Three hundred and sixty-five days ago, I offered 10 predictions for the year that ends on Monday. How’d I do?

In the name of transparency and feedback, I’ve listed my 2012 predictions below — along with a short evaluation indicated in blue.

1. American Politics. In the 2012 presidential race, one candidate will win the popular vote but the other the Electoral College.”

EVALUATION: Dead wrong.

2Economics, I. On Election Day 2012, the US employment rate will be 8.1%. (Job growth will improve, but more discouraged workers will re-enter the labor force, pushing up the rate.)”

EVALUATION: Not bad. The unemployment rate on Election Day was actually 7.9%.

“3Economics, II. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, America had U-shaped recoveries. In the 1990’s, we had a “Goldilocks recovery” (not too hot, not too cold). What’s happening now will be known as the “tortoise recovery” — heading in the right direction, but moving very, very slowly.”

EVALUATION: Pretty good.  The American economy added 1.5 million new jobs, a chelonian pace and far slower than in previous recoveries

“4. Business, I. A year from today, two out of these three entities will no longer exist: Groupon, Kodak, Newsweek.”

EVALUATION: Not bad. Newsweek just printed its last issue. Kodak entered bankruptcy.  Meanwhile, Groupon’s stock is down 82% from its IPO and still hasn’t turned a profit.

“5. Business, II. The hot new investment area for venture capitalists will be synthetic biology.”

EVALUATION: Mostly wrong. There’s been some action, but not much. 

“6. Technology. The year’s must-have technology product won’t be the iPad 3 or iPhone 5, but the Lytro camera.”

EVALUATION:  Wrong. I couldn’t find sales figures, but by all accounts the response to the Lytro has been tepid. 

“7. International affairs, I. The next big popular uprising — 2012’s version of Arab Spring — will take place in China.”

EVALUATION: Dead wrong.

“8. International affairs, II. The Cameron-Clegg coalition government in the UK will not survive through November.”

EVALUATION: Dead wrong.

“9. Culture. The year’s big novel will be Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. (I read the manuscript last week. It’s amazing — Tom Wolfe meets Joseph Heller.)”

EVALUATION: Not bad. The book wasn’t a gargantuan hit, but it landed on more “Best of 2012” lists than almost any novel published this year, was a National Book Award finalist, and got snapped up by Hollywood.

“10. Sports. The Washington Nationals will make the 2012 National League playoffs. You heard it here first.”

EVALUATION: Nailed it, even though the playoffs themselves ended in heartbreak. Two words for 2013: World Series.

9 Responses to “Evaluating my 2012 predictions: The good, the bad, and the hideous”

  1. seth godin says:

    You forgot the biggest, easiest one of all: Dan Pink’s next book is going to be both terrific and a bestseller on the very first day it’s on sale…

  2. Pierre says:

    This is reassuring. Chance would have given the same results.

    • Avatar photo Dan Pink says:

      Pierre —
      I like to think the performance was better than chance — if for no other reason than that I had to choose the topics to predict! Others have suggested by email that I stick with sports, economics, and literature and forget about politics. Not bad general advice, actually.
      Cheers,
      Dan

  3. Joanne Yeck says:

    I trust these results will not stop you from making predictions for 2013. We enjoyed them at both ends of the year!

  4. Susan Watson says:

    This is pretty fantastic, imho.

  5. Peter Johnson says:

    Don’t be so modest. In the election 50.6% vs. 47.8% (with 1.6% for “other”) could easily have gone the way you predicted. Who were the others??

  6. Jon Worth says:

    I first heard about the Lytro due to your blog, and bought one. Did you buy one? While it’s a remarkable work of engineering, I cannot work out how to use it on an everyday basis…

    As for Cameron-Clegg – yes, they may hate each other more and more, but they need each other more and more too. This coalition is going to survive until 2015.

  7. Thanks for your honest assessments of your prognostications! I wish everyone who made predictions would be as forthcoming. Divination is, as Hermione Granger noted, a woolly discipline.

    I gave a talk a two weeks ago to technology educators in New Jersey about the pressure schools are always under to prepare students for the future, as if the politicians or business executives demanding this have any idea what the future holds.
    I wish I’d had today’s blog post as further evidence. Even our best thinkers have difficulty predicting the next twelve months with accuracy!

    How can we prepare students for an unknowable future? How can we prepare them for a future in which predictions about the future are almost always wrong?

    More about this here: http://perfectwhole.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/an-angel-packs-a-suitcase/