In the value-for-value world of DTNS, Patreon and Tom Merrit – I might not be the best contributor.  Trying to think of ways to give back, I listened to the 2015 forecast show, DTNS 2397, that was published on December 31, 2014 and took the following notes to make it easier to produce this year’s 2015 Forecast Recap show.  Attached is my Google Sheets summary – hopefully it is useful and saves the team a bit of time in putting together the recap.

My efforts to track the claims, sub-claims, initiators and supporters of the 2014 DTNS forecast show for 2015.

I love this show.  There’s something about the combination of the holidays, the annual nature, the free-flowing dialog, and everyone of the participant’s interactions that make it really interesting. I love podcasts; the medium is very effective and valuable.

My method was simple:

1. I listened to the show.
2. I entered what I heard into a Google Sheet. [I did not track when during the show this claim was made, but I left a column open for it in Column E.]
3. I called a formally made forecast a ‘Claim’.  The primary claim is listed in Column F.  I counted 16 claims for the 2015 outlook.
4. Once a claim was made, there was usually some secondary discussion – much of which was around trying to quantify or firm up how the claim could be judged to be true.  Column G track sub-claims and Column I attempts to track detail.  I counted 58 total claims.
5. The person who made the forecast was listed with a ‘1’ in columns K-S.
6. I tried to indicate who else that was on the show that supported the forecast in columns.  I used a 5 point scale (aka “I totally agree!” = 5/5. )  This got tricky with disagreement; should that be a 0 or a (-5)?  I went with a 0.  So, Patrick Beja’s disagreement that Spiderman would *not* re-enter the MCU was a 0.
7. I attempted to grade the score from the 2014 forecast for 2015.  This was really an attempt to help out with the show – I am not an expert on these fields of technology so I had to go look things up.  (Yes, I do not use Snapchat.  Yes, I had to go confirm that it was still an independent company.)  The 2015 forecast outcome accuracy is listed in Column AD.
8. Lastly – Esteemed producer Jenny Josephson judged the 2015 forecasts.  This was measured in two ways; (1) the contents of a DTNS coffee mug, and (2) what % full of the contents were said mug (Columns X & Y).

As an example; Patrick Beja initiates a forecast about the Apple Watch – I call that claim 2.  As the dialog continues, several sub-claims are made, resulting in Tom’s comment that predicts that there will be an article on TechCrunch saying that the watch is now in a drawer.  I call that Claim 2.05 (I used 0.01 increments on sub-claims – ala Dewey Decimal methods).  Since that article actually exists – I give it a 100% in column AD (but that column is really meant for the show participants to update).