Forecasting In An Era Of Information Immediacy

The Premise

Research, at one time, was an art. In the most pure form, I would point to the work of Professor James Murray, a key architect of the OED (Oxford English Dictionary).

Technology has eroded our ability to critically render appropriate solutions to complex problems.

The base reality of technological deficiency can be traced to the passive nature of discerning information that is spat out in an instant. A key phrase search of “financial forecasting” on Google will yield 6,340,000 results in 0.18 seconds. The only difficulty is to page through endless entries paring for relevance in the content that is sought.

Passivity is the operative word for context – the effort in relying on Internet based research thwarts cognitive exertion while simultaneously influencing/reinforcing the notion of instant gratification. Such fulfillment in turn indurates one’s ability to discern signs and signifiers which will lead to an answer.

I dare anyone to accurately predict local housing outlook in terms of sales, starts, and foreclosures purely based on information derived from a computer. Certainly, the quantity of results will provide a host of analytical statistics and figures allowing you to pound away at lucid metrics. Speed and sheer magnitude of information will provide a false sense of certainty.

The Nexus

Now, I must digress. Yesterday, I received a phone call from a friend who owns a company that provides waste reduction solutions and recycling ideas for contractors and businesses. They are based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin but have clients across the US. The call focused on recommitting our decision to share business leads and just catch up.

I shared how our business was holding up and in turn requested the same from my friend who tepidly revealed that positive cash flow was becoming an issue. This lead to an in-depth debriefing of specific markets she was attempting to pierce along with an ebb/flow charting of trends.

William Chester Minor

Direct sourcing (as defined by me and not in reference to a micro economic trend) provides an active basis to construe value and implication. To accurately recognize local housing trends would require, at a minimum, the following commitment:

1. Drive through the neighborhood in question taking note of for sale signage, construction activity [both public and private], general business activity of restaurants, retail, and food stores, number of people engaged in leisure, service station prices, public works visibility – in other words, a rather scrupulous empirical exercise.

2. Read the local newspaper(s).

3. Call and go into the local banks and speak to the mortgage lenders about rates/activity.

4. Call and go into the local real estate office and inquire about local listings and foreclosure activity.

5. Visit the town hall and get latest village news.

6. Get six months of crime reporting from local police.

Techno-snobs will scoff and state that all of the above could be accomplished from the office employing a few clicks of the mouse.

Herein lies the nub; the physicality of engaging the task requires that an individual contemplate and cerebrally absorb such undertaking. Active intellectual ownership forces one to infer parallels and make connections. An endeavor of such activity necessitates planning, relegating hierarchal importance, and reflective contemplation.

When will demolition and environmental activity pick up? Where do you think one should look for the solution? Go ahead – think! I guarantee our answers will differ.

I will look to the mining industry.