I asked around for some 2009 predictions and meant to post them here a few weeks ago, but time got away from me. We still have 11 and 1/3 months left of the year, so I don't think it's too late to predict. Do you?

My colleague in external communications, Mike Nemecek thinks this downturn will be a long one. He makes three predictions:

1. We're going to be talking about tough times, smart choices at this time next year too.
2. In 2009, oil prices will rise again, then fall (yes, more volatility).
3. The Yankees will return to the playoffs.

Len Olszewski, a SAS data architect, thinks prices for everything go down in the short term. "As inventories eventually dwindle, the BOPD and huge foreign borrowing to finance the new administration's infrastructure projects (which also increases domestic incomes) catches up with us, and we get some inflation by mid-year," says Len. He also thinks the international tide of green IT and sustainability for business will continue to make infrastructure projects take on a decidedly green hue. Finally, Len predicts, "U.S. manufacturing starts to make a comeback, some outsourced jobs start to return, supply-chain intelligence gets very big and the Phillies repeat as world champs."

Ah-ha, is there a baseball rivalry in this post?

Marketing Manager Mary Grace Crissey predicts that 2009 will be the year that text mining makes the leap from "an emerging technology" to one that is not only accepted but actually implemented across many industries.

Our friends at Zencos also offered a few predictions and recommendations, including:

• Increasing efficiencies: Companies will be reallocating resources effectively to succeed (or at least stay in business).
• Focused industries: Follow the new administration’s priorities to see which industries will bounce back first – government infrastructure, healthcare improvements, financial industry analysis and regulation.
• SaaS for all: Software as a service will reduce IT expenditures and overhead and offer faster deployment. Large & small companies will move in this direction to host their business analytics software.
• Targeted risk taking: Companies should be analyzing customers and providing additional and extended credit terms to assist them while they are ‘down.’ Do that, and they will be loyal customers when they are back ‘up.’

What are your predictions? Do you agree with any of ours? Did you read any predictions in other blogs or magazines that you really liked?