Predictions for 2013? Don't bother

People, even experts in their field, are terrible at making predictions. Social Psychologist Philip Tetlock conducted a monumentally large, twenty-five year long study. It contained over 82,000 forecasts from 300 academics, policymakers, economists and journalists. The forecasts were tracked against the outcomes, but more interestingly, Tetlock also investigated how they made their decisions. 

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

 Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

Tetlock found that experts barely beat random chance. The charismatic who make for interesting reading, tend to make one prediction and stick with it and were inevitably wrong more often than not. It was a sort of arrogance of those wrapped up in themselves. The more famous the expert, the less accurate his or her predictions were likely to be. 

The best predictors were not necessarily the ones who were the best educated, but those who thought in a specific way. Tetlock suggests that the best predictors were self-critical, eclectic thinkers who were willing to update their beliefs when faced with contrary evidence, were doubtful of grand schemes and were rather modest about their predictive ability. The worst forecasters tended to have one big, beautiful idea that they loved to stretch, sometimes to the breaking point. They tended to be articulate and very persuasive as to why their idea explained everything.

In advertising it is our job to be accurate thinkers, to analyse trends and make predictions for the future. So if you want to be correct, look out for the people who involve words like 'however' in their arguments, and avoid those saying 'furthermore'.