January 3, 2011
When Predictions Go Bad
With the New Year here, you’re sure to see a lot of predictions for the marketing world in 2011. Predictions make you look great if they come to fruition and you can take the safe route and “predict” some obvious things that you can say you were right about. But what about when predictions are wrong? There are probably a great amount of predictions about Twitter’s demise pre-2010 as well as predictions about how FourSquare wouldn’t be around long. Now, those aren’t too bold and are probably not the kind of prediction that would haunt you someday.
A few months ago Playboy re-released an interview from 1985 with a then-29-year-old Steve Jobs (see the link for the whole article and an excuse to look at Playboy at work). While he was spot on with a lot of his predictions, he got one major prediction incorrect when he said that hardware manufacturers would be few and far between and that software was where the growth of multiple manufacturers would occur. While he got this one backwards, if you read the whole article you can see his vision for the personal computer and understand why Apple is so successful under his leadership.
Then there is Clifford Stoll, a man who is well-educated, a respected author and has accomplished quite a lot in his life. But in the online world, his accomplishments are overshadowed by his 1995 Newsweek article Why the Web Won’t be Nirvana. From e-commerce to the news media, he offers his take on why the internet will never replace the status quo in these areas. While he goes about 0 for 10 on his predictions, his reasoning for a lot of his predictions are based on the technology of the day and seeing the computer as just a machine, rather than something that can help build communities of real people. More than anything, it’s a generational issue. Being born into a world where computers are in every home is quite different than seeing their emergence in our lives at a later time in life.
Any sports fan knows the beginning of the season predictions, trade speculation and other statements are part of following the game. The sports media probably gets away with wrong predictions more than anyone because there is no real “scorecard” kept.
What are your predictions for 2011?
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Anonymous
