• “It’s impossible to tell the future.”
• “Nobody could have seen this coming.”
• “ These days, things are so unpredictable, we just focus on the short-term.”
• “We have entered into a period of history of high instability – forecasting is practically impossible.”

The above are classic canards used by the media and some authority figures to argue against the intellectual exercise of thinking critically about the future. They have been used with alarming frequency since the bank meltdown of last year. The collective shrugging of the shoulders of our banks and Treasury officials was often accompanied by sighs of “How could we have know what was coming? It was all TOTALLY random. That’s just the way of the world now.” Ergo, we needn’t think hard about the possibilities of converging trends, we should just check in to be told what’s going on.

This is wrong, and it is counter to how smart leaders act. None of that has changed, bank catastrophe or not.  Think about the future and you will improve it. Ignore it, and other people will create your future for you.

This week marks my tenth anniversary as a forecasting professional. I can now look back on forecasts we made a decade ago with today as the target date. Thinking about a decade of predictions, scenarios, visions and forecasts, I can say I am more excited than ever about this intellectual discipline. In short, it works, it helps, and I still recommend it to every executive on Earth.

This week, I’ll be sharing some of my favorite stories of forecasts we made in the heady days of the Dot Com Boom. If ever there was a period of irrational exuberance, that was it. And we still saw into 2010 with some clarity – enough so that I’m proud to discuss our successes and amusing failures.