predictions From Last Year: How I Did (2012 Edition)

Every year around this time I do two things: First I look back at my predictions from a year ago and grade myself, then I get around to making a new set of predictions. These are often my most popular posts of the year, proving the old magazine saw that the world loves a list. So who am I to buck the trend? Let’s get cracking on seeing how my crystal ball turned out, shall we?

As you can see from my 2012 predictions roundup, I took something of a new approach to the prognostication game last year. Instead of one lengthy post with all my predictions, I actually broke them into a series of posts, seven in all. I went into detail on why I thought each forecast would prove correct (save the last one, which was a series of “shoot from the hip” predictions.)

I’ll be as brief as I can with this review – this marks the ninth time I’ve done it. Overall, I’ve had a pretty good run of it. I hope 2013 keeps pace.

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Halfway Through The Year: How’re The Predictions Doing?

It’s time to review how my Predictions 2012 are faring, now that half the year has slipped by (that was fast, no?).

One thing that stands out is the timing wrt Twitter – my first two predictions were about the company, and now that I think about it, given the news just this week (and the attendant debate), I should have realized how the two could be in direct conflict with each other. It all makes for some interesting chin stroking, which I’m busy doing while on vacation – fishing the Rio Blanco up above Meeker in Colorado. Yes, you may now give me shit for writing that.

But to the review: I’ll take them one at a time:

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