Another year has gone by and January looms on the horizon, an event that seems to be happening faster every year. Perhaps an indication of how the perception of time passing speeds up is that I now often wonder when the monthly magazines I subscribe to started being published biweekly.

But as we barrel toward January (I’d say “like a freight train” but as anyone who has ever been stopped at a railroad crossing—or taken Amtrak—knows, freight trains move slo-o-o-o-wly and in no way “barrel”), I am reminded of the Roman god for whom the month was named: Janus, “the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, endings and time.” Often depicted with two faces—one looking forward, one looking backward—Janus and January remind us that this is the time of year when we review the past year, and look ahead to the next. With luck, the lessons of the past inform the future, but that doesn’t always happen, does it?

(Those of who were art-house movie habitués in high school and college also remember Janus Films, distributor of all those great foreign movies that spawned dozens of late-night dorm room existential discussions. My favorite remains Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, but I’d be interested to see a remake in which, instead of chess, Death challenges Max von Sydow’s character to a game of Angry Birds. Then again, maybe that would have been the Hitchcock version.)

Anyway, this is also the time of year when we release our annual forecast report, cleverly titled Print & Creative 2010 Yearbook and 2011 Forecast. We (the royal “we”) have added some new features to this year’s report, including a month-by-month retrospective of the year, including some of the top industry stories—assuming there was any story this year that matched the sheer importance of the publication of Disrupting the Future. We also recap some new technologies (I seem to recall Apple releasing something this year but I didn’t hear much about it...) and the latest trends in media, communication, marketing, and advertising. The report also includes a “demographic almanac” of printing, design, advertising, and publishing firms, drawn from Economics and Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data—number of establishments, employees, shipments/revenues, etc. And, of course, we include our forecast of what the hot, warm, and cold trends for 2011 are likely to be.

As tough as a one-year forecast may be, last night I came across a massively ambitious forecast of 2011—from 1931 (h/t Marginal Revolution). Back in 1931, the New York Times celebrated its 80th year (for some reason) by publishing a series of articles in which a group of then-contemporary visionaries forecast the world 80 years forward: 2011. They were the cream of the intellectual crop for 1931: founder of the Mayo Clinic W. J. Mayo; industrialist Henry Ford; anatomist and anthropologist Arthur Keith; Nobel-winning physicist Arthur Compton; chemist Willis R. Whitney, founder of the GE Research Laboratory; Nobel laureate Robert Millikan, who first measured the charge of the electron and whose oil-drop experiment is a staple of high school chemistry class;  physicist/chemist Michael Pupin, inventor of the unfortunately named “pupinization,” a means of extending telephone communications; and sociologist and former president of the National Statistical Association William F. Ogburn.

Quite the brain trust. What did these 1931 visionaries forecast for 2011? They got a few things right and a few things wrong. Dr. Mayo wrote (I always wanted him to call my office just so I could say “hold Mayo”): “the average life time of civilized man would be raised to the biblical term of three-score and ten.” That is, 70 years. (It’s actually now 77.9 years; it was 61.1 in 1931.)

Keith wrote:  “Eighty years ago medicine was divided among three orders of specialists – physicians, surgeons, and midwives. Now there are more than fifty distinct special branches for the treatment of human ailments. It is this aspect of life – its ever growing specialization – which frightens me.” Bingo.

Ford was naively optimistic: “We shall go over our economic machine and redesign it, not for the purpose of making something different than what we have, but to make the present machine do what we have said it could do. After all, the only profit of life is life itself, and I believe that the coming eighty years will see us more successful in passing around the real profit of life.” Alas, they can’t all be right, can they?

Compton focused on the global expansion of communications—pretty prescient when you consider that in 1931 only around 31% of households had a telephone. Compton wrote: “With better communication national boundaries will gradually cease to have their present importance.” Yes and no. Certainly technologically, and his article did suggest what would eventually become the European Union, but in general we remain decidedly territorial. Compton did say that China “with its virile manhood and great nature resources [would take] a more prominent part in world affairs.” Disturbingly phrased, but he did have a point.

Ogburn wrote, “Technological progress, with its exponential law of increase, holds the key to the future....Inevitable technological progress and abundant natural resources yield a higher standard of living. Poverty will be eliminated and hunger as a driving force of revolution will not be a danger. Inequality of income and problems of social justice will remain.” Again, yes and no.

Each of these articles is quite fascinating, and perhaps worth ponying up the $3.95 a pop for access to the NYT archive. But as Yogi Berra once said, “It’s tough to make predictions. Especially about the future.”

I should point out that the WhatTheyThink Print & Creative 2010 Yearbook and 2011 Forecast does not forecast the world—or the industry—in 2091 (80 years hence). Given the rate of change, I wonder if it’s even possible to look that far ahead, outside of the more speculative science-fiction yarns. Perhaps that would make an interesting WhatTheyWillThink special report, to be sealed in a time capsule and opened in 2091 and read by our descendents—who may very well be robots. So, to any robots reading this blogpost in 2091: I hope you spared at least some of humanity during the robot holocaust.

Anyway, I wish all those in the Print CEO Blogosphere a very happy holiday season and the best wishes for success in the new year! See you then.