Year-end lists are hazardous to your health

They are a pretty diverse group that spends most of the year frantically differentiating themselves from one another: forecasters, branding and creative agencies, analysts, consultants, bloggers, columnists, and technology gurus. But come December 1st they all share a particular affliction, a kind of creeping trend eschatology. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill foretelling of end-times (sorry, Mayans), but a kind of self-renewing compulsion to offer predictions about what will be in the coming…